Southeast Asia: A Losing Proposition

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The West's maneuvers to counter the disintegration in Laos last week were largely diplomatic. In London, British Foreign Secretary Lord Home called on Russia—co-administrator with Britain of the Geneva accords—to sign a joint appeal that the feuding forces in Laos end their fighting. Fearful that such peace talk would nudge Asian Communist revolutionaries still closer to rival Red China and its "hard line," Russia refused, unless the statement specifically blamed the U.S. for undermining the peace in Laos. Britain vetoed the suggestion.

President Kennedy hustled Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Averell Harriman, who had hammered out the basic format for the Geneva Agreement last summer, to Moscow to urge on Khrushchev the need for Russian intercession in Laos. "We regard the maintenance of the Geneva accords as essential to the security of Laos itself," said Kennedy, "and as a test of whether it is possible for an accord to be reached between countries which have serious differences." In Moscow, Harriman was received coolly; only a junior protocol officer was at the airport to meet him. When he got to the Kremlin, he found Khrushchev more than happy to give vague endorsement of the Geneva accords, but less than willing to take any concrete action to stop the fighting in the Plain of Jars.*

The Road Builders. As the diplomats talked, the Pentagon was quietly flexing its muscles. Units of the U.S. Seventh Fleet began cruising in the South China Sea, and though the move had been planned for months, Washington picked last week to announce that two combat-ready battle groups would soon move into Thailand to take part in next month's full-scale SEATO battle maneuvers. It was reminiscent of the crash buildup of troop strength in Thailand just a year ago, when the last serious flare-up in Laos took place. Left behind when these troops were withdrawn were enough trucks, tanks and personnel carriers to equip a third battle group that might be needed in the event of emergency.

Apart from the combat troops, some 2,600 other U.S. military personnel—chiefly engineers and signal troops—are in Thailand. Near the Laotian border, a U.S. Army construction battalion is nearing completion of an all-weather jet airstrip.

At a meeting with top U.S. aides in Bangkok, Admiral Harry D. Felt, commander of all U.S. forces in the Pacific, discussed contingency plans in the event that the Pathet Lao moves off the Plain of Jars into the Mekong River valley. The U.S. is not committed to put troops into Laos, and the military is not enthusiastic about the prospect of fighting there, for the lack of airfields, railroads and good roads would make it tough to sustain operations. But if the Pathet Lao showed an inclination to sweep all the way south, the U.S. forces in Thailand might well have to move across the Mekong and occupy the Laotian capital of Vientiane and other strategic points in the valley.

Meanwhile in Laos itself, a lull had settled over the battlefield.