Hmong General Vang Pao planned a quick counter-offensive to recapture the airfield from his communist foe; it would kick off on 1 July, supported by 60 sorties per day of tactical air strikes from Operation Barrel Roll.

With the Neutralists' abstention, the remaining forces in Off Balance—two battalions of Hmong guerrillas and a Royalist paratrooper battalion— were defeated by counterattacking communist tanks supported by heavy artillery.

When France withdrew most of its military in conformity with the treaty, the United States filled the vacuum with purportedly civilian paramilitary instructors.

[2] As the Laotian Civil War flared, the Central Intelligence Agency established a secret guerrilla army in the Plain of Jars.

[3] After the failure and defeat of Operation Pigfat, the communists had overrun the Plain of Jars to within ten kilometers of the guerrillas' main base at Long Chieng.

[5] Facing an enemy drive that had penetrated within ten kilometers of his main base by the disastrous end of Operation Pigfat, as well as menacing his major air strip at Muang Soui, Hmong General Vang Pao and his CIA backers had fought back.

[6][7][8][9] As Vang Pao planned a rainy season offensive during late June 1969, the People's Army of Vietnam anticipated him.

In its first rainy season offensive of the Laotian Civil War, as well as its first use of tanks in northern Laos, the communists captured Muang Soui on 27 June in Campaign Thoan Thang.

[10] On 28 June 1969, Vang Pao began planning another preemptive attack on the communists in hopes of catching them by surprise; it would be launched three days later on 1 July.

[11] The Hmong general proposed rallying the 700 Forces Armées Neutralistes soldiers at Xieng Dat who had fled there from Muang Soui.

With half of the 120 daily Operation Barrel Roll air strike sorties pledged for support, the pincer movement on the ground was supposed to recapture the vital all-weather fighter strip at Muang Soui in ten days.

He met with a sullen commanding officer, Colonel Sing, who reported the desertion of 50 soldiers the previous night, and claimed to be short of weaponry.

On the other hand, when the case officer moved on to the Hmong, the CIA man found Vang Pao personally firing a 4.2 inch mortar at the enemy.

The Hmong Bataillon Guerrier 206 (Warrior Battalion 206) was helilifted to a landing zone at the old Operation Momentum base at San Luang.

Meanwhile, pilots and road watch reconnaissance teams reported a steady flow of reinforcement from North Vietnam; they had counted eight more tanks incoming, as well as 1,000 trucks.

His death so stunned the Royalists that the Royal Lao Armed Forces generals actually flew to the front in Military Region 2 to pay their respects at the three-day funeral.

Air Attache Colonel Robert Tyrrell laid an American Distinguished Flying Cross on Lee Lue's coffin before his interment.

When more senior officials returned to work on Monday, they disapproved the request as being an unnecessary escalation of the war, especially since there was a Chinese cultural mission in Khang Kai.

The American ambassador in Vientiane, G. McMurtrie Godley, was also cautioned about allowing the RLAF to bomb Khang Khai, for fear of provoking the Chinese communists.