Word: patheticness
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...Just a year ago, when the U.S. finally persuaded the Soviets to accept a cease-fire in Laos, Washington gambled heavily on a long-shot bet: better to rely on Russian guarantees of a neutral Laos than go on fighting a war that could not be won. The Red Pathet Lao forces, aided by Communist North Vietnamese, controlled half of Laos, and the Royal Laotian Army seemed unable to nrevent the Reds from overrunning the country (which so far has received $450 million in U.S. aid). The U.S. decided to abandon Phoumi's anti-Communist regime, which appeared doomed...
...toughest and most dedicated Communists are those trained in North Viet Nam. Some were ordered into neighboring Laos, to fight with the Pathet Lao against the Royal government (see following story). Others, like captured Lieut. Duong, came into South Viet Nam by sea in junks posing as fishermen but carrying arms and medical supplies to Viet Cong bands. Many have died rather than surrender, but brief glances into their lives remain in the scribbled pages of their diaries and journals. These diaries are not only added evidence of North Vietnamese intervention in the South, but a full reading of them...
...position of trying to back both a neutralist course for Laos and General Phoumi, who in turn would undoubtedly get a more respectful hearing for his uncompromising stand if in a year of fighting, his U.S.-equipped army had not been badly whipped by the much smaller Russian-equipped Pathet Lao. A U.S. official gave his version of General Walter Bedell Smith's diplomatic axiom: "You don't win at the conference table what you've lost on the battlefield...
...fobbed off with a minor cabinet post-or with none at all. His Royal Laotian Army is better trained and equipped than it was at the time of the cease-fire last May. But the most optimistic Western observers doubt whether it is yet a match for the Communist Pathet Lao, which has been continuously supplied by Soviet airlift. Commented a U.S. expert: "The problem is still one of leadership, and without that Laotians have no will to fight...
...Commander in Chief Pacific, conceded that there was "danger" that the civil war might again break out in a matter of weeks. As the rainy season drew to a close, more and more Soviet transport planes landed at Xieng Khoung with supplies and equipment for the 20,000 Pathet Lao troops and the 3,000 army rebels of Captain Kong Le. Battle-tested cadres from Communist North Viet Nam are drilling the Pathet Lao, driving their truck convoys, stringing communication lines, and flying their helicopters...