Word: vong
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...languid, landlocked little Indo-Chinese kingdom of Laos, a man's rank is told by the color of his umbrella.. Old King Sisavang Vong, who reigns in the royal capital of Luang Prabang, rates a white umbrella. Lesser noble fry rate umbrellas of varying hues and sizes. Viceroys, for instance, are entitled to yellow...
When the Japanese set up the independent kingdom of Laos on the eve of their departure in 1945, an autocratic and petulant prince named Phetsarath decided he was tired of his viceregal yellow umbrella, deposed his uncle King Sisavang Vong, and named himself head of a short-lived Laotian republic. For a brief time nobody had any umbrellas...
Pathet Lao is Prince Souphanouvong, a half-brother of the Premier, Prince Souvanna Phouma, and because both brothers have sworn fidelity to aging, gout-crippled King Sisavang Vong, the Laotians have been inclined to dismiss Pathet Lao as une affaire de famille. Since August the moonfaced, Paris-educated princes have been going about the capital of Vientiane arm in arm, sipping champagne together, and promising an early settlement of their "family affair." Says trusting Prince Souvanna Phouma: "My brother has never been a Communist, only a misled patriot...
Last year, at Peking's bidding, Souphanou Vong launched an unfruitful three-battalion attack against the Nationalists-but nobody now seemed to hold it against him. In the capital of Vientiane, the Laotians, eager for an end to civil war, insisted that mustachioed, Paris-educated Souphanou Vong is a Communist only because he hates the French and fears his domineering Communist wife. Word was that Souphanou Vong even washes his wife's underthings in the family washtub "because she likes me to." Some knew that he had been sent to Red China for indoctrination, but they...
...week's end Souvanna Phouma and Souphanou Vong relaxed at a family picnic with 50 of their relatives, and talked happily about the peaceful future. Souphanou Vong seemed such a reassuring fellow. Of course, if in the friendly atmosphere he should want to be less of a Communist, he could always remember that his wife and six of their seven children are now in Red-held Hanoi. The seventh is studying in Moscow...