Resumo de Air America - Christopher Robbins

Air America, by Christopher Robbins, details the activities of a private airline, secretly owned by the CIA, in S.E.Asia during the Vietnam era. The story of Air America begins before its birth in pre-communist China. In 1937, Madam Chaing Kai-shek invited Claire Lee Chennault, a retired military pilot, to organize and train a Chinese air force. Yet, she provisioned him no more than a few rickety planes and green recruits who had never been in the air. It was a small beginning; all the force could really hope to do was to keep an eye on the Japanese, but in 1941, America decided it prudent to assist China to assemble a more substantial and effectual air force. This opened up new avenues for Chennaut to purchase used planes from Britain and to recruit pilots from the U.S. The motley group of pilots he rallied up became an elite force known the Flying Tigers.
The Flying Tigers hauled arms, supplies and personnel to and from the front lines. More impressively, they fought the Japanese in open-air battles. They were a surprisingly effective, aerial guerrilla force. Chennault became a national hero and after the war, and was given permission to begin a commercial airline in China, called CAT. In 1947, the CIA was created and it wasn?t long before CAT was carrying spies along with its consistently diverse assortment of weird cargo. CAT fought hard in its own capacity to postpone the communist revolution in China and losing the war was costly for the airline. It was floundering when the CIA, in 1949, helped with cash advances. Those loans, however, were insufficient to sustain CAT, and within a year, the CIA appealed to the State Dept. to buy the airline out right. Air transport in S.E. Asia, it was argued, would be essential if America hoped to have an impact in the region, and a private airline would allow the U.S. government to disclaim ownership .The State Dept. approved the deal with the understanding that the airline would be sold as soon as it was no longer needed. That time never came and the airline continued to grow for the next 25 years. In 1950, the Korean War began and business was good. By 1954, CAT had become the largest and most profitable airline in the world. The war in Korea led to the war in Indochina where the French were desperately trying to secure the borders between Vietnam and Laos. In November of 1953, CAT helped the French air force in lifting sixteen thousand military men to battle. The future of the airline was now assured and CAT mutated into Air America.
One of the most difficult problems for the CIA, in airline ownership, was profits; all profits earned by a government agency were to be returned to the treasury, doing that, however would have advertised the vast scale of operations in S.E. Asia. Opting not to expose its budget to the scrutiny of congress, the CIA decided to funnel all profits back into the company, generating an incredible rate of growth. The airline?s profit margin was, of course, not the only noteworthy financial issue. In efforts to sustain an alliance with rebel, natives the CIA believed it essential to support their production of cash crops. Poppy was the primary cash crop in that region and there were credible rumors of an illicit association with the heroin industry.
The secret wars of the CIA began in Burma where it tried to invade China on three separate occasions. The CIA, also, helped Tibet by bringing men to the U.S. for combat training. And, they were in Tibet to help the Dali Lama escape when it fell to the Chinese. A.A. would not, however, have grown to the vast proportions it did, if it were not for the covert war in Laos. One of the most bizarre aspects of the war in Laos was that two princes, half- brothers, led both the communist faction and the legal government. A third brother was king, and he was, theoretically at least, expected to be politically neutral.
Laos is landscaped with difficult mountainous terrain, lacking in infrastructure. Two of the most vitalaircrafts in the company operations were the helicopter and the STOL, (short take off / landing). These agile, little planes were often expected to land on tiny strips, carelessly carved out of the Laotian hillsides by apathetic natives. Considered the most dangerous posting an A.A. pilot could get, Laos was worse than Vietnam. There the airfields were guarded at the perimeters, giving a pilot an opportunity to gain altitude and evade anti-aircraft fire. The helicopter pilots stationed in Northern Thailand were everyone?s heroes. It was said that they could not buy a drink in a bar if there was a fixed wing pilot present. This was because so many of them owed their lives to the helicopter pilots. When a plane went down in the jungle, miles from civilization and surrounded by potential enemies, it was the helicopter pilot who performed the dangerous search and rescue operations. The helicopter pilots were often younger and wilder than the other pilots, but all of them were colorful mavericks. The story of the pilots is what makes this book most interesting. In country after country, they were the boldest and the bravest, doing what the military would not dare to. Their motto was, ?Anything, Anywhere, Anytime, Professionally.?

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