For nearly a year a lackadaisical honor guard of green-clad Communist sentries lounged around a moldering villa on the banks of the Mekong River in the lotusland Laotian capital of Vientiane. In their spare time, which was ample, the guards planted turnips and lettuce in a tiny garden.
While the turnips and lettuce waxed luxuriant, the man the Communist sentries were assigned to protect was up to other matters. Bronze-skinned, mustachioed Prince Souphanouvong, leader of the Communist-controlled Pathet Lao forces which occupy the northeastern Laotian provinces of Samneua and Phongsaly, was determined...
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