The Rains Went

As the rainy season ended in Southeast Asia, the time of decision began.

In SOUTH VIET NAM, the Communist guerrillas have doubled their strength in the past six months and seem able to muster a battalion-sized force at any point they choose, strike with it, and be gone before the road-bound army of President Ngo Dinh Diem can retaliate. Washington expects at any time a Communist announcement that the western plateau of South Viet Nam, next to the Laos border, is "liberated territory," complete with a "capital'' and a Communist government. Should it happen, Washington suggested last week, the U.S. will dispatch regimental combat teams to help train the South Viet Nam regulars and, if necessary, to fight.

In LAOS, the decay of the U.S. position has gone ever further. From the beginning, Washington hoped somehow to avoid having to accept Prince Souvanna Phouma as Premier of Laos. Last week the hope went glimmering. In a candy-striped tent on the Lik River, at meetings punctuated by toasts in champagne and burgundy, "Neutralist" Souvanna was selected Premier by two fellow princes, his Communist half brother Souphanouvong and the dispirited pro-Westerner, Boun Oum. Worse, it seems evident that U.S.-supported General Phoumi Nosavan will be fobbed off with a minor cabinet post--or with none at all. His Royal Laotian Army is better trained and equipped than it was at the time of the cease-fire last May. But the most optimistic Western observers doubt whether it is yet a match for the Communist Pathet Lao, which has been continuously supplied by Soviet airlift. Commented a U.S. expert: "The problem is still one of leadership, and without that Laotians have no will to fight."

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