Bogged Down

The prince on whom the U.S. had pinned its hopes for an early peace in Laos flew off instead on a trip around the world.

Only a fortnight ago, Neutralist Prince Souvanna Phouma agreed with a delegation from the royal pro-Western government that the thing to do was get a neutral nations commission into Laos to stop the fighting. But last week, in one of the unpredictable twirls that make him a baffling puzzle to East and West alike. Prince Souvanna repudiated the whole idea, blithely boarded a plane for Rangoon, Peking, Moscow, London and Paris (and hoping for a Washington invitation).

On his trip, Prince Souvanna will plug the plan he now favors -- a 14-nation Geneva-style conference. In the U.S. view, the chief disadvantage of that scheme, apart from the fact that Red China would be in it and able to use it as a propaganda forum on all manner of topics, is that the conference might drag on interminably, while the determined Communist Pathet Lao gained an advantage in the fighting.

Disappointed in Prince Souvanna. the U.S. sent in 100 more U.S. guerrilla warfare experts to Laos, almost doubling the band of U.S. soldiers in mufti assigned to teach the Laotian army how to fight. Diplomats on the scene confided that a new and large flow of U.S. arms will soon be on the way.

"All we have to do now,'' said a U.S. official optimistically, "is make the Laotian army fight." It was a tall order, and with the monsoons coming on. the likelier prospect was for a long and muddy stalemate.

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