THE LESSON OF LAOS

...The developments that loom in the offing threaten to have far-reaching and deleterious consequences for the United States position in Southeast Asia...

...It was clear that there were major differences among the allies as to what action might be "appropriate" in the given circumstances...

...Yet, if this experience teaches, we can still count some gain...

...It was clear, however, that the episode had not gained world sympathy for that position...

...would in time testify: "/ struggled for sixteen months to prevent a coalition...

...The root cause of the present crisis was the Republican Administration's original inability to reconcile itself to the Communist half-victory in Indo-China...

...Former guerrillas took up arms again...

...We cannot have a viable and effective Asia policy until we learn how to align ourselves with the thinking and hopes of Asian peoples instead of with the ambitions of individual politicians maneuvering for power...

...There was no exception made for the benefit of the United States, although we were soon to play the game—and a dangerous one it was—of pretending we had a special permit to destroy Laos' neutrality...

...Sananikone naturally included no Neo Lao Haksat members in his cabinet, but undertook instead to eliminate the influence of the Left from government...

...He has written extensively on the Far East for a number of scholarly journals...

...An alert went out to American naval and air forces in the West Pacific...

...After extended efforts, the Lao Premier, Prince Souvanna Phouma, succeeded in reaching a partial settlement of outstanding issues with the Pathet Lao in November, 1957...

...Nevertheless, what counts in SEATO is not Thailand, ruled by Phoumi Nosavan's uncle, but the support of our NATO allies, Britain and France...

...Remarking that "the question of the Laotian government is, naturally, an internal affair of the Laotians themselves," it voiced its support for the government of Souvanna Phouma as the legitimate government of Laos...

...Proposals made in several international quarters (but not the United States) for settlement of the crisis centered on a proposal made earlier by Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia for an international conference, on the lines, but enlarged, of the 1954 Geneva meeting...

...Both the French training mission and the American military-aid mission, as already hinted, would probably be called upon to quit the Laotian scene...

...As on the previous occasion, the United States took instant alarm...

...Asia has come of age...

...Where some American officials previously had reputedly feared that a coalition government might be captured by a Communist coup in the Czechoslovakian pattern, they were now confronted with the possibility that the Left, as represented by the Pathet Lao, might be able to gain control by constitutional processes...

...The Geneva settlement provided that Laos, in particular, might maintain strictly limited military relations with France, but stipulated that it was not to enter into any other military alliance and that, prior to the settlement of its political problems, it might not accept other foreign military assistance, whether in the form of arms, personnel, or military instructors...

...That force, headed by Kong Le, was pushed.out of the capital in mid-December and proceeded to join its strength with that of the Pathet Lao in northern Laos...

...expressed the hope that the parties would be able to reconcile their differences, that intervention from outside would cease, and that Laos would be enabled to enjoy an independent, neutral, and peaceful existence...

...The United States had by this time again deployed armed forces and had transported some military equipment to Thailand for possible use in Laos...

...The Kong LePathet Lao forces now control three provinces—Sam Neua, Phong Saly, and Xhieng Khouang...

...Vientiane does not want war, for, as the Minister of Education explained in his memorable January 26 interview, "If SEATO really came in there would be international war and this country would be a battleground...

...The Kennedy Administration strove valiantly to rally international support and save something from the burning...

...Those efforts were fruitless...

...However, one of the Pathet Lao battalions escaped the government trap and made its way back into the northern hill country which had earlier been the base for Pathet Lao guerrilla activity...

...Far worse, conditions in Laos are now rapidly developing to the advantage of the Communist bloc, with the result that our position throughout all Southeast Asia is being weakened...

...moreover, he announced that he intended to follow a genuinely neutralist policy in foreign affairs...

...The Lao Right, supported by the United States, gathered at Savannakhet in southern Laos...

...In the light of their previous experience, it cannot be expected that they would agree to the reunification of the country under one government before a settlement were reached and guaranteed at the conference...

...It was in those circumstances in January that the Democrats took over the Administration in Washington...

...The American influence grew correspondingly, and a first shipment of American arms was received in early 1959...

...The prospect was bleak...

