The Euphoric East

Seldom had the West looked so foolish and frustrated as did the foreign ministers gathered in Geneva last week to settle the fate of backward little Laos.

On the big day the 14-nation* conference was supposed to get going, the man who proposed it, Cambodia's Prince Norodom Sihanouk, had not shown up (but agreed, after some pleading, to come later). As for the Laotians, the Communist side sent two delegations--one headed by a veteran guerrilla representing the Pathet Lao, the other by a onetime Vientiane bookseller who was standing in for self-styled "neutralist'' Prince Souvanna Phouma. The royal government delegation straggled in two days late.

Three Sides? The U.S. and its allies at first refused to sit down until the ceasefire back in Laos had been verified. When the verification came (despite scattered shooting), the U.S. still held back on the ground that only one delegation from each side in Laos was entitled to a formal seat. The Communists brazenly argued that there were really three sides, two of them proCommunist.

The U.S. came to Geneva determined to press for a "truly neutral and independent Laos" and some sort of watchdog commission to prevent any outside interference. As the conference began, there wasn't a ghost of a chance of getting anything like that. Some cynics suggested that the best thing the Kennedy Administration could hope for was a protracted, tedious session that would disguise with boredom what was happening to Laos. Secretary of State Dean Rusk plans to turn the whole chore over to Roving Ambassador Averell Harriman as soon as possible and head for home.

Planeload. The Communists would be happy to stick around. Happiest of all were the Red Chinese, who were gleeful to find themselves back at a bargaining table--and propaganda forum--with the civilized world. The chosen delegate was chunky, Paris-educated Marshal Chen Yi, 60, who has been Foreign Minister for three years and who, as a veteran of the 1927 Nanchang uprising and commander of the rearguard in Mao Tse-tung's Long March in 1934, is one of Chinese Communism's elder statesmen. Predictably, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko was at hand at the airport as Chen's Tu-104 jet touched down. While Chen was posing at one ramp with Gromyko, so many grey-clad figures scampered out of the rear of the plane and off the field that not even the Swiss got a head count. The total Chinese delegation was thought to top 200. Chen Yi took up residence in a secluded villa, and the rest of his troupe settled down in the shabby Hotel Metropole, whose only apparent advantage is its isolation.

Gromyko talked last week about "Austria-type" neutrality for Laos, a phrase that does not make much sense when applied to so primitive a land, but sounds soothing to the British and French. The Chinese are blunter. Marshal Chen demanded "a unified, independent" Laos and did not mention neutrality at all. Obviously, Chen was delighted to hang around indefinitely, flaunting China's power in an area where the West was in disarray. One possible clue was in the length of the lease he took on a fleet of 20 cars. Expiration date: November.

* The U.S., Britain, France, Russia, Red China, North Viet Nam, South Viet Nam, Cambodia, Burma, Thailand, Laos, India, Poland, Canada.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.