Shooting At The Moon: The Story of America's Clandestine War in Laos

by Roger Warner

THE CIA IN ITS GLORY DAYS and the mad confidence that led to disaster in Vietnam are the subjects of Roger Warner's prizewinning history, Shooting at the The CIA's War in Laos (first published as Back Fire, Simon & Schuster, 1995). For a few years in the early 1960s the CIA seemed to be running a perfect covert war in Laos - quiet, inexpensive, just enough arms to help Meo tribesmen defend their home territory from the Communist Pathet Lao. Then the big American war next door in Vietnam spilled across the border. How the perfect covert war ballooned into sorrow and disaster is the story Roger Warner tell in Shooting at the Moon, awarded the Cornelius Ryan Award for 1995's Best Book on Foreign Affairs by the Overseas Press Club.

Warner describes his characters with a novelist's touch - soldiers and diplomats busy with war-making; CIA field officers from bareknuckle warriors to the quiet men pulling strings in the shadows; and above all the Meo as they realized they had been led down the garden path.

This is a book about war, about secrecy, and its illusions, about the cruel sacrifice of small countries for the convenience of large ones. Nothing better has been written about the CIA in the years when it thought a handful of Americans in sunglasses could do anything with planeloads of arms and money to burn.

Genres: History, Asia, War, Nonfiction, Military History, American History, Travel

456 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1995

Reviews

[Sleepy Boy · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Never this century has there been so much bombing for so long in such secrecy by such a great power against so weak a people," Branfman continued. "Nine years of bombing, two million tons of bombs, whole rural societies wiped off the map, hundreds of thousands of peasants treated like herds of animals in a Clockwork Orange fantasy of an aerial African hunting safari."

There is literally, in every truest sense of the word, nothing more I can add.

[Jennie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book because I was writing an article about the Lao Mien gardeners in my neighborhood and community garden. I wanted to get some background about their lives and what they went through during the "secret" war in Laos. However, this book focuses almost entirely on the American perspective, choosing to tell the stories of individual Americans working for the CIA or other government agencies. There is some focus on Vang Pao, the general who led the Hmong forces, but all in all a very military focus--not so much a focus on what happened to the people who lived in Laos, were bombed so extensively, and had to flee their homeland because they had been recruited to fight a war that was supposed to benefit us.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that is both revelation and yet the smallest window onto covert wars the US has funded and fought. The main subject of this book is CIA-funded military buildup in Laos. The author has researched a topic little discussed given its funding and personnel.

Unintentional,outcomes make even the strongest anti-war writers and Asia hands forgive some of what happened, not being able to place blame firmly anywhere. But the book is a testament to some bad ideas being over-funded, to sorely underestimating the abilities and motivations of the North Vietnamese In the 1960s and 70s. And then it is a treatise in what happens to a country and its people when we stop thinking about them as people at all and merely a pawn in the Southeast Asian power struggles.

Interesting reading though parts needed further editing and I wondered when the author did not directly quote a character but then used their (offensive) language if he should just leave it as a direct quote. The characters do, though, reveal,themselves quite fully in interviews with the author.

[Sir Roar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shooting at the Moon: A Review
By Roger Warner
Shooting at the Moon is not what you would expect out of a novel about the Cold War in Laos. The author, Roger Warner, is a war historian who specializes in South Asia, and Shooting at the Moon (also known as Back Fire: The CIA’s Secret War in Laos and Its Link to the War in Vietnam) is his most popular book. In the book, Warner chooses to teach history through the lens of a man named Bill Lair’s life. Bill Lair(who worked with Warner to write the book) was a CIA operative and a WWII veteran who was originally from Texas. Lair was assigned to Laos by the CIA because of his military experience, as they needed paramilitary instructors.

One of the most interesting things that happened in the book was the American backed military coup. I found that to be particularly attention grabbing because I’ve heard a lot about American military operations that bring down governments, but I’ve never actually read about a well-documented one. The weirdest thing to me was that the king of Laos at the time was a neutral party. America found out he was in talks with the communist nations and overthrew him, which kicked off the Laotian civil war. This move destabilized the whole region, and become one of the many factors to consider in the Vietnam War. This destabilization of Southeast Asia started a chain of events that actually worsened the situation for America, as more countries became communist.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It was like reaching a nice flat mesa after hiking up a mountain of other history books. Warner makes a point to touch on as many historical events that were relevant to Laos and the civil war, but he does it in such a gripping way that it all ties back into itself. For a non-fiction book, Shooting at the Moon reads surprisingly like a novel. Warner’s use of personal stories in the book makes you connect to all the characters on a thrilling level when you first start reading. As soon as you jump into it, Warner fills you with information on a poor farmer from Indiana, who you learn to love very quickly. That Indiana farmer, Edgar Buell, grew to become one of the most influential civilian actors in Laos. Through the whole book, he does an awe-inspiring job at introducing you to each character, whether it be through insights into their personalities or their conversations with others. Roger Warner forcibly throws you into the water with this book, but the water feels great.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly well researched and written.

This was my first exposure to the undeclared and criminal war the United States ran in Laos during the 1960's-mid 1970's.

Hard to find a copy but infinitely readable.

I read it just before a trip to Laos and had to head to Long Chiang (the secret CIA airbase) while there.