...In a memorandum of March 23, the British informed Moscow they believed the Geneva conference should be recalled—and that they endorsed Prince Sihanouk's proposal that certain other nations should attend "as full members...

...Moreover, as our allies well know, we have been guilty of moral transgression in violating the neutrality of a nation protected by international agreement...

...While procedural questions held up the proposed conference, the Pathet Lao would be increasing their holdings...

...The British memorandum of March 23 had proposed that the two co-chairmen should issue a call for an immediate de facto cease-fire...

...It proposed inclusion of the members of the 1954 International Supervisory Commission (India, Poland, and Canada) and Laos' immediate neighbors and also proposed that the United States, which had occupied an ambivalent position regarding the 1954 conference, this time "should be urgently invited as a full participant...

...and Communist China) had undertaken to "refrain from any interference" in the internal affairs of the new states...

...Souvanna Phouma refused to bow to the American pressure...

...A cease-fire would, of course, leave Laos divided, as similar cease-fires resulted in division for Korea and Vietnam...

...The Phoumi Nosavan-Boun Oum party went to Vientiane and there was approved as the government of Laos by the Assembly born of the rigged April elections...

...The United States government was then working not for neutralism, but for the winning of fresh adherents to the system of military alliances being constructed to "contain" Communism...

...Forcible measures were taken in May, 1959, against the two Pathet Lao battalions that had resisted integration into the Royal Lao Army, and Pathet Lao leaders in Vientiane, the country's administrative capital, were placed under detention...

...We reluctantly attended the Geneva conference of 1954 that brought French rule in Indo-China to an end and provided for establishment of the independent states of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, but we strongly disapproved of both the proceedings and the "surrender" to the Communist Vietminh, and did not sign the final agreements...

...But he failed to form a cabinet, and was succeeded by the pro-American Phoui Sanani-kone...

...The Pathet Lao forces soon won substantial gains in their old stamping grounds, Sam Neua and Phong Saly provinces...

...The State Department, which earlier had reported that "substantial numbers" of foreign troops had parachuted into Laos from Soviet planes, showed no signs of being nonplussed: the American position, it said, had not been changed by 9 the revelations...

...Chiang Kai-shek long utilized the United States against his domestic enemies, the Chinese Communists, and now the Boun Oum government is patently employing us in a power game of Laotian domestic politics...

...neighboring Thailand laid down an economic blockade against Vientiane...

...On January 7, the State Department issued a White Paper calling upon the nations of the free world to rally to the aid of Laos...

...The issue of the disposition of two Pathet Lao bat-: talions remained, but it appeared that Laos was on the road to a government representative of all political factions, and neutral in the cold war struggle...

...The American as well as the French "presence" would then have been eliminated from still another sector of "the arc of free Asia...

...Those developments are, in major measure, of our own making, for they represent the costly consequences of years of short-sighted, blundering diplomacy...

...In Southeast Asia, SEATO had been formed in 1954 as a part of that grand design, and our efforts were directed at incorporating Laos as well as South Vietnam in the American sphere of influence...

...For years, the United States government has been manipulated by Asian politicians to serve their selfish ends...

...Communism is indeed a major factor in the Asian scene—but so is the general tide of revolutionary change, with its accompanying demands for political and economic advancement...

...and where the Neo Lao Haksat and the Neutralist Party had made an alarmingly good showing in 1958, now they won no seats at all...

...The Neo Lao Haksat (political arm of the Pathet Lao movement) and the fellow-traveling Neutralist Party won thirteen of the twenty-one contested seats in the National Assembly...

...SEATO met in emergency session...

...To learn that lesson, we must reflect on certain essentials...

...A complicated series of maneuvers ensued...

...The signatories of the Geneva accords (including the U.S.S.R...

...Bogged down by corruption and ineffectiveness, it showed itself incapable of dealing with the rebellion...

...The Soviet airlift of arms to Kong Le and the Pathet Lao rebels had begun just one week after the Phoumi Nosavan coup that drove Souvanna Phouma from Vientiane...

...Nobody really wants that...

...but again the United States intervened, using the leverage of its financial aid (on which the Royal Lao Army had become almost wholly dependent) in an effort to force him to join with Phoumi Nosavan and conservative Prince Boun Oum in an anti-Communist combination...

