LAOS: Welcome in Beauty

In their own fashion, Laotians last week gave a red-carpet welcome to the fact-finding subcommittee sent by the U.N. Security Council to determine formally whether Laos is a victim of foreign Communist aggression. There were no military bands, no spotless guard of honor, no protocol-wise assemblage of local diplomats. Instead, hundreds of lissome girls wearing flowing silk scarves and brilliant sarongs trimmed with gold appeared at the airport bearing silver bowls of flowers. It was the traditional Laotian "welcome in beauty," which requires that the wisest and most beautiful girls of a...

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