The Vietnam War became the key issue during the Johnson years. The CIA was fully engaged in political-military affairs in Southeast Asia, both getting intelligence information and for overt and covert field operations. The CIA, for example, organized an armed force of minority Hmong in Laos, and in Vietnam of rural counterinsurgency forces, and of minority Montagnards in the highlands. Further, the CIA became actively involved in South Vietnamese politics, especially after Diem. "One of the CIA's jobs was to coax a genuine South Vietnamese government into being." Helms traveled to Vietnam twice, and with President Johnson to Guam.