Run by United States Special Forces and funded by the Central Intelligence Agency, it trained 12 companies of irregulars in southern Laos between December 1961 and September 1962.
These guerrilla forces were near the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and intended to secure the Royal Lao Government's hold on the Bolovens Plateau.
Although copied from the CIA's Operation Momentum, the Green Berets' training program ran with limited success, due to cultural influences in the recruits' backgrounds.
[1] In January 1961, Central Intelligence Agency case officer James William Lair founded the Operation Momentum training program in northern Laos for Hmong guerrillas.
In a reversal of Project Momentum, the CIA funded the new effort while the U.S. Army supplied the training cadre from Operation White Star.
They were organized into Self-Defense militia companies (French: Auto Defense de Choc – ADC), and equipped from the same prepacked supplies as used in Project Momentum.
Over a two-month period, 12 munitions caches containing hand grenades, ammunition, cleaning equipment for small arms, and rice were established.
By the 14th, the last of the Green Berets had departed, and the Phou Kate camp was abandoned to the jungle, as the United States withdrew its training personnel from Laos.