William Young (28 October 1934 – 1 April 2011) was a Central Intelligence Agency paramilitary officer born in Berkeley, California and raised in Burma and Thailand.

With command of several Asian languages, he was made a natural recruiter of local guerrillas for the CIA's covert operations in the secret war in the Kingdom of Laos.

His tour ranged westward from his start at Long Tieng, which he reported as well sited for operations in the Plain of Jars, back to familiar territory in the Golden Triangle.

While assigned to paramilitary duty in Nam Yu, Laos, in the Golden Triangle from 1962 to 1967, Young trained a militia army of several thousand hill tribesmen and spied on the People's Republic of China.

The eldest Young converted many hill tribesmen to Christianity, his proselytizing aided by the Lahu cultural belief in the coming of a white god.

[1] So was his family's significance to the Christianized hill tribes, which Young would play upon to support his anti-Communist activities for the Central Intelligence Agency.

[2] Both Young's elder brother Gordon and his father Harold aided the CIA with an intelligence gathering net of Lahu agents extending from northern Thailand into southern China.

[5] Bill Young's knowledge of the Golden Triangle region, command of indigenous languages, and recent military experience made him an ideal candidate for service in the CIA's paramilitary wing—then known as the Special Operations Division.

Additionally, his personality clashed with that of coworker Pat Landry as they worked together at the Royal Thai Air Force Base at Udorn.

With a pool of about 100,000 Yao to draw from, plus some scattered smaller ethnic minorities, Young managed to raise a part-time militia of several thousand guerrillas.

He also established a second site nearby for refugee relief operations; the setup was analogous to that at Long Tieng and Sam Thong.

However, by late 1962, this source of manpower would come to be shunned by the CIA as the Kuomintang holdovers began to edge into opium trading.

[12] As part of his operations, Young also seeded two childhood friends as spies into an opium smuggling caravan entering China.

Beginning in 1963, Young would also use locally recruited Kuomintang troops to raid villages occupied by the opposing Pathet Lao.

[4] Young moved south to work at Ban Houayxay on the Mekong River to report on enemy boat traffic.

[15] However, Young had also argued bitterly with his superiors about the increase in air strikes throughout Laos that would lead to its becoming the most heavily bombed nation in history.

[2] Additionally, an incident in early 1964, when he supplied an unauthorized shipment of M1 Garands to Mien guerrillas, aroused extreme antipathy from the local Thai liaison officer, Captain Siri Pandy.

Beginning in April 1969, he roamed from one wealthy donor to another, swapping trade concessions in Burma for funds to establish the United National Liberated Front (ULNF).

[19] Upon occasion, he would trade upon his CIA background, to work as an oil firm's security consultant in Sudan or for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.