The Twilight Zone

The total budget for the Kingdom of Laos this year is a paltry $36.6 million. To fight a war there, the U.S. in fiscal 1971 spent $284.2 million--or $141 for every one of the approximately 2,000,000 men, women and children under government control. (The gross national product totals only $66 per capita.)

These bizarre statistics are contained in a once secret staff report released last week by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after five weeks of haggling with the Administration over declassifying its salient points. The figures become even more bizarre when the cost of air operations--one of the figures still classified, but reliably estimated at $1.4 billion--is included, bringing per capita expenditure up to an incredible $900. The report was compiled after a visit to Laos last spring by Richard Moose and James Lowenstein, both former Foreign Service officers, who are the committee's staff experts on Southeast Asia. Their findings at least partially lifted what Committee Member Stuart Symington called "the veil of secrecy, which has long kept this 'secret war' in Laos officially hidden from the American people." The study also came to the discouraging conclusion that despite vast expenditures by the U.S., the military situation in Laos "is growing steadily worse, and the initiative seems clearly to be in the hands of the enemy."

War by Proxy. Though the 23-page document focuses on the clandestine nature of U.S. operations in Laos, the fact is that quite a few nations are involved in the same way. The reason for the secrecy is that none of the nations want to be accused of violating Laotian neutrality, which is guaranteed by the Geneva accords of 1962.

The North Vietnamese have always considered Laos vital in their struggle to unify Viet Nam. As early as 1953, an NVA division invaded Laos and slashed all the way to the Mekong. The Chinese have been working on an extensive road project in northern Laos since 1962, with a sizable military presence for protection. According to the Moose-Lowenstein report, that presence has increased from 6,000 two years ago to as many as 20,000 today, and carries with it a concentration of antiaircraft and radar installations, which makes the area one of the most heavily defended in the world.

There is little doubt that the North Vietnamese were the first to violate the territorial integrity and neutrality of Laos. But for a variety of reasons, including domestic politics, the U.S. never responded openly to this situation. Instead, Communist clandestine operations in Laos were matched--and often surpassed--by the U.S. and its allies.

Not all of the secret adventures are mentioned in the Foreign Relations Committee's report. But they include: American bombing missions in northern and southern Laos from Thai air force bases in Thailand; probes by U.S. Special Forces teams from South Viet Nam along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos; secret forays into China from northern Laos by specially trained CIA teams (now reportedly halted); the formation, funding and training by the CIA of an irregular army of up to 15,000 Meo tribesmen; large-scale operations throughout Laos by Air America, the CIA's unofficial flag line in Asia; and the recruitment, training and payment of at least 4,800 Thai volunteers to fight in Laos.

The result is a curious war by proxy whose protagonists are the North Vietnamese and the American-backed irregulars. The cost has been particularly heavy for the Meos. Says Edgar ("Pop") Buell, AID coordinator for northeastern Laos: "Back in 1960 we told the Meos they would only have to hold out for a year. They've held out for more than ten. They're tired and badly cut up, and still we're telling them to hold out. They think it's time for someone else to do the dying."

Heavy Cost. The main argument for this costly effort, as Symington pointed out last week, is that it "will buy more time for Vietnamization" by pinning down North Vietnamese troops in Laos. Without this effort, the North Vietnamese would have unrestricted use of Laotian supply lines to support their effort in South Viet Nam. "But what about Laos?" asked Symington. "The United States is using the people of Laos for its own purposes, at a startlingly heavy increased cost to our taxpayers in money, and to the Lao people in terms of destroyed hopes, destroyed territory, and destroyed lives."

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