Around the World With Savang Vatthana

Royally rumpled in mufti, His Majesty Savang Vatthana of Laos arrived in Washington last week. This was the second stop on a tour of 13 of the nations signatory to the Geneva pact last year that guaranteed the "neutrality" of Savang's lethargic little kingdom. The first stop had been Moscow, and the Russians showered gifts, including slick Chaika (Seagull) limousines, on the King and his bland, bowing Laotian entourage. President Kennedy did not exert himself to exceed the Russians: he gave the King a desk set and an autographed photo of himself.

There was, perhaps, cause for the President's casualness. For the U.S. has al ready given Laos quite a lot: $450 million since 1955, with precious little to show in return. Laos' Communist, neutralist and pro-Western factions, loosely stitched into a coalition government as a result of the Geneva agreement, are still at one another's throats. Communist troops from Viet Nam still prowl the country, in violation of the Geneva pact. Communist Pathet Lao troops still pillage and kill.

Reassuring Smiles. When such facts were raised last week, the Laotian visitors only smiled reassuringly. Bidding for continued U.S. financial aid, Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma, accompanying his ruler, said: "The best remedy is time and patience. Certainly Laos is lost if the Western signatories wash their hands of us and drop us coldly . . . We don't believe our friends will drop us ... One must not despair of the situation so quickly . . . You must understand that in our country the politicians have insufficient maturity of spirit and often have personal ambitions. You must see things as a whole. If you do, you will see that all is well and that we have made progress; trust and confidence are coming back."

What trust? What confidence? Treating Laos and its "guaranteed neutrality" with grave misgivings, a four-man Senate study group under Majority Leader Mike Mansfield last week questioned the whole range and shape of U.S. aid programs to Southeast Asia. The group's report called for "a thorough reassessment of our own overall security requirements on the Southeast Asian mainland."

Seven Years Later. Of Viet Nam, where fighting still rages and more than 50 American lives have been lost, Mansfield writes: "All of the current difficulties existed in 1955 . . . But it is seven years and $2 billion of U.S. aid later." Primary responsibility, his report said, must rest with the Vietnamese. If new effort on their part is not forthcoming, "the U.S. can reduce its commitment or abandon it entirely, but there is no interest of the U.S. which would justify, in present circumstances, the conversion of the war in that country primarily into an American war, to be fought primarily with American lives . . . An orderly curtailment of such programs in other countries where they now function need not pose a significant increase in the threat to our national security . . . Indeed, it is doubtful that [deepening involvement] is the best way if our concern for the multilateral stake of free nations in Southeast Asia results in an indefinite continuance of the vast inequities which fell upon us in bearing the burdens of outside aid."

But Laotians are not much on reading long reports. After Washington and a look-see at the facilities of the Tennessee Valley Authority (Laos would much rather have a few U.S.-financed dams than an autographed picture of Jack Kennedy), King Savang Vatthana and his fellow tourists left happily to visit other Geneva signatories. Their last scheduled stop: Communist Hanoi.

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