Word: patheticness
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Showdown. Kong Le began by reinforcing his garrison with 2,000 Communist Pathet Lao guerrillas from the nearby jungles. Then he turned for further aid to his good friend, Russian Ambassador Aleksandr Abramov. Helpfully, Abramov flew in six 105-mm. howitzers and eight 120-mm. mortars as well as a batch of North Vietnamese to teach the Laotians how to use their new weapons. At his stronghold to the south, Savannakhet, General Phoumi countered by convening most of the members of the National Assembly. They voted Prince Souvanna out of office and named as the new Premier Boun...
Gradually Kong Le's men retreated-to the outskirts of town, then to the airport (his only supply line to the Communists). Caught in a deadly barrage, 1,500 surrendered and the rest fled into the jungle country that the Pathet Lao controls. As Vientiane counted its dead (an estimated 200), TIME Reporter James Wilde cabled: "The streets were littered with broken glass, shattered bricks, mangled cars, shell cases, abandoned trucks and Jeeps. In the center of town I passed bodies covered with a cloth or a bamboo mat. Funeral pyres lit the sky. Here and there the sidewalks...
...young (26) and moody Paratroop Captain Kong Le after a successful coup d'état in August, Souvanna basically abhorred soldiers in government ("There is always a coup in the offing"). He loved peace. To re-establish it after seven years of trouble with the pro-Communist Pathet Lao, Souvanna hopefully sought to end the nagging civil war by forming a government of "national union" that would range from his own neutralists to the pro-U.S. faction of General Phoumi Nosavan at one end and the Communist Pathet Lao at the other...
...hard as Souvanna tried, the country would not be pacified. Instead, it ran apart like globs of skittering quicksilver. The soldiers began fighting each other. Pathet Lao guerrillas encircled Vientiane, the seat of Souvanna's government, under the guise of coming to negotiate; Souvanna's own Captain Kong Le marched out to oppose insurgent General Phoumi in the jungles along the great and languid Mekong River. And when Souvanna fancied that the U.S. was aiding Phoumi to his detriment, he himself applied for Russian aid. Phoumi's American-made 105-mm. howitzers resounded in the jungle...
Prince Souvanna's first reaction was to accuse the U.S. Government of plotting against him. His next move amounted to public admission that with his support on the right vanishing, he had become a virtual prisoner of the Communist Pathet Lao guerrillas-who happen to be headed by his half brother, Prince Souphanouvong. Under pretext of negotiations with Souvanna, the Pathet Lao have ringed his jittery capital of Vientiane with 2,000 to 4,000 men, and not only civilians but Souvanna's soldiers as well must now get passes from the Pathet Lao to clear the Communist...