...What his government has wanted is to retain power vis-a-vis Prince Souvanna Phouma...

...Any settlement which could win approval of the proposed international conference would fall in the pattern of Souvanna Phouma's position rather than Phoumi Nosavan's...

...It is beyond dispute that both the Soviet Union and China aim at expanding their influence in Southeast Asia...

...At the turn of the year, a new cry of "Wolfl" went up in Vientiane, with Boun Oum's regime charging that some six battalions of Vietnamese and other foreign forces had invaded the country...

...That result reflected no growing strength of the government, for the elections, it was evident, had been rigged...

...We did no more than promise not to overturn those agreements by the use of threat of force...

...The people remain...

...In April, 1960, the government held elections...

...And, he began negotiating for Soviet aid...

...in 1954 they held only the first two...

...It is unlikely that they would be content today with the modest share for which they might have been ready to settle in 1958...

...Asian peoples, even as Americans, are naturally interested in their own national security, as well as in political independence and economic progress...

...And Laos, even so, might continue divided...

...The Vientiane regime now had a civil war on its hands...

...In that game, we faced a change in tactics on the part of Moscow...

...A move was not long in coming...

...The Chinese even have a phrase for the stratagem: "Use barbarians to control barbarians...

...On January 11, President de Gaulle of France gave his approval...

...Where it had patently been hoped in Washington that an agreement could be reached for a strong united stand in favor of military action, if need be, against the Soviet-supported Laotian forces, the SEATO communique threatened only "appropriate" action if peace and a political settlement were not brought to Laos...

...A new tactical approach to one type of revolutionary situation had been spelled out plainly, for all to read, in the December 6 statement of eighty-one Communist parties in Moscow: "The Communist parties . . . have always been against the export of revolution...

...In July, Premier Souvanna Phouma discharged the International Supervisory Commission which had been set up at Geneva to oversee implementation of the political agreements, and he resigned with the aim of forming a new cabinet without representatives of the Neo Lao Haksat...

...two aircraft carriers and a unit of United States Marines were dispatched at once to the South China Sea...

...Souvanna Phouma negotiated with the King, the Pathet Lao, and right-wing General Phoumi Nosavan, nephew of Premier Sarit Thanarat of Thailand, and strong man behind the ousted pro-American government...

...The cause of international Communism, which the United States viewed itself as combating, will probably be substantially advanced by the Laotian development...

...The French, for their part, were about to embark upon the delicate and vital task of negotiating a settlement of the Algerian problem...

...Emphasis added) The gloomy estimate was soon borne out by events...

...A news dispatch from Vientiane to the New York Times November 20 gave an estimate of the significance of current developments: "British, French, and other foreign diplomats here . . . said that support for General Phoumi Nosavan from the United States has thrust Premier Souvanna Phouma into the waiting arms of the Communists...

...The question of Laos had become bigger than Laos: it had been internationalized...

...For there are deadly parallels in our postwar actions in China, South Korea, Formosa, Vietnam, and now Laos, that are indicative of fundamental faults in our strategy toward Asia...

...Laos, by that concept, would have constituted a neutral buffer state between Thailand on the west and Communist North Vietnam on the east...

...This ran contrary to the will of the United States...

...Souvanna Phouma's aim was to restore the coalition that had been shattered in 1958...

...They have no naive yearnings for Communism as such—and they have a conviction that they know as well as the United States, if not better, how to meet some of their domestic political problems...

...The proposed political settlement envisaged the integration of all citizens, including the Communist-influenced military force, Pathet Lao, into the national community...

...There was no longer coalition in Laos, but once more polarization into Right and Left...

...They had inherited a weak hand to play in a complicated game...

...The March 17 communique of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers conference in London set forth the Commonwealth opinion: "The Prime Ministers...

...They now command more effective strength than does the American-supported Boun Oum regime at Vientiane...

...Fragile Flower Moscow had approved the Cambodian proposal promptly, and enthusiastically...

...Souvanna Phouma continued his own efforts to find a domestic solution...

...The political opposition, if it would make its weight felt, had been left no other recourse than the force of arms...

...The Premier and most of his cabinet withdrew from Vientiane to neighboring Cambodia December 9. A Soviet airlift of supplies to the loyalist military force in Vientiane began shortly afterwards...

