Word: phoumi
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...poured $300 million in military and economic aid into primitive, soporific Laos to prop up a succession of anti-Communist governments and to help fend off the skulking guerrillas of the Communist Pathet Lao. About all that remains of that policy and all those millions is anti-Communist General Phoumi Nosavan, who is nursing his pride in southern Laos after taking a shellacking from Kong Le's para troopers...
Drift to the Left. At week's end, Premier Souvanna announced that a garrison of Phoumi's men at Samneua had fallen to the Pathet Lao. Not so, said Captain Kong Le. His own men, aided by Pathet Lao and local villagers, had taken Samneua. "I don't care about the ceasefire," added Kong Le, who apparently commands the only really effective fighting force in all Laos, and likes to see things done his way. "We will keep fighting until all the Phoumi men surrender...
Down in the south is the country's top soldier, General Phoumi Nosavan, 40, who does not like Communists and says that the prince in Vientiane cannot tell a Red from a banyan tree. Several leaders of Laos' 28,000-man army - armed, trained and paid by U.S. aid-support Phoumi's right-wing rebellion. Also working for the general is the fact that he has had help from Marshal Sarit, strongman of the neighboring kingdom of Thailand, whom he calls uncle (actually, he is a first cousin once removed). Vientiane gets all its fuel and most...
Test for the Right. Last week the SEATO powers led by the U.S. were trying to end this three-way war by bringing pressure to reconcile Premier Souvanna and General Phoumi. Their argument: the only side winning in the fight is the Communist Pathet Lao. At first Phoumi proved stubborn, ignoring four telegrams from the King asking him to meet with the Premier's military representatives at the royal palace in Luangprabang. But the new month was approaching, bringing pay day for his troops, and U.S. aid, which normally covers the army's wages, goes only...
Furthermore, Phoumi's troops had disastrously flunked their first real military test. Some 1,200 strong, they moved through the river town of Paksane toward Vientiane, boasting that they would dine in the capital that evening. But then they encountered about 500 of Captain Kong Le's paratroopers on a muddy road. Phoumi's men fled, leaving weapons, ammunition and trucks. Last week General Phoumi meekly flew to Luangprabang, accepted a ceasefire, and began negotiations to get some of his own men into the Cabinet...