It seemed clear last week that the 19605 were going to be as bad a decade for civilian-led parliamentary democracy in Southeast Asia as the 19505, when the military took over the governments in Pakistan, Thailand and Burma. The first to go in the new year was tiny, landlocked Laos, which has been wrestling for years with corruption, chaos and Communism—and an amiable indifference to all three. Invaded by Red bands from Communist North Viet Nam last summer (TIME, Aug. 24), Laos was narrowly saved from collapse by quick action in the United Nations, which sent a team of...
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