Word: savang
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Puritanical Heir. Savang Vatthana was plucked away from home at the age of ten. He attended a lycée in Montpellier, got a degree from Paris' Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques, where French diplomats were trained. After a decade, Savang Vatthana returned home both flattered and baffled by the experience. He no longer could speak Lao, and had to be instructed by a palace functionary for years...
...Savang Vatthana, a rather puritanical fellow, found himself at sharp odds with his father. King Sisavang Vong, who considered polygamy a foundation stone of the Laotian way of life. Once a year it was his father's royal pleasure to take a leisurely 40-day boat ride down the Mekong to Vientiane, picking and choosing from the new crop of maidens in the villages as he passed. The palace swarmed with royalty who were all half or full brothers and sisters of the future King...
...oddball, recently decreed that every elephant in Sayaboury had to wear a license plate.) In total rejection of his father's strenuous love life, the prince married one woman. Princess Khamphouy, a plump cousin, stayed faithful and sired five children. The old King proved totally uninterested in Prince Savang Vatthana's new ideas about agriculture, science and education. "My people only know how to sing and make love," he said...
...peoples. Anyway, an educated population is difficult to govern." He grew increasingly impervious to Western influence, despite his summer visits to the royal villa at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat on the French Riviera. By the time he took the throne in 1959, after the old King died at 74, Savang Vatthana seemed to have sunk into a torpor that could not be shaken by the fast-paced world around him. One Western diplomat, after a session with the King, said it was "like listening to a long Oriental movie dubbed in French." He is a fan of Margot Fonteyn...
...government will have to be broad-based, which in Laos means including as many important families as possible, as well as some Pathet Lao, at least in minor positions. To avoid argument over whether Souvanna or Boun Oum is the "legitimate" Premier, both sides would deal through King Savang Vatthana. Any solution is likely to be makeshift. Says one U.S. diplomat: "Laos is going to be a problem throughout our lifetime and longer." But for Laos to be declared neutral is not necessarily an inevitable step toward a Communist takeover. The Pathet Lao, still a tiny minority, are generally disliked...