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Five years ago, the valley was deserted; now American money and officials have created a town of 40,000 people dedicated to war. We saw Americans in civilian clothes working on aircraft engines, taxiing unmarked T-28 fighter-bombers up and down the runway and teaching Asians the art of engine maintenance. Although Asians—presumably Laotians and Thais—fly the T-28s, Americans fly rescue helicopters bearing U.S. markings, one of which always has its rotors turning in readiness for a rescue mission. As we watched, U.S. aircraft took ofl and landed at 60-second intervals.
At last we were discovered. An angry Laotian colonel ordered us into his Jeep. Soon afterward a khaki-clad CIA man appeared, seized the French correspondent's notebooks, then left to make arrangements for our departure.
Finally, a light aircraft arrived bearing a USIS man who was crimson with rage. He told us the ride back was going to cost us $450—a method chosen by the U.S. embassy to fine journalists who stray from the official path.
Fallback Base. Would there be an all-out attack on Long Cheng? No one really knew—but Americans were preparing a fallback position farther south. There are at least three months of the dry season left, and in previous years the Communists have waited until early spring to mount their offensives.
Tactical considerations aside, the basic question seemed to be one of Hanoi's intentions. The reconquest of the Plain was expected, partly because it gives the North Vietnamese a greater buffer around their own frontier, partly to protect the Ho Chi Minh Trail complex, which fuels the war in South Viet Nam. Official Saigon sources say, in fact, that there is more North Vietnamese traffic along those trails now than at any time during the war. To counter it, the U.S. has launched the most concentrated B-52 raids ever directed against the area. The raids, together with the unprecedented use of B-52s near the Plain of Jars and the influx of U.S. advisers and CIA agents, prompted a warning from Hanoi last week. Complaining of the use of "bombardiers stratégiques B-52" and the introduction "des spooky," the North Vietnamese said: "The American imperialists and their valets in Laos must be held responsible for the consequences following their intensification of the war."
Less Than Candid. One reason for the increased interest in Laos was the relative quiet in South Viet Nam. Officials called it a lull, even though 666 Americans and 2,461 South Vietnamese troops have died in Viet Nam in the first eight weeks of the year (compared with 1,380 Americans and 1,725 South Vietnamese in the same period last year). While those figures reflected a far hotter war than the current skirmishing across the border, what worried U.S. politicians most deeply was the growing scope and secrecy of the American involvement in Laos.