Word: lao
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Since the Geneva accords of 1962 established its tripartite "neutrality," the landlocked, Lilliputian kingdom of Laos has teetered continually on the cliff-edge of chaos. Torn between the demands of the rightist Royal Laotian Army and the intransigent Communist Pathet Lao, which controls nearly half of the country, Neutralist Prince Souvanna Phouma maintains a facade of government simply because he is the only Premier acceptable to both the West and the Communist powers. Last week, when Laotians went to the polls to elect a new National Assembly in the first countrywide elections since 1960, foreign observers from a dozen capitals...
Battle Refuge. Sparsely populated Laos (2,500,000 people) has little of value to fight over. But it is strategically situated at the axis of six other nations with which it shares common borders: Red China, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, and North and South Viet Nam. Through the eastern half of Laos, controlled by the Pathet Lao, stretches the Ho Chi Minh trail, over which the North Vietnamese regularly infiltrate South Viet Nam. More than 75,000 North Vietnamese troops are now on Laotian soil, between 20,000 and 30,000 of them combat troops and the rest antiaircraft units, engineers...
...Year ran the mile in 3:51.3, and died under mortar fire at An Lao. He got a B-minus in Physics I, earned a Fulbright scholarship, filmed a documentary in a Manhattan ghetto, and guided Gemini rendezvous in space. He earns $76 a week with Operation Head Start in Philadelphia, picks up $10,800 a year as a metallurgical engineer at Ford, and farms 600 acres of Dakota wheat land. He has a lightning-fast left jab, a rifling right arm, and reads medieval metaphysicians. He campaigned for Reagan, booed George Wallace, and fought for racial integration...
...course, the obstacles are enormous. The people of the area are bewilderingly diverse in their language, their history, their geography, their politics, and even their religion-they pay homage not only to Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed, but also to Confucius, Lao-tzu and Zoroaster. Economically, as underdeveloped nations they compete bitterly for markets for their copra and sugar, rice and rubber. India, Pakistan and Burma have shown no interest in the hustle and bustle around them. Indonesia, still in the shakedown stage after its anti-Communist upheaval, is only warily beginning to participate. Cambodia stands aloof, although Premier Sihanouk...
With the confusion nearly total, the Communist Pathet Lao seized the opportunity to strike. Last week some 200 of the Red troops thrust into the strategic Mekong River town of Ban Lat Hane only 20 miles north of the royal capital of Luangprabang, routing the government forces defending it. Whether it was the opening of a fresh Pathet Lao offensive or merely a hunger strike, no one could say, but hunger undoubtedly played a part. With the rice crops off 35% because of the floods, the Communists will be forced this fall to probe deeper than usual into government territory...