The U.S. Parade

Five royal army soldiers who had just escaped from the Pathet Lao reported last week that the Communists' prize exhibit for impressing villagers these days is a group of three captured Americans. They are shuttled from town to town and paraded through the streets, roped together with their hands tied behind their backs. The Laotians said they had seen the graves of two more Americans in a small village near the Plaine des Jarres.

The Pentagon confirmed that the story was all too probable. Four U.S. soldiers stationed with the Laotian army as PEO military advisers were lost when the Pathet Lao overran Vang Vieng ten weeks ago. Also missing are three helicopter crewmen and an NBC photographer who went down in a crash behind enemy lines and a Long Island contractor who disappeared on a hunting trip.

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