Into Washington came a cry for succor from a kingdom even more distant than Jordan. The supplicant: the royal government of Laos, whose small territory is bordered on the north by Red China, on the northeast by Communist North Viet Nam. Laos' plea: the U.S., along with Brit ain and France, should reaffirm its support of the Laos government against Communist pressure—particularly from the two Communist-controlled provinces in northeastern Laos. Reason: under the terms of the 1954 Geneva agreement which ended the Indo-China War, the two Red provinces were to have been reintegrated with the mother country.
Instead, charged independent Laos, the...