Word: pathetically
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Fuzzy on Purpose. The issue was how Laos was to deal with Communists, foreign and domestic. Both Captain Kong Le and Prince Souvanna want to bring into the government the Communist Pathet Lao guerrillas who have waged a flickering jungle rebellion since 1953. Kong Le is just disgusted with fighting fellow Laotians. Prince Souvanna's goal for Laos is "neutrality in neutralism," a doctrine that is necessarily fuzzy, he says, because Laotians are fuzzy thinkers, when thinkers...
...response to Phoumi's call a flurry of local army commanders hurried in to consult. Beating time to reedy pipe music as he presided over a table laden with Scotch whisky and French wines, Phoumi assured a reporter that his troops were racing the Pathet Lao Communists through the roadless jungle to the capital, added earnestly: "If you let the Pathet Lao into the government, they will organize and work hard and sooner or later they will control the whole country...
...paratroop captain back in Vientiane was preparing a different sort of funeral for the Cabinet itself. Voice of America. A moody soldier trained in a U.S. Ranger course in the Philippines, Captain Kongle, 26, was under orders to take his battalion 40 miles north to hunt down pro-Communist Pathet Lao rebels. Instead, he moved east to a nearby Laotian army camp, where he won over an armored squadron with the fiery plea: "This fratricidal fighting among Laotians must cease!" Rolling back to Vientiane before dawn, Kongle's 3,000 men swiftly captured the capital, its air port...
...country either had not heard of the revolt at all or reacted with Laos' soft, favorite phrase, "be pen nyan [it doesn't matter]." To break this stalemate, Kongle suggested the formation of a new government headed by Prince Souvanna Phouma, half brother of the Communist Pathet Lao commander and onetime neutralist Premier of Laos. This suggestion worried the U.S. State Department, which now concedes that, despite $225 million in U.S. aid since 1955, Laos cannot afford open belligerence toward its Communist neighbors (TIME, Jan. 18) but fears that Souvanna Phouma would lead Laos into neutralism in favor...
...cities, and no compromise Cabinet had been agreed upon. So far, the only solid accomplishment of Kongle's coup had been to demonstrate how few men are needed to capture a capital city in sleepy Laos-a lesson that was surely being carefully studied by the Pathet Lao rebels...