Conferences: The Euphoric East

Seldom had the West looked so foolish and frustrated as did the foreign ministers gathered in Geneva last week to settle the fate of backward little Laos.

On the big day the 14-nation* conference was supposed to get going, the man who proposed it, Cambodia's Prince Norodom Sihanouk, had not shown up (but agreed, after some pleading, to come later). As for the Laotians, the Communist side sent two delegations—one headed by a veteran guerrilla representing the Pathet Lao, the other by a onetime Vientiane bookseller who was standing in for self-styled "neutralist''...

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