Bill Lair used the directive as a pretext for reopening the weapons pipeline to his Hmong. With support from the Thai military, he secured a two-story building at Udorn Air Base to warehouse supplies and weapons. The building would become the principal supply headquarters for all U.S. paramilitary operations in Laos for the rest of the war.

With weapons again arriving at Long Cheng, Lair persuaded Vang Pao to conduct a series of diversionary actions on the Plain of Jars to draw the communists away from the Neutralists. Vang Pao went a step further and ordered Hmong to fight alongside the Neutralists garrisoned at Lat Houang and Ban Ban Valley.

The Hmong at Lat Houang came directly from Long Cheng and were battle-tested. The Hmong at Ban Ban were only members of a local ADC. Vang Pao airdropped arms and supplies to the irregulars and sent them a leader, one of his best officers, Major Chong Shoua Yang. Over the next year Chong Shoua hardened the ADC into a formidable guerrilla unit that kept the Pathet Lao out of Ban Ban Valley.

Despite the help, Kong-Lê remained suspicious of Vang Pao and the Americans. To win him over, Washington recalled CIA agent Jack Mathews from Africa. Prior to his Africa assignment, Mathews had worked closely with Kong-Lê, supporting his 2nd battalion in the field. The two men had parted on good terms. Mathews spent three weeks with Kong-Lê on the plain, time enough to secure an agreement from Kong-Lê to establish a permanent network to receive arms and ammunition from the U.S. The logistics support, plus the intercession of Vang Pao’s guerrillas, forced a stalemate that saved the Neutralists, at least for the moment.

A fly-over by a high altitude U-2 spy plane equipped with high resolution cameras revealed the communists were busily expanding their logistics on the Plain of Jars, preparing for something big.[i] Over the next ten months fighting was sporadic. Kong-Lê’s garrisons held, but three of Vang Pao’s momentum sites were overrun and lost.[ii]

The communists had their own setbacks. Hanoi was using Route 7 to move troops and supplies to NVA garrisons onto the Plain of Jars. Bill Lair decided to close the road down. In August 1963, he sent in PARU demolition specialists to supervise the operation. The Thai organized twelve platoons of elite Hmong troops and deployed them along the road at strategic passes and bridges. Each platoon dug ten holes to receive cratering charges. The charges, plus C-4 explosives, were airdropped to each platoon by Tony Poe.

The demolition job was a huge success. Along one stretch explosions blew the road entirely off the side of a mountain.[iii] The flow of troops and supplies to the plain slowed to a trickle. Hanoi rushed in NVA labor battalions to clear away the debris, reconstruct the road, and rebuild bridges. buildup of North Vietnamese forces in his country.