Royal Lao Army general who led the CIA-backed Hmong army
Sources differ on the endpoint in May 1975: one has 5 May, when he was ordered before Souvanna Phouma to cooperate with the Pathet Lao; another has 14 May, when he left Long Tieng by helicopter as the shelling began.
A Hmong soldier from Nonghet in Xiangkhouang Province, Laos, and the only ethnic Hmong to reach general officer rank in the Royal Lao Army. During the 1960s and 1970s he commanded the CIA-trained and -supported irregular 'Secret Army' based at Long Tieng, fighting the Pathet Lao and the People's Army of Vietnam. Evacuated to Thailand in May 1975 amid the communist takeover, he then emigrated to the United States, settling in California by way of Montana, and became a leader of the Hmong American community, helping halt the forced repatriation of Laotian and Hmong refugees from Thailand in the late 1980s and 1990s. In 1981 he was among the founders of the United Lao National Liberation Front (Neo Hom). Charged in the United States in 2007 with plotting to overthrow the Lao government, he saw all federal charges dropped in 2009.
Also known as: Vaj Pov
Activities and affiliations
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1960–1975
Laos state institutionsCommander of the Secret ArmyMain
Military command
Career Timeline
- 1960s–1975Major general, Royal Lao Army; commanded the CIA-backed 'Secret Army' based at Long Tieng
- 1975Evacuated to Thailand, then emigrated to the United States
- 1981Among the founders of the United Lao National Liberation Front (Neo Hom)
- 2007–2009Charged in the US under the Neutrality Act; all federal charges dropped
Related historical events
The 1975 evacuation from Long Tieng and Hmong refugees
In May 1975, as North Vietnamese forces and the Pathet Lao captured Royal Lao positions, Vang Pao and about 2,500 Hmong military personnel and family members were airlifted from Long Tieng air base to Thailand. The Minnesota Historical Society’s timeline records that as many as 30,000 other Hmong gathered at Long Tieng hoping to escape. According to the timeline, those left behind had to make their way on foot. The episode brought together the commander’s evacuation and the plight of a much larger population hoping to follow. By the end of the war, an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 Hmong soldiers had been killed in combat and 2,500 to 3,000 were missing. The Society’s timeline says that after the monarchy was overthrown, the Pathet Lao mounted a campaign to capture or kill Hmong soldiers and families who had sided with the CIA, and that thousands were evacuated or escaped to Thailand. The refugee movement brought Hmong people into camps in Thailand; the first Hmong family to resettle in Minnesota arrived in November 1975. The largest wave followed passage of the U.S. Refugee Act of 1980. Vang Pao’s 1975 evacuation thus marks not only the military defeat but also the breakdown of an alliance and the ensuing refugee displacement.