Tom Vater

Joel Brinkley’s book Cambodia’s Curse – The Modern History of a Troubled Land is the first book to examine the venality of Cambodia’s current government. Ever since Vietnamese withdrawal (Vietnam liberated the country from the genocidal yoke of the Khmer Rouge in 1979) in 1989, Prime Minister Hun Sen and an assortment of allied and [...]

July 25th, 2011 | Tags: AID, book, Cambodia, Cambodian, Cambodian government, CPP, Hun Sen, IRI, Joel Brinkley, non-fiction, political analysis, review, Tom Vater, US Aid, USA, Vietnam | Category: Cambodia, USA, Vietnam, Writer's Book Reviews | Comments (2)

The Most Secret Place on Earth - The CIA’s Covert War in Laos, directed by Marc Eberle and written by Marc Eberle and Tom Vater has just been broadcast on the History Channel.
The film traces the origin and development of the largest clandestine CIA operation to date (at least as far as the agency actually [...]

June 20th, 2011 | Tags: Air America, Alfred McCoy, Amerikas geheimer Krieg in Laos, Apocalypse Now, Asia, CIA, clandestine, crimes against humanity, documentary, drugs, Fred Branfman, heroin, Heroin and the CIA, Hmong, Long Cheng, Marc Eberle, opium, proxy army, Secret War, South East Asia, The Most Secret Place on Earth, Tom Vater, Tony Poe, USA, Vang Pao, Vietnam, Vietnam War, war crime, writer | Category: Laos, USA, Vietnam | Leave a comment

William Young, the CIA agent who is credited with allegedly discovering Long Cheng in northern Laos, a remote valley which became a top secret CIA air base in 1965  - and soon after the busiest airport in the world - shot himself in Chiang Mai, Thailand a few days ago.
During the making of the feature [...]

April 5th, 2011 | Tags: Afghanistan, American War, assassin, Bill Young, Burma, Chiang Mai, Christianity and the CIA, CIA, Cold War, drugs and the CIA, Heroin and the CIA, hitman, killer, Lahu, Long Cheng, Missionaries and the CIA, missionary, Secret War, sex drugs and the CIA, suicide, Thailand, The Most Secret Place on Earth, Tom Vater, Tony Poe, US drug trade, Vietnam, Wa, William Young | Category: Laos, Thailand, USA, Vietnam | Comments (4)