The Two Motors

The people of tiny Laos received in 1957 some $48 million in U.S. aid--about $9,000,000 more than the U.S. Government disbursed to the three states of Nevada, New Hampshire and Vermont together. For a time last year, it looked seriously as though the Communists were going to get it all.

Rickety Structure. The Reds were everywhere. Two potent Communist powers, Red China and North Viet Nam, pressed against Laos' borders. Native Communists, led by Prince Souphanouvong, a member of the royal family, controlled the provinces of Samneua and Phongsaly. The two provinces were regained, but at a price: two Cabinet posts for the Communists and the incorporation of two Communist battalions in the small royal Laotian army. As a legal party, the Reds and their allies made further gains in the May elections, emerged with 21 of 59 seats in the National Assembly. Governmental graft, corruption and inefficiency were doing much of the Reds' work for them. In November, Communist North Viet Nam, thinking it had Laos on the run, accused it of border violations, then occupied a stretch of Laotian territory with 3,000 troops.

The capital city of Vientiane rang with rumors of a military coup; the Communists under Prince Souphanouvong called for a meeting of the National Assembly, hoping to capitalize on the growing chaos. But Premier Phoui (pronounced Pwee) Sananikone, 55 (TIME, Sept. 1), a muscular and quick-witted six-footer, was ready for them. Last August he had formed a government shorn of the two Communist ministers. He instituted a currency reform that allowed the Laotian kip to find its normal level of 80 to the dollar, and he brought a halt to the scandalous abuse of U.S. aid.

Political Drift. Last week Premier Phoui gave the Communists the Assembly meeting they had been clamoring for. He strode to the podium in the yellow-walled National Assembly building, denounced the "subversive elements" in the country and derided the tactics of North Viet Nam which, "while accusing us, provokes us." Insisting that Laos "must clearly state that it is on the side of the free world.'' Phoui boldly asked the National Assembly to vote itself out of existence. Like many another Asian leader in recent months. Phoui was demanding the right to rule alone for a full year to arrest the nation's political drift and shore up its economy.

Clearly taken by surprise, Prince Souphanouvong was able to muster only 16 of the 47 Assemblymen present to oppose the Premier. Armed with his new mandate, Phoui Sananikone promised Laotians a new constitution, pledged that the royal government would build dams and roads, improve communications, seek foreign investments. He would rule, said the Premier, through the "two essential motors" of an independent state: the army and the civil service.

Prince Souphanouvong cried that Phoui's taking of power was "illegal," and some panicky Communist leaders lit out for the protection of North Viet Nam. Souphanouvong could not even count on the two Communist battalions that had been incorporated into the royal army, presumably with the intention of spreading discontent. Both Red battalions had been quietly disarmed and interned in separate camps, each under the custody of a heavily armed and loyal battalion of the royal Laotian army.

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