Word: mekong
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Said Salan: "My decisions are made within a certain framework established in France before I took command. The framework is secret and personal." Salan described how he had stopped the Communists short of the Mekong River in Laos by creating hedgehog positions in the Plaine des Jarres and at Luang Prabang, reinforcing them by air: "The enemy had 40 divisions: I had twelve. I had to wage a cautious war of maneuver...
...town is 2½ miles from the airstrip, on a spit of land at the confluence of the Nam Khan and Mekong rivers. We reach it over a frail bamboo bridge floating on native dugout canoes. Here the jungle seems to be about to swallow the city's few houses and streets. Charming white temples and graceful stupas, elaborately decorated with legends and characters from the Ramayana relics of India, are everywhere crowded by tall green rustling palms, fragrant frangipani trees and scarlet-blossomed poincianas...
Tranquil Buddha. In a modest white palace overlooking the mile-wide Mekong sits worried 67-year-old King Sisavang Vong, afflicted with gout, but refusing all urgings that he leave his capital. Like his Thai people, the King is a fatalist. In the temples his people lay offerings and burn incense before tranquil, smiling images of Buddha, confident that whatever comes, it will inevitably change, as the mystic circle of life completes itself. It is exactly 500 years since Luang Prabang was last invaded...
Sisavang Vong, on the great Mekong River. With the leading Communist column only 35 miles distant, a Communist-rebel underground proclaimed itself the "sole legal government" of Laos, named a Laotian rebel, Souphanou Vong, as President...
...republic in 1948, has no realistic control over its northeast regions, where it has a long frontier with Red China and Laos. Here Burmese, Red Chinese and Li Mi's Nationalist Chinese mix like the colors of a dangerous kaleidoscope. If they can fight their way to the Mekong River at the border of Laos and Burma, the Viet Minh Communist forces of Ho Chi Minh will be in a position to strengthen the anti-government forces in Burma...