Word: souvanna
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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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...
Since 1962 Unger has handled three major and countless minor crises in Laos, ranging from the assassination of Foreign Minister Quinim Pholsena through bullet-spanging dustups between rightists and Pathet Lao forces. At the same time, he has managed to play endless rubbers of bridge with Prince Souvanna, and tries to get in half a dozen sets of hard-slamming tennis a month. When trouble appears, Unger as likely as not will send his children out riding along the banks of the Mekong River on their Laotian ponies, Victory and Puck, to show family calmness. He accepts the topsy-turvy...
...unflappable best as he coordinated the search for two downed American aviators and pressed the case for fighter escort to accompany continuing U.S. reconnaissance flights over the Plain of Jars. The ambassador stopped by a cocktail party to talk with a rightist leader, then dropped in on Premier Souvanna Phouma for a little genteel arm twisting...
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...