(3 of 9)
Dapper as usual in a linen suit, pearl stickpin and black rubbers to fend off the monsoon mud, Souphanouvong was in a well-tailored snit. He greeted his guests with indignant demands for an immediate full-dress conference of the 14 Geneva agreement signatories who had guaranteed Laotian neutrality two years ago. Such a meeting could only confirm the status quo for the Pathet Lao, who have grabbed a lot of territory in recent weeks, and Neutralist Souvanna at U.S. urging had refused any new Geneva-level conference unless the Pathet Lao first withdrew from the Plain of Jars. As Souphanouvong argued his case, the thump of antiaircraft guns sounded in the distance, followed by the whine of aircraft engines. Diplomats ducked nervously as Laotian T-28s laid bombs on target near by, then wheeled back toward Vientiane.
"Now America has entered the war by sending planes," shrilled Souphanouvong's information minister. Having made his protest, Souphanouvong returned, at least for the present, to his favorite hobby—writing poetry.
With Souvanna's agreement, the U.S. meanwhile announced that it would continue to fly reconnaissance missions when necessary for Kong Le's army, and would retaliate against any guns that fire at its planes. To that end, the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Constellation was cruising in the South China Sea off South Viet Nam, some 250 miles from the Plain of Jars. The question that remained in everyone's mind was whether the U.S. would intervene with airpower only when provoked, or whether the jet strikes presaged a willingness to carry the air war in Laos further.
Not that the U.S. particularly wants to be in Laos, any more than it wants to be in the rest of what used to be Indo-China. But the vacuum left by the French collapse a decade ago forced the U.S. to assume responsibility for the area. Laos is less important strategically than its Vietnamese neighbor; the country could fall to the Communists without necessarily making the situation in South Viet Nam much worse, while the fall of South Viet Nam inevitably would also mean the fall of Laos. But if the U.S. could deny the implausible little kingdom to the Communists, it would have important effects in the area. It would not only demonstrate firmness against Chinese expansion, but it would also make some important points about neutralism, a concept so often and so loosely offered as a solution in Southeast Asia.
The U.S. has moved a long way from the time when it automatically backed the rightists in Laos and elsewhere and assumed neutralism was immoral. But the neutralists have come a long way, too, and no one embodies this fact better than Kong Le. The gritty, grinning captain of paratroopers had fought for almost a decade in jungle and mountains, while fat cats in the cities grew fatter on U.S. and Communist aid; yet never had he known whom or what he was fighting or defending. "You have to give a man something to live for," he said, "before you can ask him to die." To the tough paratrooper, as to most Southeast Asians, the cold war was a puzzlement. Neutrality seemed the answer, and Kong Le gladly included the Pathet Lao within his amiable embrace. But, battle by battle and defection by defection, Kong Le and Laos learned that not even a neutral could stand safely beside the Pathet Lao.