Word: pathet
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Time for Advancement. Rather than submit to the Anglo-U.S. demand that an immediate cease-fire order precede any peace conference. Moscow called for talks forthwith and said vaguely that the Laotian belligerents should hammer out their own ceasefire. This could conceivably give time for the Red-led Pathet Lao forces to advance as they did last week (see THE WORLD). The talks would include prompt convocation of the three-nation International Control Commission (Canada, India, Poland) in Delhi and the opening of a 14-nation conference-notably including Communist China-in Cambodia. The U.S. shuddered at the thought...
...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 Lao: "My luck's beginning to run a little thin." Added another: "Those hills are ringed with Russian antiaircraft guns. We have to fly in low, just skimming the hilltops...
...possibility of eventual Communist takeover in Laos would still exist, for under whatever political settlement the peace conference might work out, the Pathet Lao would almost surely win a voice in the Laotian government. Even a cease-fire by itself would leave the Communists in possession of much of northern Laos. And as everyone has learned since World War II, cease-fire lines nowadays have a way of turning into permanent borders...
Guns from the North. While Vientiane danced and paraded, most of northern Laos was in the hands of the Communist Pathet Lao rebels (see map). Lean, well-conditioned guerrilla bands slipped like shadows through the green jungle, re peatedly outflanking the roa'dbound Laotian army. The rebels were backed up by Soviet artillery and munitions fed into the northern Plaine des Jarres by airlift and truck convoy from Hanoi, capital of Communist North Viet Nam. Hanoi also supplied gun crews, and each Pathet Lao company was stiffened with a cadre of from 10 to 15 North Vietnamese...
With the northeast securely in Communist hands, two Pathet Lao columns moved on the royal capital of Luang-prabang. routed government forces at Phou Khoun and drove to within 15 miles of the city. In central Laos the town of Kamkeut, which lies astride the strategic road running to Viet Nam, fell to the advancing Reds. Vientiane itself was closely ringed by six Pathet Lao companies which ambushed convoys and sent patrols ranging as far as a U.S. compound barely three miles from the center of the city...