ABSTRACT
Laos was one of four new states created in Southeast Asia after France, the former colonial ruler of Indochina, withdrew from the region in the years after World War II. Guerrilla warfare between the Pathet Lao and government forces was brought to an end and a general ceasefire was observed by an International Control Commission (ICC) created by the Geneva conferees. Commenting upon President Eisenhower's statement that people would have to go to the support of Laos alone if people could not persuade others to proceed with them, President-elect Kennedy asked the question as to how long it would take to put an American division into Laos. In the summer of 1964, American destroyers equipped with CIA electronic surveillance equipment were engaged in secret intelligence gathering missions in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam. Like Laos, Vietnam was part of French Indochina before the Second World War and, was occupied by the Japanese.
