Much for Little

The U.S. is not the only nation to find Laos a baffling place.

Only a week after he arrived amid elaborate ceremonies as the first Russian en voy to Laos, Ambassador Aleksandr Abramov sat in shirtsleeves in a seedy hotel room in Vientiane and fumed. King Savang Vatthana had pointedly declined to invite him to present his credentials. Neutralist Premier Prince Souvanna Phouma canceled the important bad ceremony, in which Buddhist priests were to tie a lucky string around Abramov's wrist. And Souvanna announced the "technical arrest" of Paratroop Captain Kong Le, Vientiane's military boss, on the ground that the expansive reception he staged for Abramov had been unauthorized. Souvanna did not go to the un-Laotian extreme of actually putting Kong Le in custody, but he explained that the arrest would go down as a "black mark" on the captain's record.

Basic Feeling. These gentle snubs to Russia had a soundly practical motive. The $1,500,000 government payroll for September was way overdue. The money as usual had to come from the U.S., and the U.S. had been annoyed at Souvanna Phouma's flirting with the Communists. Last week, in the somewhat more promising atmosphere, the U.S. announced that the payroll would be met. Prince Souvanna responded by publishing a National Assembly resolution declaring that "within the country, Laos rejects and combats Communism as incompatible with its religion, traditions and the basic feelings of the Laotian people."

That left Laos about where it has been since 1954--a wobbly stake in the free world's fence against world Communism. Under the Geneva agreement ending the Indo-China war, Red China and North Viet Nam both guaranteed Laos' independence; the Communist Pathet Lao guerrillas in the north were supposed to lay down their arms. Stoked by the Communist Viet Minh from across the border, civil war has flickered for six years, and none of the varying parade of neutralist and anti-Communist Premiers in Laos has been able to put it down.

Pay & Patriotism. The U.S. has spent more than $300 million trying to shore up Laos and to make it a bastion of antiCommunist strength. In few areas of the world has the U.S. spent so much for so little. Laotians happily joined the army, now 28,000 strong, but it soon became clear that the attraction was not patriotism but the pay, which amounts to roughly triple the amount an average Laotian makes farming or growing opium, the country's only cash crop. Economic aid largely disappeared in graft among Vientiane's ruling politicians, mostly related to one another, who alternate between government office and vacations on the French Riviera. Despite the U.S.'s best efforts, the main highway out of Vientiane is still paved only as far as the tennis court of a former defense minister, eight miles out of town. There is one railroad station but no railroad. Many of the primitive Meo and Black Thai tribesmen in the back country are not even aware that a nation called Laos exists.

Last week's resumption of aid amounted to recognition of the fact that Prince Souvanna has the only government in sight. The U.S. hopes to strengthen his hand in negotiating with the Pathet Lao. But the negotiators only meet on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. In Laos no one is in a hurry.

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