While posted in Vietnam in the spring of 1951, I became aware of frequent clandestine air movements through the Saigon airport to destinations outside Vietnam. Unmarked American-built transports were landing there, refueling under heavy guard, and then taking off for an undisclosed destination. In June, I learned that the planes were coming from Taiwan and were under charter from CAT, Claire Chennault’s commercial airline, now based on the island. The pilots included a number who had flown in his World War II “Flying Tigers” squadron and others from the U.S. Fourteenth Air Force, which had been based in Kunming. The coordinating agency for the flights through Saigon was a “Sea Supply Company” with an office in Bangkok. The company, whose cable address was “Hatchet,” represented itself as a commercial trading firm.
In July, leaving our infant daughter, Susan, in the care of a Chinese amah, Audrey and I flew to Bangkok tracking the story. I learned in the Thai capital that Sea Supply was a cover for covert operations by the Central Intelligence Agency. The unmarked CAT planes flying from Saigon were landing on a strip in eastern Thailand and then continuing on to Burma. We then flew on to Rangoon. From confidential sources in the diplomatic community in Rangoon, I began to piece together what was an incredible story. Three Chinese Nationalist Army columns, comprising some fifteen thousand men, had thrust about sixty-five miles into China’s Yunnan Province from a refuge in northeastern Burma. They had retreated earlier across the China border into the Burma refuge pursued by Communist troops. The Nationalist columns had seized a base area, about 100 miles long, embracing the Kengma Airfield, some 200 miles southwest of Kunming. Chinese Communist troops were counterattacking, attempting to cut the Nationalist supply corridor to Burma.
The Nationalist units were commanded by General Li Mi, who had escaped from the Communist encirclement in the final engagement of the Battle of the Huai-Hai, which I had covered in January 1949. The CIA had flown Li from Taiwan into northeastern Burma, where he had reorganized the Nationalist Eighth Army’s Ninety-third Division and other units which had fled across the border before the Communists’ advance. Chiang Kai-shek had named Li as the ruling governor of Yunnan, an empty gesture because the province was largely in Communist hands. Transports, under charter to the CIA, flying via Indochina and Thailand, were bringing in arms, radio, and other equipment, as well as food and funds for Li. CIA liaison agents were operating on the ground with the Nationalists. The operation apparently had begun the previous May at the onset of the Korean War and was a diversionary action designed to harass the Chinese Communists more than anything else. However, it had unforeseen political ramifications. Mao Zedong was pointing to the Yunnan operation as further evidence that the United States was seeking to provide a base area for a future effort by Chiang Kaishek to stage an effort to retake the mainland.
In Rangoon, I found the government of Premier U Nu in a state of alarm. It had appealed to the U.S. ambassador, David M. Key, for help in getting Li Mi’s forces out of Burma. The Burmese Army had proved ineffectual. U Nu feared that Li’s operations would provoke a Chinese Communist invasion of Burma or an internal Communist coup. Peking had declined to give U Nu assurance that this would not happen. The Burmese suspected American staging of the Li Mi affair and were convinced, quite rightly, that the operation would have required at least tacit White House sanction before it could be mounted. Ambassador Key repeatedly denied knowledge of American involvement, although he undoubtedly was aware of it to some degree. The Burmese government had imposed a ban on the travel of American officials north of Mandalay to the northeastern frontier areas. In Washington, State Department officials, except on the highest levels, were apparently not aware of the CIA operation, and officers in the field were authorized to issue flat denials in response to inquiries. Members of the staff of the American Embassy spoke frankly to me in confidence about what they knew about the operation. They were incensed and looked upon the whole operation as an act of folly from the standpoint of American interests. Relations with the neutralist Burmese government were in a shambles. The Li Mi forays could only have nuisance value, since sooner or later the Communists would mass overwhelming force to scatter the Nationalist columns. Li’s troops would then be compelled to fall back into Burma, remaining a constant irritant to the Rangoon government and a provocation to the Chinese Communists. The U Nu government, afraid of arousing the Chinese, had suppressed news of the Li Mi operations. Not a line was appearing in the censored Rangoon press.
We flew to Singapore, where I filed my report to the AP. It evoked protests around the world on behalf of the Burmese but had little practical effects. Ambassador Key returned to Washington and, indignant over the CIA involvement, resigned. When the Eisenhower administration came into office, the new ambassador, William J. Sebald, was confronted by the same dilemma. He was assured by the State Department that the CIA was not continuing to support Li, and he was ordered to reply in this vein to mounting Burmese protests. The ambassador conducted his own investigation, which soon revealed to him that the CIA was still involved.
Burma brought the matter before the United Nations in March 1953 and again in September. In November of that year, an evacuation by air to Taiwan of some of the Nationalist units via Thailand got under way. However, despite the announcement in Taipei by Li Mi on May 30, 1954, that the Yunnan Anti-Communist and National Salvation Army had been dissolved, the evacuation dragged on for years, with repeated clashes between Burmese and remnant Nationalist troops. The sorry affair was protracted until the Kennedy administration put an end to it by exerting strong pressure on Chiang Kai-shek to complete the withdrawal. By that time the affair had so embittered the Burmese that relations between Rangoon and Washington remained poisoned for years.
The CIA operation reinforced Mao Zedong’s stated belief that China would not be secure from U.S. intrusion until American bases in countries bordering China were removed. It hardened his resolve to aid Ho Chi Minh in the struggle to oust the United States and its French allies from Vietnam.