Heart-wrenching and harrowing. But a very necessary piece of history.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comprehensive account of the rise and fall of the CIA involvement in the war in Laos in the 1960s and 70s. Great attention to what happens to the various players after the war ends and trying to answer whether they each ultimately felt the war in Laos was indeed worth it or not.

[John Somers · Rating 4 out of 5]

15/20.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this several years ago, and, paging through it again just now, want to reread it. Absolutely fantastic.

[Joke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aanrader! Het is bizar hoe weinig nog steeds bekend is over de secret war in Laos. Dit boek helpt ook om het land Laos in context te zien.

[RYD · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, about the men who made the Laos war on the American side, is impressive both for its writing and for its research. I did take issue with its paradise lost-like tone, however, in which the American presence was well-meaning and worthwhile until it morphed into something else through the escalation of the war in Vietnam. I think it is probably more accurate to argue that our role in southeast Asia was, at best, mistaken from the get-go.

Here's what is close to a thesis statement:

"The war was a dirty business. Though Operation Momentum began with a different motive, to help defend Laos, America ended up sacrificing the tribals and the lowland Laotians for U.S. goals in Vietnam. These allies, or proxies, were abandoned once the war was over, and the results were a permanent stain on America's reputation. ...

"The multitour veterans from the CIA and USAID, the Bill Lairs and the Edgar Buells, were not cynics. They did not deliberately attach themselves to a losing cause. They gave willingly of themselves, hoping to help the Laotians at the same time that they helped their own country. The paradox was that even though they helped run the Laos war for their government, the outcome was the opposite of what they intended. Somehow, and they didn't know how, events had slipped out of their grasp. In some mysterious way, as the war became institutionalized, the system they worked for betrayed them and turned the war inside out.

"What hurt them the most was that the United States had used the tribals for nothing. The Hmong hadn't been able to save Laos, and nothing tried in Laos was able to salvage the American effort in South Vietnam. The whole thing was futile, a delusion. And all along, it was the Americans who had been shooting at the moon."

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shooting at the Moon is an amazing book about the long, secret, topsy-turny war in Laos. While Vietnam was a meatgrinder, feeding a whole generation into the blind rationality of 'search and destroy', Laos was the spook's war, a struggle by a handful of CIA idealists in a forgotten nation. At first it was just Bill Lair, using his Thai PARU special forces to train up a Montagnard army under Meo General Vang Pao, successfully out-guerrillaing the North Vietnamese Army. But as the Ho Chi Minh trail stretched down through Laos, the war grew into a supermarket war, with 440,000 tonnes of bombs per year raining down on Laos more or less at random. Vang Pao's people were ground down to nothing by the weight of the Pathet Lao and their Vietnamese backers, and in the end, the war came to nothing-under the terms of the Geneva accords America had never been in Laos, so it could never leave. Warner is deeply knowledgeable about his topic, combining political and military history with artistic impressions of an exotic time and place, and the recollections of major figures. Simply great!

[Martin Doudoroff · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I started this book, I didn't expect to finish it. While it’s hardly a gripping book, it turned out to be sufficiently interesting that I saw it through. Roughly the first half of the book concerns the colorful Americans (CIA) working covertly in Laos with colorful Laotian characters—especially the Hmong leader Vang Pao—to produce a civil war in service to our larger anti-communist efforts. The second half of the book chronicles how the US military got involved, Washington politics got involved, the Vietnam war got involved, and everything went to hell. This is not a book that dwells on the visceral aspects of the tragedy. It acknowledges them, but it’s principally interested in the arcs of the various characters who created the mess on the American side. With only a few exceptions, the North Vietnamese and the Laotians that sided with them remain anonymous. I recommend the book to anyone specifically interested in the topic, with the caveat that it is not a definitive history and it is only a partial, one-sided history.

[Phayvanh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was part of my initial search for the stories of my past. There weren't many books at my local library that dealt with Laos and its involvement with the Veitnam conflict. I'd seen a synopsis of this in a catalogue and requested it. And because I had to return it (and most likely it was late) I never got around to finishing it. I probably had a chapter more to go. But it was mostly read.

And this book at the time gave me such a rich imagining for the land I barely remember. Warner describes the land and the people he'd met with such clarity. For the first time in my life, I felt like I could begin to understand something of what my parents were dealing with, in a political and social sense.

And I wanted to read more about this subject adn come to terms with it and understand where I come from because this book made it clear how important the story is.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! Reading Warner, one can readily grasp why people often turn to accounts written by journalists rather than historians. Not only is this a fantastic story, told well, of American intervention in Laos, but Warner has amassed his facts around a handful of personalities intimately connected to the war in Laos. In so doing, he gives the war a personal face. He also interjects a good deal of philosophical/moral thinking into his narrative -- judgement, thankfully, he leaves to the reader.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recommended this on www.talesmag.com as the best book for a Laos newbie to read to get to know about the country. It is a history of the so-called "Secret War" and also a fun read. But the story of the war is not pretty and the US does not come off looking good.

[Wendy]

we (USA) don't seem to learn from the history of unsuccessfully trying to change other countries' governments. Good overall, but the style of individual stories got a little tired by the end.

[Martha Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very important book -- opens your eyes about what was going on. I haven't seen much of this material anywhere else.