Word: bouns
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...damping down the dangerous fire in Laos, chose to fan the flames, the U.S. reaction would be immediate. For every two guns the Communists sent to the Pathet Lao. the U.S. was prepared by way of "escalation"' to ship three to the pro-Western army of Premier Boun Oum and his strongman, General Phoumi Nosavan...
...voluntary exile in Cambodia, cultivating gladioli at a royal villa borrowed from Cambodia's Prince Sihanouk. Souvanna is a man so enigmatic that he persistently refuses to define what he means by his doctrine of "neutrality in neutralism," on the ground that Laotians dislike precision. There is Prince Boun Oum, recognized as Premier by the U.S., but frankly described by one Western diplomat as "a sort of Buddhist Falstaff." One of Boun Oum's supporters called him "the most representative personality of the kingdom"-by which was meant that he is excessively fond of drinking and wenching...
...please Souvanna, any new government will have to be broad-based, which in Laos means including as many important families as possible, as well as some Pathet Lao, at least in minor positions. To avoid argument over whether Souvanna or Boun Oum is the "legitimate" Premier, both sides would deal through King Savang Vatthana. Any solution is likely to be makeshift. Says one U.S. diplomat: "Laos is going to be a problem throughout our lifetime and longer." But for Laos to be declared neutral is not necessarily an inevitable step toward a Communist takeover. The Pathet Lao, still a tiny...
...Laos' off-and-on-again civil war, Premier Boun Oum and his anti-Communist government talked of victory last week and rushed construction of a concrete and steel war memorial in the capital city of Vientiane. Closing in from north and south, government troops finally cleared a dusty, 150-mile slash of road that serves as the country's major north-south highway between Vientiane and Luangprabang...
Both the talk and the war monument were premature. The Communist-led rebels still held most of north central Laos, and the road into their lair was studded with land mines, freshly imported from Red China. Though Boun Oum's generals predicted all-out victory "within a week," most foreign observers on the scene predicted a negotiated truce. Late last week King Savang Vatthana, an easygoing monarch who prefers to remain above politics, reluctantly left his palm-fringed home town of Luangprabang, flew to Vientiane to convene his council of ministers. Purpose: to see if he could devise some...