"Where We're a Little Ahead"

Fluttering high above the craggy mountains and lush rolling hills in northern Thailand, the tiny, single-engine aircraft picked its way through the mist, in search of a village airstrip. "I think that's it," the pilot shouted to a companion over the whine of the engine. Dipping down through the clouds, the plane came in at treetop level, then bounced into a 700-ft. clearing. Eager tribeswomen in turbans and blue-striped frocks rushed toward the visitors, smiling through betel-stained teeth. Their menfolk set about happily unloading medicine, food, seed and other supplies. "This is the one place in Southeast Asia," the pilot beamed, "where we're a little ahead of the Communists."

Far ahead, in fact. Only three years ago, northern Thailand was considered one of the country's most vulnerable areas for Communist subversion. Inhabited by 250,000 primitive, fiercely independent tribesmen, the area lived almost completely outside the law of Bangkok, haunted by superstition, disease and ignorance and sustained only by its bumper crops of illegal opium. Today, Red terrorists are active both in the country's northeast and in the Moslem provinces of the south. But thanks to a civic-action program that is nipping Red subversion in its earlier stages, the north is relatively free of trouble. "Nation building is what we're doing," says one official in Mae Rim, 107 miles from the Laos border. "We're extending government influence to all within Thai borders."

Schools & Fruit Trees. A joint operation of Thailand, which contributes $500,000 a year, and of the U.S., which kicks in another $500,000 a year (mostly in planes and technical assistance), Thailand's counterinsurgency effort is handled by the country's 6,500-man Border Police Patrol. In 2 1/2 years, the patrol has helped build 66 village schools, 60 small airstrips for communication and supplies and scores of medical-aid stations and has dispensed friendly advice on everything from crops and animal husbandry to personal hygiene. In the process, the border patrol has welded 44 key border villages more securely to the country and has made them the eyes and ears of northern Thailand's anti-Communist defense system.

Working mainly with the more numerous Meo, Yao, Lisu, Lahu and Akha tribesmen, the border patrol has built two major "development centers" and three more are under way, complete with dispensaries, trading centers and schools. In the village of Huai Fuang near the Laos border, last week about 50 students sat in crisp regulation white shirts and khaki shorts in an open, thatched-roof classroom, learning to read and count from a border policeman whose platoon had supplied the class uniforms and haircuts. On the wall behind the teacher were three objects that symbolized the new presence: a Thai flag, a picture of Thailand's King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit and a picture of the Lord Buddha. The police had even directed the building of a network of bamboo pipes to carry fresh water into every household in the village.

"Our biggest problem," says one U.S. adviser, "is trying to get the villagers off opium growing." Opium is their big cash crop and pays for such luxuries as watches, air mattresses and transistor radios, as well as such staples as embroidered pantaloons and silver bangles for wives and daughters. Rather than simply forbid opium growing--and risk alienating the villagers--the border patrol is promoting wheat, corn and other substitute crops, and flying in planeloads of fruit trees, as well as bulls for cattle breeding. Outside the city of Chiang Mai, the police set up a 2,500-acre experimental farm.

A Timely Arrival. Successful though the campaign may be, it is far from over. Every day, Red China bombards northern Thailand with hate broadcasts, and the Communists have spider-webbed southern China and Laos with roads leading to the Thai and Burmese borders. A few months ago, several Red tribesmen from Laos persuaded the village of Bao Klua Tai that a new god was coming who would provide all their wants, and therefore they could dispense with a rice crop. The result was a severe food scarcity that only the timely arrival of the border patrol prevented from becoming a village disaster. Last week the villagers were laying out a new 700-ft. airstrip with the help of the patrol. In a few weeks, planes will bring in agricultural advice, medical aid and a schoolteacher, and Bao Klua Tai will become the 45th key border village to join northern Thailand's defense system and the Thailand family.

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