JUST five weeks after they plunged confidently into the jungles of Laos, the best troops of South Viet Nam were engaged last week in a perilous and bloody battle to get out. Whether Operation Lam Son 719, as the Laotian invasion is officially called, could be judged a success or a setback was still a matter of considerable debate (see box next page). Beyond debate, however, was the fact that some units of the South Vietnamese army (ARVN) had been badly cut up in the fighting, and that North Viet Nam seemed ready and...
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