Word: phouma
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...Reds' setbacks are the result of a stiffer U.S. and Laotian government policy. U.S.-supplied T-28s are crippling Pathet Lao supply lines. The Reds could counterattack massively on the ground, but they apparently fear U.S. retaliation. Neutralist Premier Souvanna Phouma has survived with the help of the rightists, who have not tried a coup to take over the government for fully six months-although there has been an occasional, embarrassing mutiny among neutralist soldiers. During a recent Paris conference of the Laotian factions, Souvanna stood firm against unilateral concessions to the Reds. King Savang Vatthana got so vexed...
Behind Kong Le loomed an elaborate, half-hidden U.S. operation designed to maintain the fiction of Laotian neutrality and keep both Kong Le and Premier Souvanna Phouma's government from falling completely to the Communists. For the first time outside South Viet Nam, the U.S. had used direct if limited military intervention in its attempt to hold Southeast Asia from the Red Chinese and North Vietnamese. From Washington to Vientiane, the operation was punctuated by denials that obviously could not be kept up much longer. After all, it was an election year, and even as Lyndon Johnson preached...
Hawks & Doves. The neutralist government of Prince Souvanna Phouma, shaken severely by a right-wing coup last April, had been jolted further by a series of sharp Pathet Lao attacks that forced Kong Le off the Plain. If the precariously balanced Laotian coalition was to hold, outside help was needed. A month ago, unarmed U.S. jets began flying reconnaissance missions over Red territory in hopes of intimidating the Pathet Lao. When one of the slow-flying Navy recon planes was downed by Russian-made antiaircraft guns, the U.S. decided to send armed jet fighters to escort the reconnaissance craft. When...
...from Camp Chinaimo outside Vientiane, picked up some 2,700 like-minded soldiers from other units and in less than two hours held all the key points in the city. Kong Le deposed the right-wing government, although Phoumi had been his mentor in the army. Installing Prince Souvanna Phouma as Premier, Kong Le sat back hopefully and waited for neutralism to develop. But furious at what he considered a betrayal by his protege, Phoumi pulled his 60,000-man army down to southern Laos and set up his own revolutionary committee. Sporadic fighting between Phoumi's army...
Beneath his affability, Unger is a hard operator. When Premier Souvanna Phouma last week balked at allowing U.S. fighters to accompany reconnaissance flights, Unger called on his old bridge partner. Just what cards he used were not revealed, but one rumor had it that Unger warned Souvanna to either accept the armed escorts or get set for more drastic U.S. intervention. By week's end, Souvanna seemed once again to be seeing eye to eye with Unger...