Evil Spirits on the Plain

Just a year after the Geneva agreement consolidated Laos' three warring factions into a single government, the precarious arrangement is falling apart. Reason: the Communists are simply ignoring the truce, as well as their longtime alliance with Neutralist Premier Souvanna Phouma, and are seeking to wrest control of the vital Plain of Jars in central Laos from neutralist troops. Though at first suspicious of the neutralist regime, Rightist General Phoumi Nosavan sent four battalions to help it. Despite such assistance, the neutralist forces under General Kong Le have only one strategic position left on the plain -- Phou Theneng mountain and its foothills. Last week the Communist Pathet Lao opened a heavy artillery barrage on Kong Le's position.

"At first, the Communists were very good to us and gave us supplies," says the little general. "But now I know the Pathet Lao are not fighting for Laos but for Communism. We do not want Laos to be controlled by anyone, not the Communists or the Americans.

" Old Battle Scar. In his olive-drab headquarters tent on the Plain of Jars, wearing a T shirt, a pair of Levi's and rubber bath shoes, Kong Le perches on a stool morosely studying a map beneath the light of a swaying hurricane lamp. The picture is discouraging: the Pathet Lao are advancing in the Vang Vieng area, 13 neutralist soldiers are missing after an action at Ban Boua, a 100-truck Red supply convoy from North Viet Nam arrived at the Pathet Lao headquarters at Khang Khay. At such news, Kong Le is apt to wince, rub an old battle scar on his forehead and say: "My head hurts." Then he usually takes some pills, and a bodyguard treats his shoulder with Vicks ointment.

While the neutralists are increasingly "neutral" against the Reds, Premier Souvanna Phouma continues to insist on a defensive war, is reluctant to take the initiative. "What can I do?" muses Kong Le despondently. "The Premier is always telling me I must not attack. It is very difficult."

Locked Briefcases. Kong Le is a magnet for some of the most idealistic men in Laos. Short (5 ft. 1 in., 115 Ibs.), quiet and good-natured, he neither drinks, smokes nor gambles and is fanatic about health, honesty and cleanliness. He shares common Laotian superstitions, such as wearing a "magic" ring and a wrist amulet to placate the phi (spirits, evil or otherwise). Without personal ambition, Kong Le says that "when Laos is free," he will go home to his village and become a farmer.

In the field, he shares his tent with three officers and four enlisted men. They mess together around a campfire, sing sad Laotian songs or dance the graceful lamvong, while Kong Le, holding two pet hamsters in his lap, looks on. His possessions are few: a desk, a footlocker, a transistor radio (gift from the U.S. ambassador), and five locked briefcases, which he keeps under his bunk. Occasionally he unlocks one to take out not confidential papers but a handkerchief and a pair of socks, and then carefully relocks it.

While admitting his leadership qualities, Western observers are often depressed by Kong Le's Laotian indifference to discipline and logistics. Although supplies are airlifted to the neutralists by five U.S.-loaned C-46s from Vientiane, trucks and Jeeps break down for lack of parts. Ammunition dumps are left unguarded and open to weather. Neutralist officers talk to each other "in the clear" on field radios, leave marked maps lying around, and drive at night with headlights blazing. The supply system is so haphazard that often one unit overflows with rice rations but lacks bullets, while another is loaded with munitions but starves. None of the neutralist troops have been paid in almost a year. Says Kong Le: "My men are tired, but their morale is high, and they still have the will to fight."

Long Silence. They demonstrated that will, in a Laotian way, just two ridges beyond Kong Le's headquarters. Over the velvety landscape and through soft summer rain rolled two tanks and an armored car crowded with neutralist soldiers. Their objective was a Pathet Lao artillery emplacement on top of a steep, conical hill. As the tanks chugged up the first rise, a herd of wild ponies stampeded away from them. One tank and the armored car soon halted, but the second tank labored upward, followed by a skirmish line of scrambling soldiers. Moments later, the Pathet Lao gun flashed, and the tank fired back. Both missed. It soon became evident that the Communist gun could not be depressed sufficiently to get the tank in its sights. Even so, both sides fired futilely for two hours. Then the tank rumbled around a side of the hill, and the neutralist soldiers vanished among the trees.

A long silence followed. The pale sun shone through showers, and a rainbow briefly appeared over the purple mountains. Two of the wild ponies returned and began grazing. The battle simply blurred into the general drift of events in Laos.

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