Shaky Troika

The small room in the house on stilts was blue with cigar smoke as the three princes and the general argued the final details. Slovenly soldiers of all three factions loitered on the porch, sometimes poked their heads curiously through the glassless windows. Below, amid mud puddles and stray dogs, newsmen scrambled for vantage points.

Minutes after 3 p.m.. the meeting broke up. Prince Souvanna Phouma strode out onto the porch, gave the railing a resounding slap. "Voila!" he cried. "Le gouvernement!" Soldiers of the three armies broke into cheers, and TV cameramen shouted for a word in English. Beaming. Souvanna replied: "I cannot speak English. I can only say--it is all O.K.'' Souvanna's enthusiasm was shared in Moscow. Nikita Khrushchev fired off a cable to President John Kennedy hailing the creation of a neutral Laotian government as "good news" in the "cause of strengthening peace in Southeast Asia." In Washington the mood was appropriately cooler. Kennedy replied that settlement of the Laos problem was a "milestone," but added warily that it was "important that no untoward actions anywhere" interrupt the progress already made.

Split Portfolios. What was finally achieved at the house on stilts in the Plaine des Jarres last week was the most shaky of coalition governments. At the last moment, accord nearly broke down when Red Prince Souphanouvong began wrangling with his old enemy, General Phoumi Nosavan, about the division of Cabinet posts. In a rare outburst of anger at his halfbrother, Souvanna shouted at Souphanouvong: "You go sort it out with Phoumi and come back when you agree.

If you don't agree, don't come back." In taking office as Premier. Souvanna will name Red Prince Souphanouvong and General Phoumi as Vice Premiers, and all three have agreed that major issues must be decided by a unanimous vote--a kind of Laotian troika. Four Cabinet posts (including Economics and Information) go to the Communists, and four others (including Finance and Education) to Phoumi's antiCommunists. Phoumi's longtime ally. Prince Boun Oum. will resign as Premier and retire from active politics to his meaningless lifetime post as Inspector General of the realm. The remaining eleven Cabinet posts go to Souvanna and his neutralist supporters.

The most important and the most left-wing of these neutralists is Foreign Minister Quinim Pholsena, a bookseller and politician who nurses a grudge against the U.S.. both for the previous machinations of the CIA and for alleged slights at the hands of U.S. diplomats. Quinim has the potential of developing into a Laotian Krishna Menon. but last week he was acting his affable best, assuring newsmen that the new Laos was happy to accept aid "without conditions" from East and West. Washington was swift to make its contribution: the payment of $3,000,000 a month to the Laos government--suspended last February to help force Phoumi into the coalition--was resumed.

Minded Store. The other neutralist ministers range politically from liberal to far right, including some who are as determinedly anti-Communist as General Phoumi himself. Biggest problem ahead is how to integrate the three rival armies: 1 ) Phoumi's 60,000 Royal Laotian troops, 2) Souphanouvong's 15,000 Communist Pathet Lao and 3) Captain Kong Le's 5,000 "neutralist" paratroops. Souvanna hopes to reduce the swollen army to the size of a national police force and to use the discharged troops in such public works as building roads, schools and dispensaries.

With the exception of a limited number of authorized French military instructors, all foreign troops in Laos--750 U.S. military "advisers." some 10,000 North Vietnamese Communists, a handful of Russian pilots --are to leave the country within 75 days through border posts controlled by the International Control Commission (India, Canada. Poland). Everyone doubts that the North Vietnamese will really give up the important strong points at Mahaxay and Tchepone, which control the supply route by which weapons and reinforcements filter to the Communist guerrillas in South Viet Nam.

The first real test of Communist intentions may come next week, when Premier Souvanna Phouma flies to Paris for the marriage of his daughter, and Vice Premier Phoumi Nosavan is slated to lead a delegation to Switzerland for the formal signing of the Geneva draft agreement reached at the 14-nation conference last December. This would leave Red Prince Souphanouvong at home to mind the store, since as Vice Premier he would become acting head of government. Souphanouvong last week fumed at the 5.000 U.S. troops in northern Thailand, whose presence had clearly helped persuade him to accept the coalition deal in Laos. The U.S. forces, he grumbled, "are going to support the reactionaries in order to sow troubles and provocations upon our land." Washington's cool reply: the troops will stay where they are.

As Washington sees it, Souvanna's neutralist government represents the most palatable of several ugly alternatives. The U.S. has tried to defeat the Reds in Laos by arming and training General Phoumi's army--but Phoumi failed. The Pentagon remains reluctant to commit U.S. armed forces to a landlocked, roadless and rugged terrain for an endless guerrilla war against Communists from China and North Viet Nam. Souvanna may well suffer the fate of other non-Communist leaders who have tried to govern in conjunction with the Reds and have lost their countries to Communist subversion.

But each day that Souvanna survives represents a clear gain for the U.S. And should he be toppled by a Red coup, U.S. troops are already in position in neighboring Thailand to secure both banks of the vital Mekong valley.

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