Word: mekong
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Election Toll. Diem responded by handing Colonel Thao command of vital, rice-growing Kienhoa province in the Mekong River delta, where previous commanders had failed. There Thao has cut the guerrillas down to size with skill and daring at their own nighttime jungle tactics. "When there is too much light, you can see nothing," says Thao. "The truth is in the night...
...down the coast from Hanoi, at night sneak into remote beaches to deliver arms. In a year, the Viet Cong strength has almost doubled to 9,000 men. Though they have captured no major towns, they now have effective control of almost half the fertile southern delta of the Mekong, where half of South Viet Nam's 14 million people live. If hard pressed, they simply retire across the border to Cambodia, where they maintain a hospital and supply dumps. Though the Geneva International Control Commission has protested the attacks, North Viet Nam replied bluntly last month that "this...
Five hundred U.S. Marines unpacked their gear at Udon in northeastern Thailand, just 45 miles southwest of Vientiane across the Mekong River. They were equipped with 16 helicopters, ready to help fly men and supplies to the fighting front when and if they were ordered into action. In the Laotian capital of Vientiane, the only four helicopters on duty were pocked with bullet holes, and their U.S. civilian pilots, flying under contract to the Laotian government, were badly overworked. Said one, who had spent weeks darting through thunderstorms and skirting mountain peaks and groundfire from the Communist Pathet...
...last week Laos' torpid, dusty administrative capital of Vientiane swarmed with crowds-but not in panic. Along the banks of the slow-moving Mekong River there were foot races, boxing and wrestling matches. At night the temple courtyards were filled with slim girls dancing to haunting flute music. A torchlight parade wound through the city, and everyone agreed that the most magnificent floats were those of the Royal Laotian Army...
Peasants & Politicians. Virtually all of northern Laos that remained under government control was the Mekong River valley-and that was fast going. General Phoumi Nosavan and most of the members of Premier Boun Oum's Cabinet flew their wives and children downriver to the relative safety of Phoumi's southern headquarters in Savannakhet. Chinese merchants and those Laotians who could afford it sent their families across the Mekong into Thailand. In the villages surrounding Vientiane, peasants resignedly dug foxholes. Said one: "This war is not our business." The one thing the peasants clearly wanted...