The Requirements Office (RO) was a ''

sub rosa ''Sub rosa'' (New Latin for "under the rose") denotes secrecy or confidentiality. The rose has an ancient history as a symbol of secrecy. History In Hellenistic and later Roman mythology, roses were associated with secrecy because Cupid ga ...

Military Assistance Advisory Group Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) is a designation for United States military advisors sent to other countries to assist in the training of conventional armed forces and facilitate military aid. Although numerous MAAGs operated around ...

set up during the Laotian Civil War. It was established in September 1962 in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

embassy in Laos, as a replacement for a similar preceding unit, the

Programs Evaluation Office The Programs Evaluation Office was a covert paramilitary mission to the Kingdom of Laos, established on 13 December 1955 by the United States Department of Defense. The 23 July 1962 International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos would cause it ...

(PEO). The RO's role was furnishing the

Royal Lao Army The Royal Lao Army (french: Armée royale du Laos – ARL), also designated by its anglicized title RLA, was the Land Component of the Royal Lao Armed Forces (FAR), the official military of the Kingdom of Laos during the North Vietnamese invasi ...

with munitions and supplies to support their war effort against the People's Army of Vietnam. The RO would eventually be absorbed into the Defense Attachés Office on 8 August 1973.

Background

In July 1962, the

International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos The International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos is an international agreement signed in Geneva on July 23, 1962 between 14 states, including Laos, as a result of the International Conference on the Settlement of the Laotian Question, which l ...

was signed by 14 countries, including the United States and

North Vietnam North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; vi, Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa), was a socialist state supported by the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Southeast Asia that existed f ...

. To honor it, the US moved its

monitoring military aid to the

Kingdom of Laos The Kingdom of Laos was a landlocked country in Southeast Asia at the heart of the Indochinese Peninsula. It was bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, North Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and ...

to Thailand. When it became apparent that People's Army of Vietnam troops remained in Laos in violation of the treaty, the US established the Requirements Office in September 1962 to replace the disbanded PEO in its secretive support of the Royalists in the Laotian Civil War. The Requirements Office was responsible of determining the military needs of the

and supplying them accordingly. The PEO, having been moved to Thailand, was renamed Deputy Chief, Joint United States Military Advisory Group Thailand (DEPCHIEFJUSMAGTHAI) and served to expedite shipments to the new Requirements Office.

Operations

The Requirements Office of the

United States Agency for International Development The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an Independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible f ...

was staffed by 25 U.S. military retirees, supplemented by

Third World The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the Nor ...

technicians. Its brief was to supply skilled personnel for the technical tasks beyond the capabilities of the Lao military; its brief was the management of budget and materiel for an army of 15,000 to 20,000 regular troops. Additionally, there was a tentative requirement to supply '' Forces Armee Neutraliste'' (Neutralist Armed Forces). The RO worked directly under the U.S. Ambassador to Laos. It also kept DEPCHIEFJUSMAGTHAI informed of operations within Laos. This situation was not without controversy; the Pathet Lao accused the RO of harboring

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

spies. The Requirements Office was the only instance known of military intercession into USAID's global operations. Nevertheless, USAID Laos not only disguised military cadre and munitions, but supported ongoing war operations with its refugee relief program. The Requirements Office thus performed its supply and logistics function to the

under civilian cover; it left supply of irregular forces to the

. For a short period in 1963, the RO again supplied the ''Forces Armee Neutraliste'' when it allied with the Royalists. The RO's performance was lauded by the man who ran the war in Laos, Ambassador William H. Sullivan. In December 1968, the RO took a survey of the administration and supply of the

Royal Lao Air Force The Royal Lao Air Force (french: Aviation Royale Laotiènne – AVRL), best known to the Americans by its English acronym RLAF, was the air force component of the Royal Lao Armed Forces (FAR), the official military of the Royal Lao Government an ...

. They discovered no accounting for materiel; the Lao logistics system was plagued by theft, erratic distribution of goods, and overstocking on some items. To counter these problems, the RO instituted a troop welfare program for the RLAF financed by sale of such leavings as cartridge cases, scrap lumber, and used cluster bomb units. On 21 February 1973, the Laotian Civil War ended with a ceasefire. U.S. funding dwindled from $300 million per year to $100 million, now that the

Royal Lao Armed Forces The Royal Lao Armed Forces (french: Forces Armées du Royaume), best known by its French acronym FAR, were the official armed defense forces of the Kingdom of Laos, a state that existed from 1949 to 1975 in what is now the Lao People's Democrati ...

were no longer a wartime military. As part of reducing the embassy staff by half, the

Defense Attache Defense or defence may refer to: Tactical, martial, and political acts or groups * Defense (military), forces primarily intended for warfare * Civil defense, the organizing of civilians to deal with emergencies or enemy attacks * Defense industr ...

's Office was founded on 8 August 1973, staffed by 30 military personnel and 15 civilian employees. The Requirements Office was moved to DEPCHIEFJUSMAGTHAI as a forward supply unit.Anthony, Sexton, pp. 363-364.

Notes

References

* Castle, Timothy (1995). ''At War in the Shadow of Vietnam: United States Military Aid to the Royal Lao Government, 1955–75''. Columbia University Press. . * Conboy, Kenneth and James Morrison (1995). ''Shadow War: The CIA's Secret War in Laos''. Paladin Press, {{ISBN, 978-1-58160-535-8. 20th century in Laos Foreign relations of Laos History of Laos Hmong-American culture and history Politics of Laos Political organizations based in Laos Laos–United States relations Laotian Civil War