Word: phoumi
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...troops and arms, but the Pathet Lao ignored the ban; Viet Minh cadres poured across the border to train Pathet Lao troops in guerrilla and conventional warfare. In 1957 the U.S. grew alarmed, began casting about for a rightist leader to counter the Communists. It found him in General Phoumi Nosavan, a tubby but talented field commander whose cousin, the late Strongman Sarit Thanarat of Thailand, was a firm supporter...
...years later, Phoumi led the first of five coups that have kept Laos in turmoil ever since. In April 1960 Phoumi's slate of candidates won handily in a rigged election, but the Pathet Lao were back in business as guerrillas, and the prospect of another long, bloody civil war faced the country. Then, in August 1960, Kong Le acted...
Under cover of darkness, his 300 paratroopers moved in 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...
Kong Le's magical properties failed him late in 1960 when Phoumi's rightists-led by a rising young colonel named Kouprasith Abhay-defeated the neutralists in the Battle of Vientiane and forced Kong Le and his men north to the Plain of Jars. There, Kong Le's alliance with the Pathet Lao was cemented, and when the neutralist-led troika headed by Souvanna was established at another Geneva conference in July 1962, Kong Le was still firmly allied with the Communists...
...with a pet baby elephant, an incipient ulcer and a reliance on sedatives; Siho plays the dandy, wears three gold rings and affects an ivory-handled pistol to go with his favorite blue dress uniform. Although Siho is generally regarded as a henchman of rightist, anti-Communist boss, General Phoumi Nosavan, both coup leaders claimed to have acted without involving Phoumi, who, as Deputy Premier and Defense Minister in Prince Souvanna's government, could not very well be leading a coup d'état. Said Phoumi after the coup: "I am in rather large difficulties." So was everybody...