Word: laotians
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Untroubled by the Chinese bomb, the permanent crisis in neighboring South Viet Nam, or by anything else, Laos was having a festival. Celebrating the end of Buddhist Lent, clowns cavorted down Vientiane's dusty streets, brandishing great red-painted phallic symbols. While phonographs blared a Laotian favorite, Jingle Bells, fireworks exploded and countless candles were lighted to exorcise demons from homes and bawdyhouses. One of the few worries concerned the supply of lao lao, a form of rice firewater whose production the government has restricted so as not to diminish the rice supply. Said a Cabinet minister: "We Laotians...
...province, the body of a Communist guerrilla sprawls among the water lilies. On a track through a swamp in Hau Nghia province, a young Vietnamese rifleman happily plucks a duck for supper, white feathers sticking to his mud-spattered battle dress. At an isolated Special Forces post near the Laotian frontier, a supply helicopter arrives carrying, in a sling under its belly, two bewildered cows...
...change its policy and go along with a blow against the north, such an action would be precise and designed to minimize the possibility of further escalation. To discourage further subversion in the south, the first steps would probably be air strikes against Viet Cong supply lines in the Laotian corridor. Most likely target: the big staging center of Tchepone, which has an airfield. The purpose would be to put Hanoi on notice that the U.S. was ready to do more if necessary. If that didn't work, the next step would be bombings inside North Viet Nam. First...
Chances are that the tough, ingenious Pathet Lao would find ways to fight on anyway. But the questions remain: Can the U.S. afford to intervene further in the little Laotian war? On the other hand, having gone this far, can it afford not to intervene? By committing itself to a sustained air offensive on Kong Le's side, the U.S. would at best be backing a long shot. Even if the disruption of the Pathet Lao supply lines permitted Kong Le to regain the Plain, it would only buy time and return the whole Laotian equation to where...
What caused some embarrassment in Washington last week was not the planes but their pilots. For it was finally common knowledge that the men in the cockpits have been U.S. citizens (the same type of plane is being used by the Laotian government against the Pathet Lao, is also occasionally flown by Americans). At the controls of one T-28 operating in the Ruzizi Valley near the Congo's eastern frontier recently was a lanky, 30-year-old ex-Marine pilot named Ed Dearborn from Gardena, Calif. His partner, also flying four flights a day to strafe the rebels...