Word: paratroopers
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From the moment that former Army General James ("Slim Jim") Gavin assumed his duties as U.S. Ambassador to France last year, he came under snipers' fire at home and abroad. He did not speak French and did not know diplomacy, they said. As a World War II paratroop commander, a major general at 37, the Army's chief of Research and Development at 48, he was a contentious man who had quit the Army in 1958 because his views were rejected. How could such a man tiptoe among diplomats? Thus when Gavin's resignation was announced last...
...thick were the crowds that surged to greet Ben Bella's plane when it touched down at Maison Blanche Airport that an Algerian army officer in a paratroop uniform fired a tommy gun in the air to clear a path for him. With sirens screaming, 30 motorcycle cops led the motorcade on a wild ride into downtown Algiers. Switching lanes with abandon and totally disregarding one-way street signs, the cars alternately sped along at 60 m.p.h. or were caught in bumper-to-bumper jams as the screaming populace boiled forward to see its new leader. Finally the caravan...
...have to turn their former colony directly over to Indonesia and that provisions for an eventual plebiscite have been made, the Dutch are expected to accept. What Indonesia does is subject as always to the whim of its mercurial President Sukarno, who has been waging a nasty little paratroop war against the Dutch over the disputed territory. If Sukarno accepts the agreement, it means that he will have to back down from his longstanding boast that he would throw the Dutch out of western New Guinea by next Jan. I. Said an Indonesian diplomat to a Dutch newspaperman...
...corruption. Promised reforms never materialized, and practically no funds reached the peasants and forest tribes. The Communist Pathet Lao guerrilla bands began raiding in the north. Red Prince Souphanouvong not only walked out of jail, but took most of his prison guards with him. In August 1960, an obscure paratroop captain named Kong Le staged a military coup in Vientiane and returned Souvanna Phouma to power as Premier. General Phoumi Nosavan, with his CIA advisers, retreated to his southern stronghold of Savannakhet...
With U.S. encouragement, Phoumi Nosavan in December 1960 launched a northward drive against Kong Le's paratroop battalion in Vientiane. It was about the only victory Phoumi Nosavan had ever won. Kong Le retreated to the strategic Plaine des Jarres, joining forces with the Pathet Lao. The Soviet Union poured in supplies by air, and Communist North Viet Nam contributed tough guerrilla cadres. When Phoumi's army advanced, it was badly beaten in a series of noisy but largely bloodless battles. Phoumi got a breathing space when, in the spring of 1961, the government eagerly agreed...