Word: laos
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RELENTLESSLY, almost at will, Communist North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao troops advanced last week against Laotian government forces. As they swept forward, concern mounted among U.S. officials. On Capitol Hill, critics of the U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia protested that Washington seemed to be plunging deeper into Laos just as it was pulling back from Viet Nam-though of course the U.S. commitment in Viet Nam is incomparably larger. The Administration denied the charges, but the evidence appeared to confirm them (see box following page...
...observers in the sleepy little government capital of Vientiane had expected the Plain, which has changed hands repeatedly for years, to be held in the face of a determined Communist attack. There was good reason for their pessimism. Hanoi has 50,000 troops in Laos, some 16,000 around the Plain, and the Pathet Lao have another 50,000: the government, by contrast, has a total of 63,000 regulars and another 10,000 Meo guerrillas under General Vang...
Last fall, in a surprising reversal of form, Laotian troops backed by heavy American air support swept Communist forces off the strategically located Plain of Jars in north-central Laos. It was the first time in five years that the government had controlled the area. Last week the pro-Communist Pathet Lao and their North Vietnamese allies launched a long-awaited attempt to regain the plain...
Communist Canteens. The refugees were mostly old men and women and small children in ragged clothes. There were few young adults; most of them are in the hills with the Pathet Lao. The refugees' eyes bore the blank, stoic look I have seen so often in the faces of peasants dispossessed by the Indo-China War, and relics of that war were everywhere. Many refugees carried standard North Vietnamese army canteens...
...lower level of fighting is based not only on documents emerging from North Viet Nam but also on a general reduction in enemy infiltration and overall activity. His estimate was confirmed in a Hanoi speech last week by Le Duan, First Secretary of North Viet Nam's ruling Lao Dong (Workers) Party. Warning his countrymen that they might have to fight for "many years more," Le Duan urged them to concentrate increasingly on economic development. The speech was a clear reflection of North Viet Nam's very real internal difficulties...