Word: lam
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...area in the very first day. Last week, 14 days after the first ARVN troops pushed across the Laotian border to strike at the Ho Chi Minh Trail network, they had covered only some 15 miles and were coming under increasingly intense enemy pressure. U.S. commanders insisted that Operation Lam Son 719, despite its slow pace, was scoring military gains. But Defense Secretary Melvin Laird warned President Nixon that the 17,000 ARVN troops and the 9,000 Americans who are providing logistical support and rearguard cover could expect "some tough days ahead...
...ARVN advance was almost glacial -slowed by twisting terrain, mud that sucked at tank treads, and fears of rushing headlong into what Vice Premier Nguyen Cao Ky described last week as "our Dien Bien Phu." Instead of a lightning strike, the ARVN invasion commander, Lieut. General Hoang Xuan Lam, employed a cautious leapfrogging technique designed to keep his troops within range of friendly artillery...
...access and infiltration known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail" years ago. So as not to trigger a Communist stampede into western Laos-an event that would surely shatter Souvanna's already fragile relations with powerful Laotian rightists-the allies seemed ready to set some undeclared limits on Lam Son operations. There would be no strikes north of the 17th parallel, which forms the border between the two Viet Nams, or west of Route 23, which runs north-south halfway across the Laotian panhandle. It also seemed likely that the ARVN would be pulled out before the April monsoons...
...Yalu? Among Hanoi's backers, Lam Son stirred a predictable frenzy but no definite response. The operation also stirred grave fears on Souvanna Phouma's part. What if the invasion, like MacArthur's drive to the Yalu in Korea, alarmed Peking enough to send Chinese troops into the war? Last week Nixon sought to salve Peking by emphasizing that the Laotian thrust posed "no threat" to China...
...almost horizontal line," he said. Soth might have been exaggerating his forces' efficiency. But in any case, it will be some time before the South Vietnamese will be able to fill the air with a locust-like swarm of 600 helicopters, as the U.S. did in the Lam Son offensive...