Operation Millpond: U.S. Marines in Thailand

In early 1961, Communist Pathet Lao military forces were coming dangerously close to taking control of the Southeast Asian country of Laos. A Pathet Lao victory over the Royal Laotian government not only would have lost a pro-Western nation to the Communist Bloc but would have put its neighbors—particularly pro-Western Thailand—at risk. To forestall this possibility, newly elected President John F. Kennedy and his administration decided to measurably increase U.S. support to the Royal Laotian government.