Word: pathet
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...Laos, secret talks began between the government and the Communist-led Pathet Lao. The North Vietnamese, who have more than 67,000 troops in the country, had assured Henry Kissinger in Paris that negotiations in Laos would lead to a ceasefire...
Paradoxically, Laos has the best chance of an early peace-largely because the North Vietnamese have virtually complete control over the Pathet Lao, and can keep them in line for whatever deal is worked out. Nonetheless, the war was hottest there last week. Thailand-based B-52 bombers, relieved of their duties in Viet Nam, concentrated their power on Communist forces in Laos. The strikes were aimed at suspected concentrations of North Vietnamese troops. For their part, the North Vietnamese pulled troops off the Ho Chi Minh Trail and arranged them in offensive positions against the Royal Laotian Army...
...Lever. Experts agree that there is no road, airport, town or city in the country that the North Vietnamese could not capture and at least hold for a while. U.S. and Laotian officials worry that the Communists will try to make good on Pathet Lao claims of "victory" on the eve of a ceasefire, by seizing several important cities, perhaps even Vientiane or Luangprabang, the seat of the country's constitutional monarch, King Savang Vatthana...
...Vietnamese troops marched out of Laos through the prescribed International Control Commission checkpoint-and 30 of them claimed that they had merely been building a house for Souvanna. Thousands of other NVA troops either slipped back to North Viet Nam in secret or stayed behind to help organize the Pathet...
...gripes? Only officers were allowed to have radios. And then there were Dai's Laotian allies, the Pathet Lao. "All they wanted in life was a wristwatch, then a motor scooter and other luxury items," he complained. "They weren't serious. The ones I saw were just fooling about. All the old hands said that the NVA did all the fighting and the Pathet Lao just sat around...