Word: laos
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When the Red Pathet Lao overran Laos' embattled Plain of Jars last month, the U.S. replied by sending unarmed jets swooping low over Pathet Lao territory. The purpose was partly to photograph troop movements, partly to demonstrate U.S. resolve to stand firm in the Red-threatened little kingdom. But last week, after Communist gunners shot down two American planes in two days, the U.S. decided that shooting back with cameras was not enough-and in a small way Southeast Asia's crisis began to "escalate...
...were made by Navy jets from the U.S. 7th Fleet aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, lying off South Viet Nam in the South China Sea. Prime target for the planes high-speed, still-photo lenses was Route 7, a ribbon of dirt snaking out of Communist North Viet Nam into Laos. Known by Laotians as Thang Nay, or the Big Road, Route 7 has long been used by North Viet Nam's Reds to truck men and guns to the Pathet Lao (up to 400 vehicles a day), in open violation of Laos' neutrality accords. To get closeups...
...Plans. It was the ideal setting for a crisis-atmosphere conference. But the conference was barely under way before it took on a noncrisis air. In Laos, the Red Pathet Lao had momentarily halted their drive, in some areas were even pulling back-though at week's end, after the Hawaii conference broke up, they were beginning to shoot again. In South Viet Nam, the number of attacks launched by the Viet Cong guerrillas had suddenly dipped sharply...
Slashed Necklaces. There, several rightist battalions, known as Mobile Group 13, moved into position on the steep hillsides above Route 7. They stalled convoys with land mines and raked the trucks with bazooka fire. The Communist Pathet Lao, who have controlled a large part of the Plain of Jars since last year, decided to fight their way through. Moving behind a mortar barrage, the Pathet Lao swept through the mountain villages of the anti-Communist Meo tribesmen and closed in on the rightist roadblocks, driving before them hundreds of hapless Meo refugees. Meo men and women carry their wealth with...
Neutralist General Kong Le launched a counterattack against the Pathet Lao but was unable to dislodge them from the hills above Mobile Group 13's escape route. With the help of several defecting neutralist battalions, the Reds smashed their way through Kong Le's headquarters at Muong Phanh, and turned to head for the Mekong River. A courageous but often inept commander, Kong Le fell back with his battered troops to Ban Na, on the southwestern edge of the plain. He managed to salvage ten tanks, but lost nine armored cars and four antiaircraft guns. All week long...