Perilous Missions: Civil Air Transport and CIA Covert Operations in Asia - Hardcover

Leary, William M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 081730164X ISBN 13: 9780817301644

Publisher: Univ of Alabama Pr, 1984

Synopsis

Civil Air Transport (CAT), founded in China after World War II by Claire Chennault and Whiting Willauer, was initially a commercial carrier specializing in air freight. Its role quickly changed as CAT became first a paramilitary adjunct of the Nationalist Chinese Air Force, then the CIA's secret "air force" in Korea, then "the most shot-at airline in the world" in French Indochina, and eventually becoming reorganized as Air America at the height of the Vietnam War. William M. Leary's detailed operational history of CAT sets the story in the perspective of Asian and Cold War geopolitics and shows how CAT allowed the CIA to operate with a level of flexibility and secrecy that it would not have attained through normal military or commercial air transportation.

About this title

About the Author:

William M. Leary is E. Merton Coulter Professor Emeritus at the University of Georgia and author/editor of 14 books, including Under Ice: Waldo Lyon and the Development of the Arctic Submarine and Project Coldfeet: Secret Mission to a Soviet Ice Station.

Review:

 

 “Perilous Missions still constitutes our best resource on the origins of Civil Air Transport. It offers a rich treasury of oral testimony and documentary evidence.” -- Journal of Military History   

About this edition

• Publisher: Univ of Alabama Pr
• Publication date: 1984
• ISBN 10: 081730164X
• ISBN 13: 9780817301644
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 281