LAOS: Under Advisement

In jungle-girt Vientiane last week, the U.N. subcommittee set up to investigate Communist aggression in Laos was winding up its work. This week the members of the U.N. team are expected to fly back to Manhattan to present their findings to the Security Council.

In their four weeks in Laos, the U.N. fact finders had been exposed to ample but always indirect evidence that Communist North Viet Nam was behind the attempts to overthrow the pro-Western Laotian government of Premier Phoui Sananikone. The fact finders had traveled to jungle outposts that still bore the marks of Communist mortar fragments and had interviewed hundreds of refugees who had fled the Communists; most convincing of all, they had examined captured weapons and uniforms that clearly originated across the border in North Viet Nam. But at the last minute, the Laotians had decided against presenting to the fact finders their "six North Vietnamese prisoners." The reason: the men admittedly had not been captured in battle but had deserted.

What of the future? Said a Western diplomat: "The Communists have merely executed a classic Red maneuver—they probed and then recoiled before brisk U.N. action. A few months from now when things quiet down, they will start to probe again." A possible way to forestall future Red probes and one that may be recommended to the Security Council by the fact finders: establishment of a permanent U.N. watchdog team in Laos.