...The United States has heretofore been making its ties with "anti-Communists," who often turn out to be corrupt and ineffective time-servers almost entirely detached from the sentiments of their respective nations, instead of formulating its policies on the basis of consideration of those deeper Asian aspirations manifested by such representative governments as those of Burma and India...

...Secretary of State Dean Rusk went to the SEATO conference at Bangkok at the end of March to the accompaniment of declarations that we intended to stand firm against aggression in Laos...

...Foreign Service In A»la for two decades and for a time as director of the Office of Chinese Affairs in the State Department...

...The political aspect of Laos changed radically with the holding of elections in May, 1958...

...The young parachutist, Captain Kong Le, in August, 1960, staged a coup in Vientiane and ousted the pro-American government...

...In a reply April 1, the Soviet Union agreed to the call for a cease-fire, to the reactivation of the International Supervisory Commission, and to an international conference...

...The United States had invested more than two billion dollars in support of the French in the colonial war of 1946-54, but the war was lost...

...We have invested more than $300,000,000 in "anti-Communism" in Laos, only to lose...

...The problems to be dealt with by the proposed conference are complex and difficult...

...In September, 1959, the Vientiane government charged that it was being invaded from North Vietnam and tried to get the services of a United Nations task force for use against the rebels—but it failed to prove the alleged invasion and got no help...

...Peking endorsed it fully...

...Britain and the Soviet Union had been co-chairmen of the Geneva conference, and London was now negotiating with Moscow regarding the situation in Laos...

...The American Ambassador to Laos, J. Graham Parsons, O. EDMUND CLUBB served ai an officer in the U.S...

...At the same time, they fight resolutely against imperialist export of counter-revolution...

...The Pathet Lao gains will have an important impact on the situation in neighboring South Vietnam, where corruption in the capital and a growing Communist guerrilla movement in the countryside have combined to create a political situation similar to that which existed in northern Vietnam at the time of the struggle between the Vietminh and the French...

...There is a lesson to be learned from Laos...

...Writing in Le Monde Diplomatique for February, 1961, Souvanna Phouma has described what followed: "Under the pressure of the United States, the policy of strict neutrality was abandoned and replaced by the taking of a position sharply pro-American...

...The British government, following its established working principle, would give the utmost consideration to New Delhi's attitude regarding a matter so intimately related to India's position in South Asia...

...Those demands have deeper roots than any inherent urge toward "international Communism...

...Souvanna Phouma still continued in his course...

...The Pathet Lao gave up control of two provinces and was given two insignificant cabinet posts...

...Bangkok and Manila can be expected to affirm again that their faith in SEATO has been misplaced: the inherent inability of SEATO to deal with a revolutionary political problem such as that of Laos will have been re-emphasized...

...Britain was working for re-activation of the 1954 International Supervisory Commission, but the British position regarding a Southeast Asian matter had finally to be a Commonwealth position...

...On November 11, right-wing forces seized the royal capital of Luang Prabang...

...The development of the case was overtaken by the extraordinary revelation by Lao Minister of Education Nhouy Abhay in a press conference January 26 (attended by Prince Boun Oum) that Vientiane's charges of aggression had been manufactured out of whole cloth for the simple purpose of demonstrating to the Laotian people that the regime enjoyed foreign support...

...The politicians in due course pass on to their respective rewards...

...By the end of January, the situation in Laos had badly deteriorated, for the Soviet intervention had by then become a major factor in the power equation...

...On March 15, Souvanna Phouma left Cambodia to visit various world capitals in a quest for a solution of the Laotian crisis...

...Souvanna Phouma returned to power by the sanction of King Savang Vatthana and organized May, 1961 a middle-of-the-road cabinet...

...On November 20, he announced that he had signed a preliminary agreement with the Pathet Lao...

...There were now two governments in Laos...

...And at any conference, it appeared, the United States would be found negotiating from a position resting upon the Boun Oum government's weakness against both the Sino-Soviet axis and the Asian "neutralists...

...In effect, any American efforts to tip a revolutionary situation in favor of the United States by throwing in aid would be met by counter-measures from the Communist side...