Word: laos
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White House insiders reported that the Administration would "almost certainly" send U.S. troops to endangered Thailand in the near future, and that if the Geneva peace conference on Laos breaks down, as it well may, the Administration may intervene before the Communist Pathet Lao guerrillas can take over the whole country. At the meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Oslo, Secretary of State Dean Rusk reaffirmed the U.S.'s pledge that it will insist "with all means possible" upon continued access to West Berlin. In a speech to a convention of the National Association of Broadcasters, President Kennedy said...
Behind the Doors. Before the shooting stopped, the Administration held five National Security Council meetings in ten days. Newspaper headlines suggested that behind those closed doors last week the men of the New Frontier were debating about whether to send U.S. troops to Laos to halt the advancing Pathet Lao guerrillas. Said the Washington Post: KENNEDY, ADVISERS WEIGH INTERVENTION IN LAOS. In fact, nothing of the sort was happening: the NSC did not even consider U.S. military intervention in Laos as a serious alternative. In his inaugural address. President Kennedy had declared that the U.S. would "pay any price...
...arranged in the usual haphazard way that Laotians get things done. The Royal Army insisted on meeting in no man's land near a village called Ban Vang Ky. As a point of pride, the Communist Pathet Lao demanded rather that the two sides meet at Ban Namone. Instead, a Royal Army lieutenant colonel and a Pathet Lao major ran into each other near a place called Ban Hin Heup and agreed to come back next day with some white flags and aides. They did, and agreed to a "theoretical and provisional" ceasefire, leaving the details imprecise. Nonetheless...
...conference gets under way, Geneva will not be a happy occasion for the West. There the Red Chinese will sit down as equals with the U.S., and the Peking radio is already laying down the line that the Communists will appear as victors to dictate the future of Laos. The Pathet Lao will be out to ratify its conquest of half of Laos by acquiring a major voice in a coalition government. Reportedly it wanted the ministries of Interior, Rural Affairs and Information-meaning control of police, peasants and propaganda. As candidate for Premier, Souvanna Phouma has all but lost...
Decent Delay. The ruin may well spread beyond the confines of Laos. Russia and Red China will go to the 14-nation* conference at Geneva this month determined not only to put Prince Souvanna Phouma in power, but to pillory the U.S. for its intervention in Laos. Washington is in the unhappy position of having misfired with two opposite policies. The Eisenhower Administration tried to make primitive Laos "a bulwark against Communism' and failed, in part because of the reluctance of the Royal Laotian Army to fight. The Kennedy Administration announced that it would be satisfied with a neutral...