Word: patheticness
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Last week brought a harsh and sudden intensification of events. In Laos, the Pathet Lao guerrillas advanced toward Luangprabang, the royal capital. In the United Nations, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko truculently renewed the Communist offensive against Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold. In Geneva, when U.S., British and Russian delegates to the nuclear-test-ban conference met again after a 3½-month recess, the Soviet delegate started off with a belligerence that appeared to rip apart the fragile little structure of agreement slowly pieced together since the talks began in October 1958 (see THE WORLD). Soviet diplomats spread the word...
...morass of mud during the rainy season, beginning in May. Communications facilities are virtually nonexistent, and jungle trails suffice for railroads. The patchwork of mountains and jungles makes tanks about as useful there as they would be atop Mount Everest; it is guerrilla country, and the shrewd Communist Pathet Lao fighters play it that...
Whether this activity will be enough to cut or stall the Communist offensive is something that General Weller and his chief, Admiral Felt, will have to ponder. Soviet supply lines bring 45 tons of materiel into the Pathet Lao armies every day: Gorky trucks, armored cars, assault rifles, carbines, light and heavy machine guns, 105 howitzers, long-barreled...
...themselves, hoped to forestall a more reckless Chinese intervention that might lead to a general war. Indian diplomats, who are concerned about the Chinese on their borders, liked this explanation, pointing out that Moscow has in fact been competing with Peking for the dominant position in North Viet Nam. Pathet Lao rebels in Laos are being supplied by planes from far-off Russia rather than nearby China...
From Khrushchev's point of view, what must appeal most about Laos is that he can test Western intentions there while remaining free at any time to call the Pathet Lao off and accept the U.S. offer of a neutral Laos. Even such a seeming Soviet retreat would hold strong prospects of future profit. By accepting the Western proposal for a 14-nation peace conference, which would include Red China. Moscow would win the opportunity to impress upon Peking that it was through Soviet efforts that China had won a place at the bargaining table...