Former Green Beret ‘back in Laos?’

Press, 24 February 1983, Page 20

Former Green Beret ‘back in Laos?’

From

BRIAN EADS,

in Bangkok

Thai security officials say they have lost track of a former United States Green Beret Lieutenant-Colonel, James “Bo” Gritz, the larger-than-life adventurer engaged in a search for imprisoned survivors of America’s war in IndoChina. A few days ago Mr Gritz was believed' to be in Nakhon Phanom province, 400 miles north-east of Bangkok on Thailand's Mekong River border with Laos. The suspicion now is that he has crossed the border. “We’re not sure where he is, what he’s up to. or who he’s with,” said an official of the National Security Council, "but remember that he's a veteran soldier and he knows how to sneak.” Certainly Mr Gritz is a veteran. Before taking early retirement in 1979, he served 22 years in the military, 18 of them with Special Forces, a Crack commando unit, and during four years in Vietnam he claims to have'undertaken 100 missions “behind enemy lines." In November and December last year, along with three other" American and 15 antiCommunist Laotian resistance fighters, he staged “Operation Lazarus.” The goal wais to rescue 100 Americans said to be held in a.cave near the border of Laosvand Vietnam, about 100 miles east of the Mekong River. ' Three days into Laos the mission was aborted after a 30minute shootout with another armed band — whether a rival resistance group or Communist

Pathet Lao troops is not clear. Equally unclear is the extent to which Mr Gritz has needed to “sneak”. Senior Thai Government officials in Bangkok deny any complicity with Laotian resistance forces. In the capital this might well be true. In the border provinces the anti-Communist guerrillas are viewed as a useful irritant to the Pathet Lao Government. They enjoy intimate contacts with local police, officials, and smuggler-businessmen. In an interview in Los Angeles last month before his return to Thailand, Mr Gritz said: “The F. 8.1. helped me, the C.I.A. has helped us, the embassy (in Bangkok) has helped us, the President stands ready to support us if and when we produce an American.” He said the Defence Intelligence Agency had given him classified intelligence on Laos. Mr Gritz says he was asked to take an early retirement for the specific purpose of searching for Americans who might still be held as prisoners-of-war in Indo-China. Washington denies all this, saying that the United States Government did not sponsor or condone Mr Gritz’s rfiissions and considered them positively “detrimental." While there is no hard evidence to tie the American Government to. Mr Gritz’s escapades. the leading lights of the Laotian resistance are no strangers to the. United States intelligence community and its covert activities. Both “Gen-

eral” Vang Pao, now running the Hmong hill tribe resistance from a farm in Montana, and "General” Phoumi Nosavan, one-time Defence Minister of the now-defunct Royal Lao Government, who lives in a Bangkok suburb, were darlings of the C.I.A. In recent years both have provided “intelligence” on Laos to their former patrons. It includes reported “sightings” of live Americans, of which the United States Embassy in Bangkok says: “There have been many reports but none has been confirmed. We chase them all and some are still pending, but there is no concrete evidence." At present 2496 Americans are listed as missing in IndoChina. The majority are “lost”in Vietnam, or over water, though 550 are listed missing in Laos and another 80 in Cambodia. The last live American to be repatriated was Private Robert Garwood in 1979. He had been living in Vietnam as a Vietnamese. Accounting for the casualties of overseas war is a long business. France spent 22 years before it closed its file oh the first Indo-China war. Some, like Mr Gritz and his financial backers, want quicker results. If intelligence reports are correct, a battalion of Vietnamese troops has moved to block his next mission.—Copyright. London Observer Service.