Word: laos
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...Kuan Yew said last week, "depends more and more on the decisions of America, China and Russia than on the decisions of the nations of the area." Even as Lee spoke, new troubles plagued Viet Nam's neighbors-and prompted their leaders to speak out in warning. >In Laos, the major staging area for Communist forces moving into South Viet Nam, at least 2,500 North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao troops have surrounded the southern provincial capital, Saravane. The city is important because it sits astride Route 23, a main feeder to the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and commands...
...North Vietnamese and their Pathet Lao allies have, in turn, been careful not to succeed too well in their continual skirmishing with Royal Lao troops. Overdoing it on the Lao battlefields would upset the precarious balance between the two halves of Laos-and thus justify allied intervention under the Geneva treaty. But last week that balance was in danger of being tipped. In eastern Laos the Communists were creating a major staging area for an attack across the border at U.S. Marine positions south of the DMZ. In northern Laos, North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao soldiers inflicted a major defeat...
...town of Nam Bac sits in a fertile valley astride communication routes from Dienbienphu in North Viet Nam to Communist areas of Laos, and was an important Royalist island in Pathet Lao territory. The Royalists had taken the town from the Reds two years ago, started a rural-development program, and promised the peasants that they would defend them...
...additional precaution, nearly 80% of the North Vietnamese soldiers now sent South are members of the Lao Dong (Communist Party) or its labor youth affiliates-almost double the number of card-carrying troopers three years ago. Between propaganda drumbeats, the recruits practice marching with rock-filled rucksacks to ready them for the 73-lb. burden of gear and ammunition each must carry for as long as six months down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Banjo-and-songfests brighten recruit training, and each squad gets a regular issue of a deck of cards-with the stern warning that...
Since nearly half of the divided country is in Communist hands and contains some 25,000 North Vietnamese troops and an equal number of indigenous Pathet Lao guerrillas, any Communist offensive is a serious matter, but the current one is probably not an all-out drive. This is the beginning of the dry season and the end of the rice harvest, an annual time of skirmishing and rice foraging by the Communists. Still, they are not completely safe in their sanctuary. The U.S. regularly flies bombing runs into Laos, and U.S. warplanes in the past several weeks are reported...