Word: seato
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...that they had come to meet a talkative tiger. Days before in London, the plain-spoken President of Pakistan had demonstrated his old soldier's scorn for diplomatic niceties, had loudly broadcast his doubts about U.S. policy in Southeast Asia and threatened to "reexamine" his country's SEATO and CENTO commitments. At planeside, his grey guardsman's mustache bristling, Ayub was terse and blunt. "We naturally take deepest interest," he told President Kennedy, "in what goes on in this country-and especially what you do, sir." Then he strode to Kennedy's new bubble-topped Lincoln...
...Ayub: "We want to be able to make 'em take a pill, then poof, that's that.") But Ayub did not hesitate to tell Kennedy exactly what he thought of Nehru ("People think he's thinking. Actually, he's just in a trance"), and dismissed SEATO as a weak-spined organization, daring only to "send telegrams back and forth." He submitted to an hour of questioning at the National Press Club, and played host himself at a dinner for President Kennedy and for his old friend, Dwight Eisenhower. On another evening, he traded war stories with...
...army outposts back in Laos, nobody could explain. The three princes bucked to dreamy King Savang Vatthana the thorny task of picking a coalition government, a procedure that would effectively bypass the National Assembly, where Boun Oum still commands a strong anti-Communist majority. Boun Oum agreed to disown SEATO, which guarantees Laos against outside aggression, and to establish diplomatic relations with Laos' "neighbors," meaning Red China and North Viet Nam. The princes called for new elections and the departure of all foreign troops from Laos. "Details"' were to be worked out at the princes' next meeting...
Compromise. Since the West was not prepared to fight (De Gaulle told Kennedy flatly that he would not under any circumstances approve of any SEATO intervention involving the use of troops), it was prepared to keep on sitting at Geneva in the hope that something would turn up. At week's end, Britain's Foreign Secretary Lord Home launched yet another compromise plan, under which the U.S. would stop its airdrops of arms to pockets of troops stranded behind enemy lines, and the Communists would stop shooting. Gromyko told Harriman that this sounded fine-though there was reason...
...Thailand posed especially delicate problems for Johnson. One of the strongest anti-Communist nations in Southeast Asia, Thailand was fast losing its faith in the U.S. after the debacle in neighboring Laos. Johnson set the mood for his reassuring talks with Sarit by stopping off at Bangkok's SEATO headquarters building to deliver a blunt statement. "It is sometimes difficult to understand how a man-or a nation-can treasure liberty for himself," said Johnson, his voice sharpening as he spoke, "and be totally unconcerned for it when it involves other people in his own backyard." The Thais were...