CIA activities in Vietnam the next 14 years, the focus of their paramilitary operations changed over time. Until 1964, the Hmong fighters in Laos focused on trying to fight back North Vietnamese fighters and on preventing further encroachment. They were highly important, because the US hadn't begun putting troops on the ground in any great numbers, yet. After that, in 1965, the report describes the Hmong activities in Laos as "flitt[ing] over mountain trails or mov[ing] by air to occupy key high ground and to harass Hanoi's tanks and artillery," meaning that US troops took on a frontline role and asked the paramilitary forces
CIA activities in Vietnam the military and diplomats, and Lansdale was no longer involved with Vietnam. On May 11, 1961, President Kennedy gave the authorization to begin "a program for covert actions to be carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency which would precede and remain in force after any commitment of US forces to South Vietnam." Kennedy was giving the CIA the job of preparing for the eventual landing of US troops. Later that year, in October 1961 the Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles approved a massive counterinsurgency program with the goal of launching a "village defense program in the lightly populated