Guarding the River

Bangkok was barely awake when the marines landed. Wearing canvas-covered helmets and fatigues, burdened with rifles and full field packs, men of the 3rd Battalion, 9th U.S. Marines, walked ashore from two U.S. transports. There were no crowds, no bands, no girls with flowers.

It was all business. Asked what he thought of his assignment, Battalion Commander Lieut. Colonel Harold Adams answered curtly: "When the President tells us to go some place, we go." The marines were in Thailand not only by presidential order but at the invitation of the government of Premier Sarit Thanarat--the first time in 600 years that the Thais have asked foreigners in to help them defend their soil. Said a Thai Cabinet minister: "Persons with old-fashioned ideas may not like having foreign troops in Thailand, but in these times a country has to depend on collective security." Piling into Thai army trucks, the marines sped through streets where saffron-robed Buddhist monks wandered with begging bowls, and past klongs (canals) filled with naked children swimming happily among pink and white lotuses. At Don Muang airport on the city's outskirts, the morning temperature had already reached 95DEG. U.S. transport planes, flown in from Japan, swiftly airlifted the marines to Udon in northeastern Thailand, only 40 miles from the Mekong River and Vientiane, capital of Laos.

Laos: Strange Calm. Across the river, Vientiane seemed under siege. Rockets hissed skyward above the muddy water.

A throng of young men in black and red war paint charged drunkenly through the explosions and drifting smoke. But for all the smell of gunpowder and the rockets' red glare, Vientiane was not being stormed by the Communist Pathet Lao.

Its cheerful citizens were simply celebrating the annual Bang Fai festival, commemorating the birth, death and spiritual enlightenment of Buddha.

The Marine detachments had been rushed to Thailand to help protect the vital left bank of the Mekong River from the Communist menace. Yet the Reds, since their overwhelming victory at Nam Tha two weeks ago, have been strangely quiet. The Laotian river town of Houei Sai, evacuated in panic after the fall of Nam Tha, was reoccupied by 300 skittish Royal Laotian Army troops. If anything, the Pathet Lao had retreated, not advanced. With Soviet Russia giving at least verbal agreement to the U.S. policy of creating a neutral Laos, it was apparently time once again to bring together the three idiosyncratic princes who lead the different Laotian factions.

Red Prince Souphanouvong agreed to a new conference. Prince Boun Oum, leader of the anti-Communist forces, was back in Vientiane, but as usual left the talking to his tough Defense Minister, Phoumi Nosavan. In Paris, Neutralist Prince Souvanna Phouma packed his bags to return home after receiving a message in which the Vientiane government declared its willingness to settle "the national drama by the rapid formation of a coalition government." Negotiations have been stalled for months because of Phoumi Nosavan's reluctance to surrender the vital ministries of Defense and Interior to the Communists. He was now willing to "discuss" giving those portfolios to Souvanna, in return for a promise that all major Cabinet decisions be unanimous.

Thailand: Going Concern. Meanwhile, the U.S. continued its watchful buildup across the border in Thailand. Two squadrons of jet fighters touched down at Thai airbases; 1,000 reinforcements are en route from Hawaii to join with a battle group of the 27th Infantry ("Wolfhound") Regiment stationed 40 miles west of Korat.

The U.S. is mainly relying on Thailand as its firmest ally in Southeast Asia; unlike most other countries in the area,

Thailand is a going concern. Under Premier Sarit, the government has built up gold and foreign exchange reserves totaling $451 million, has a hard currency based on the baht (worth about 5-c-), a steadily rising export trade. More than $700 million in U.S. aid has gone into roads, bridges and hydroelectric power. Sarit sensibly spends as much on education as on defense, but his 100,000-man army is well regarded by U.S. military men, and Thai troops fought competently during the Korean war. Thailand has relatively few home-grown Communists, and most have been jailed or executed.

A nationalist, patriot and public puritan (he has banned the twist in Thailand), Sarit long opposed Washington's efforts to create a Laotian coalition government. As first cousin of Laos' General Phoumi Nosavan, Sarit is naturally sympathetic to his relative's arguments that a coalition means a Red takeover. When SEATO, of which Thailand is a member, refused in 1960 to take a firm stand against the Communist advance in Southeast Asia, Sarit began talking about becoming neutral himself and accepting aid from Russia. But Sarit was reassured last March when the U.S. pledged it would come to the defense of Thailand in the event of Communist aggression.

Future: It Depends. At week's end, General Paul Harkins, U.S. military chief in South Viet Nam. flew in to don his second hat as head of U.S. forces in Thailand. "I've just become a commuter between Saigon and Bangkok," said Harkins. The purpose of the U.S. buildup, he went on, is purely defensive, but future action "depends on those people up there on the other side of the border." The U.S. is still determined not to move into chaotic Laos, even if there are further Communist advances. But should the Pathet Lao mount a drive for either the administrative capital of Vientiane or the important Mekong River towns in the south, the picture would be far different, and so might the U.S. response.

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