Word: laotians
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...were strutting lumpily across the Plain of Jars in their dun-colored uniforms, proudly triumphant over the "neutralist" forces of General Kong Le and threatening to overrun the entire country. To be sure, the Pathet Lao are still there-and stronger than ever. According to U.S. officials, the Laotian Reds have been bolstered by 10,000 North Vietnamese troops. But with the monsoon already hampering military operations, they have failed for the first time since 1960 to mount a spring offensive...
...Rifles. The main reason is U.S. escalation of the war in neighboring Viet Nam. U.S. jets, striking out of Thailand, Danang and the Gulf of Tonkin at supply routes from the north, have kept the Pathet Lao pinned down. Since North Viet Nam considers Laos a sideshow anyhow, the Laotian Communists recently have had short shrift in supplies from Hanoi...
What is more, the anti-Communist Laotian armies of Kong Le and rightist General Kouprasith Abhay have finally learned to fight effectively together. A joint operation not only cleared and held the northern sector of the Vien-tiane-Luangprabang road (see map) but has produced more than 300 Pathet Lao defectors as well...
Learning from TV. Much of that money went into a sound, economic infrastructure for the northeast. The newly completed 380-mile "Friendship Highway," with its 500 miles of feeder roads, cuts the travel time between Bangkok and the Laotian border from weeks (depending on the weather) to a mere eight hours, at the same time opening vast new markets for the northeast's cash crops of jute, tobacco and maize. Last week more than 300 vehicles an hour were moving along the highway. And if Communist aggression ever comes to Thailand on the scale of Viet Nam, the highway...
Bamboo & Buffalo Blood. Off the highway stand U.S.-built jet strips from which American fighter-bombers have been flying to hit Laotian and North Vietnamese Communist targets. Udon and Ubon, Korat and Takli all rumble daily to the pulse of supersonic assault. At Korat enough equipment to supply an entire infantry brigade has been stored against the day when that many U.S. troops might arrive on the scene. At the same time, Thailand has set up "Special Operations Centers" from which elite Thai army units, modeled on the U.S. Special Forces, patrol the Mekong borders, gather intelligence, and help...