Souphanouvong v. Phongsavan

It is sometimes easier to get a message from the moon than from Laos. Tucked in the jungle fastnesses of Southeast Asia, Laos has no telephone communication with the outside world; telegraph messages tend to run as late as 48 hours; the U.S. aid mission in the capital city of Vientiane (pop. 25,000) has a radiotelephone link with the U.S. aid mission in Bangkok, Thailand, but during the monsoon season, as now, messages are static-ridden and fragmentary.

But Laos has a government radio station, which news services monitor, and on the basis of its staticky, chattering and roaring report the United Press fortnight ago announced the name of the new president of the Laotian National Assembly. Bangkok and Hong Kong newspapers printed the story on their front pages, and a TIME correspondent picked it up (TIME, June 2). But the story was wrong. The president was not Prince Souphanouvong, leader of the Red-lining Patriotic Front, which last month gained control of 21 of the Assembly's 59 seats. It was instead 47-year-old Pheng Phongsavan, who has been president since 1956 and was re-elected to his third one-year term. If the names sounded a little alike, there was a world of difference in their politics.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.