Word: phoumi
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...showdown between armies of the left and right in Laos. Ever since his coup in August, the city has been controlled by pro-Communist Captain Kong Le with a battalion of paratroops. Much of the rest of the country has remained in the hands of pro-U.S. General Phoumi Nosavan, the closest thing Laos has to a strongman. When neutralist Premier Prince Souvanna Phouma gave up his assiduous attempts at compromise between the two factions and flew off to safety in Cambodia (TIME, Dec. 19), the stage was set for trouble...
...loved peace. To re-establish it after seven years of trouble with the pro-Communist Pathet Lao, Souvanna hopefully sought to end the nagging civil war by forming a government of "national union" that would range from his own neutralists to the pro-U.S. faction of General Phoumi Nosavan at one end and the Communist Pathet Lao at the other...
...pacified. Instead, it ran apart like globs of skittering quicksilver. The soldiers began fighting each other. Pathet Lao guerrillas encircled Vientiane, the seat of Souvanna's government, under the guise of coming to negotiate; Souvanna's own Captain Kong Le marched out to oppose insurgent General Phoumi in the jungles along the great and languid Mekong River. And when Souvanna fancied that the U.S. was aiding Phoumi to his detriment, he himself applied for Russian aid. Phoumi's American-made 105-mm. howitzers resounded in the jungle and Russian Ilyushin-145 droned overhead bearing gasoline for Souvanna...
...Vientiane. Souvanna decided it was time to go. Still president of Air Laos, Souvanna ordered up a Boeing Stratoliner, piled in his family and six Cabinet ministers and flew off to Cambodia. He blamed all his troubles on the U.S. for failing to give him support while aiding General Phoumi. "Why do they hate me so much?" he asked...
Laos, where Premier Prince Souvanna Phouma has lately been trying to play the neutralist game, slipped ever closer to the precipice edge. To the south, an anti-Communist army faction led by General Phoumi Nosavan has been in obdurate though mostly nonviolent revolt against Prince Souvanna since last September. On a good will tour a fortnight ago. genial Prince Souvanna awakened one morning in the small northern village of Moung Sai, his head still dizzy from ceremonial quaffing of a strong rice spirit called choum, to learn that the royal capital, Luangprabang. had gone over to General Phoumi. Last week...