Collapse

The slipping Western position in Laos became a near collapse last week. And it all happened just when the West had presumably at last persuaded Nikita Khrushchev to call for a ceasefire. The ceasefire atmosphere simply gave the Communists a chance to seize what they wanted from the euphoric Laotian government.

In order to get the fighting stopped, the U.S. has abandoned position after position. It has ceased hoping for a neutral government with a few Communists in peripheral posts. It no longer insists on the verification of a ceasefire. The procedures to be adopted by the International Control Commission of India, Canada and Poland remain extremely vague, and there is not even a definition of what constitutes the government of Laos.

Day & Time. On cue from the U.S., pro-Western Premier Boun Oum of Laos eagerly accepted the ceasefire, and even set a day and time for the guns to fall silent. The rampaging Communist-led Pathet Lao agreed to the ceasefire, too, but meanwhile its troops keep right on fighting and advancing. At Vang Vieng, a military headquarters 65 miles north of the capital city of Vientiane, some 400 Pathet Lap launched a dawn attack and chased twice as many government troops 40 miles down the road toward the capital. Among the casualties: three members of a U.S. military mission intended to buck up the battle-bored Royal Laotian Army. A U.S. observer said grimly, "The army is pretty well finished for the time being. Its morale has hit rock bottom."

At midweek, the U.S. State Department called in Russian Ambassador Mikhail Menshikov and declared that the U.S. viewed the continued fighting with "deep concern." The fighting went right on. Red Prince Souphanouvong, leader of the Pathet Lao, boasted: "Our troops and our people are in the position of a victor!" The tiniest Laotian village could read the future. At Ban Sai, barely eight miles from Vientiane, the local chief, who had been begging for U.S. aid to build a market road, last week turned down an offer of $1,000. "Go away and don't come back," he said to a visiting U.S. official. "We don't want your American road."

Home & Abroad. After a chummy meeting with Nikita Khrushchev in Russia, "Neutralist" Prince Souvanna Phouma seemed to become more Communist-minded with every new Communist bigwig he met, every big reception they organized for him. In Peking, he was met at the airport by Premier Chou En-lai and, together with his half brother and traveling companion, Red Prince Souphanouvong, was flown to the lakeside resort of Hangchow for a personal chat with Mao Tse-tung. Souvanna emerged warmly telling his Red Chinese hosts: "When we again have peace, it is to you we shall turn for aid in building our economy." In a joint communique, Souvanna blamed the U.S. for having "supported rebel elements in Laos" and for what he called interfering in his nation's internal affairs. Souvanna has obviously decided which side to be neutral on.

By the time he reached Communist North Viet Nam and got another welcome from President Ho Chi Minh, Souvanna was grandly ordering the Vientiane "rebels" (meaning the present Laotian government) to send a delegation to his "capital" of Xiengkhouang, in central Laos, to discuss the cease-fire and the "broadening of the government."

Typically, the Royal Laotians in Vientiane were undisturbed by Communist victories. Without hindrance, the Pathet Lao set up a machine gun in a nearby village and opened fire on U.S. helicopters approaching the city airport. More excitement was caused by a new Greek stripteaser at a local cabaret and by the notice posted at the Lido nightclub: "Just arrived from Thailand--ten fresh, young girls with medical certificates."

Upriver, in the royal capital of Luang-prabang, Buddhist monks in orange robes gathered in the gold-spired temples to pray for the soul of King Sisavang Vong. who died 18 months ago. Since then, his corpse--preserved in formaldehyde and spices--has been sitting in a huge gilded coffin carved from a single, perfect sandalwood tree, awaiting a propitious time for cremation. Last week the time came. Military planes, which might usefully have airdropped munitions to isolated garrisons, were commandeered to fly in tons of food for expected funeral guests. The King's coffin was placed on a dragon-headed carriage and, to the music of gongs and cymbals, borne to the cremation site, a soccer field outside town that had been piled high with sandal wood logs. Laotians reverently brought thousands of gifts to accompany "the King to nirvana, including a box of U.S. laundry detergent to keep him clean. Next day, rain and high winds swept the field, knocking down ceremonial arches and scattering the King's gifts. Laotian monks and elders sadly shook their heads. Said one: "The old King is angry with us. We have ruined the country which he ruled so peacefully for more than 50 years."

Decent Delay. The ruin may well spread beyond the confines of Laos. Russia and Red China will go to the 14-nation* conference at Geneva this month determined not only to put Prince Souvanna Phouma in power, but to pillory the U.S. for its intervention in Laos. Washington is in the unhappy position of having misfired with two opposite policies. The Eisenhower Administration tried to make primitive Laos "a bulwark against Communism' and failed, in part because of the reluctance of the Royal Laotian Army to fight. The Kennedy Administration announced that it would be satisfied with a neutral Laos, unaligned with either bloc. But in letting its eagerness for a cease-fire show too plainly, the U.S. undermined what little morale the Royal Laotian Army had left, and the Russians seized the chance to stall negotiations while the Pathet Lao strengthened their grip until it has become a strangle hold.

After the first Geneva conference in 1954, the Reds precariously held only parts of the two northern Laotian provinces of Samneua and Phongsaly. Last week they controlled at least half of Laos, and what remains is only precariously free. At the second Geneva conference, the West would be confronted with the blek reality once enunciated by U.S. General Walter Bedell Smith: "Diplomacy has rarely been able to gain at the conference table what cannot be gained or held on the battlefield."

But there was small inclination among the U.S.'s allies to save Laos on the battle field. Britain and France have already written Laos off and want only to cut their losses. U.S. strategists talk of saving southern Laos, with the help of South Vietnamese and Thai troops, tried to add verisimilitude to this bargaining point last week by dispatching 30 huge C-130 turboprops to Vientiane carrying military and medical equipment. But the U.S. military, too, had no inclination to commit U.S. fighting men to a wasting guerrilla war in the Laotian jungles.

* The other twelve: U.S., Britain, France, Canada, Poland, India, Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, North and South Viet Nam.

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