Laos: Detailing the Commitment

FOR weeks, the White House publicly ignored the mounting concern and criticism over the U.S. role in Laos. Last week, amid congressional warnings that the nation might be slipping into another Viet Nam situation, the Administration decided to strip a good deal of the secrecy from its operation in Laos. At Richard Nixon's Key Biscayne hideaway, newsmen were handed a six-page, 3,000-word presidential statement that spelled out in detail for the first time the extent of America's involvement in the divided Southeast Asian country. The key points made in the statement and in a briefing by a White House official after it was released:

GROUND TROOPS. "There are no American ground combat troops in Laos. We have no plans for introducing ground combat forces." If the White House develops such plans, Congress would be asked to approve the move.

AIR SUPPORT: Though B-52s have been bombing the Ho Chi Minh Trail in eastern Laos for four years, there has been only one B-52 raid over the Plain of Jars, intended primarily to warn the Communists against carrying their latest offensive too far.

U.S. CASUALTIES: According to the President, "No American stationed in Laos has ever been killed in ground combat operations." But over the past six years, more than 400 American airmen, most of them stationed outside Laos, have been lost over the little country; roughly 200 are known to be dead, and the balance are listed as missing or captured.

U.S. REINFORCEMENTS: There has been no increase in American personnel over the past year, the statement said. Today there are 616 Americans directly employed in Laos by the U.S. Government and another 424 U.S. contract employees. But North Viet Nam, the President continued, has sent an additional 13,000 combat troops over the past several months, for a total of 67,000.

Policy Puzzle. Numbers, numbers, numbers--but is there any safety in them? Nixon's statement went a long way toward dispelling the notion that the U.S. was moving secretly toward a new Viet Nam. But it also made clear that the U.S. has no clear-cut objectives in Laos except, in the President's words, "to protect American lives in Viet Nam and to preserve a precarious but important balance in Laos." An uneasy balance had been maintained from July 1962 until last fall, when Laotian government troops surprised themselves and most observers by pushing the North Vietnamese and their Pathet Lao allies off the strategic Plain of Jars. Last month the Communists struck back, and what worries many U.S. officials is that they might go on to attack hitherto sacrosanct Laotian government positions south and west of the Plain.

If they do, how will the U.S. respond? That, and not the secrecy of the U.S. role, is the crucial issue, and it is one that has policymakers most concerned. Nixon was silent on this point. Heavier bombing is one possible riposte, but air attacks have done little to slow the enemy so far. Ground troops are out of the question. For the time being, therefore, Nixon is trying diplomatic means. Last week he sent a letter off to Britain's Harold Wilson and the Soviet Union's Aleksei Kosygin, co-chairmen of the 1962 Geneva Conference, urging them to fulfill their responsibility for seeing that its accords are honored.

Greater Heed. Realistically, the chances of gaining Soviet cooperation are slim. Wilson has already approached the Soviets on several occasions to seek just such help: each time he has been rebuffed. Asked why the White House felt that things might now change, an official in Key Biscayne said that Moscow might pay greater heed to a direct appeal from Nixon himself. He admitted, however, that there was no reason to expect any particular response at all from Moscow. A snub would shrink the list of policy options still further. Some officials, despairing of finding a more suitable course, are even discussing the possibility of resuming the bombing of North Viet Nam. But few moves would so surely arouse the currently dormant peace movement in the U.S.

In Vientiane, Premier Souvanna Phouma did his best to play down the effect of the U.S. admission that it had broken the Geneva accords, since North Viet Nam has never publicly admitted its own deep involvement. Souvanna also discounted the latest military reverses. "In my opinion," he said, "the situation is not alarming. It is not necessary to believe that because we lost the Plain of Jars, tomorrow the North Vietnamese will be in Vientiane and Laos will be conquered." The U.S. bombing in Laos will stop, Souvanna added, only when North Viet Nam pulls its troops out of Laos.

Such a withdrawal is unlikely as long as the Viet Nam War continues. In Washington, nevertheless, some Senators found reasons for optimism in Nixon's bid to Wilson and Kosygin. Maryland Republican Charles Mathias, a critic of the Laos effort, said the Nixon initiative "may well open up broad opportunities for peace throughout Southeast Asia." South Dakota's Democratic Senator George McGovern said Nixon's action could spare the U.S. from another ground war. Yet another longtime critic was less sanguine. Nixon's statement, said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman J.W. Fulbright, "does not encourage me as to the prospects for a Viet Nam peace." More unsettling was the initial Soviet reaction. Tass, the official Soviet news agency, commented sourly that Nixon's statements had "satisfied nobody." It seemed clear that Moscow was in no hurry to help the U.S. cool down the situation. The Communist side now holds the initiative in Laos. To keep the peace there, the U.S., ironically, is dependent on how the foe behaves.

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