Probably the most readable, yet comprehensive book on the history of Laos as of now, is Grant Evan’s, A Short History of Laos, published in May 2003. But, about a year ago I thought about researching the Time Magazine archives to see what was written about Laos and the more journalistic view of Laos and it’s role in the Indochinese conflict through the Vietnam War. And of course I was curious to see when and how the “Secret War” in Laos was portrayed. If one is a subscriber to Time Magazine then you are eligible to search their archives and I was amazed at what I read. The language used and the perspective provided by the writers is fascinating. For example, in the Time Magazine issue of September 21, 1959 “Laos: The Unloaded Pistol” it was written that “SCARCELY any country on earth is less fitted to serve as a pivotal point in the struggle against Communism than Laos, a land of blue mountains, green jungles and affably unambitious people. Roughly the size of Oregon, Laos is shaped like a pistol with the butt pressing against Red China and the barrel aimed at Cambodia.”
Hmm... In the issues noted below I provide comments that will be in colored text. The August 1, 1949 issue was the one where Laos was first mentioned. I don’t include all the issues here, but the ones where text from the noted stories I feel provide important insights about Laos and the Indochina conflict. One thing I learned was that Laos in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s was the country that the US really was most concerned about. In this blog I stop with the last entry in 1959 and I will write another blog about articles from the 1960’s. And then another blog about 1970 articles, which peter out quickly.
I highlight sentences I think particularly interesting in red. I think there are three analogies about the size of Laos...
Time Magazine, August 1, 1949 “Three-Headed Elephant”
The kingdom of Laos is a wild and mountainous strip of land in the interior of Indo-China. It is almost twice as large as Pennsylvania and has a population of one million. Last week, at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Sisavang Vong, King of the Laotians, and French President Vincent Auriol signed a treaty establishing Laos as an independent nation within the French Union.
Time Magazine, May 29, 1950 “The New Frontier”
The U.S. now has a new frontier and a new ally in the cold war. The place is Indo-China, a Southeast Asian jungle, mountain and delta land that includes the Republic of Viet Nam and the smaller neighboring Kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia, all parts of the French Union.
Since the dust has settled in China, Asia's Communism is thrusting southward. Indo-China stands first on the path to Singapore, Manila and the Indies. [Domino theory begins...]
Last January, led by Peking and Moscow, the world's Communist bloc recognized Ho Chi Minh's "Democratic Republic." The stakes in Southeast Asia were big—as big as the global struggle between Communism and freedom.
A fortnight ago in Paris, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson drew a line in the dust that has so long beclouded U.S. diplomacy. He implicitly recognized that the war in Indo-China is no local shooting match. He pledged U.S. military and economic aid to the French and Vietnamese. The U.S. thus picked up the Russian gauntlet. [Do you want to know when the Vietnam War really begins?]
Indo-China, in brief, has become a dangerous liability for France—nor does any realistic Frenchman think it can ever again be an asset. Why, therefore, spend more blood and treasure in thankless jungle strife? Why not pull out?
The answer is: more than French war weariness and prestige are at stake. If Indo-China falls to Communism, so, in all probability", will all of Southeast Asia. The new frontier, if it is not to crumble, may need U.S. troops as well as French. Otherwise, the U.S. might suffer another catastrophic defeat in the Far East. [Domino theory...]
The French have made more than the usual colonial mistakes. All too often they have been arrogant and brutal toward the Indo-Chinese. They are paying for it now, for the bulk of Communist Ho Chi Minh's support comes from anti-French, or anticolonial Indo-Chinese. A sign over an Indo-Chinese village street tells the story; it reads "Communism, No. Colonialism, Never."
But the issue of native sympathy is complex. The vast majority of the people are simple rice farmers, who want peace and order so they may tend their paddy-fields. Ho Chi Minh himself does not now preach Communism openly.
Time Magazine, August 28, 1950 “Report on Indo-China”
Indo-China is one of the five critical places on earth that are most vulnerable to Communist attack (the other four: Formosa, Germany, Yugoslavia, Iran). If Indo-China falls, all of southeast Asia is likely to go. [Domino theory...] The U.S. position in the Philippines would be outflanked. The weak governments of Burma, Siam and Indonesia could probably no long resist Communist pressure, and the Red tide would sweep to the borders of India. Indo-China may hold the difference between limited success and total disaster of U.S. policy and U.S. hopes in Asia.
Viet Nam, as the Indo-Chinese call their country, is shaped like the load which millions of her barefooted peasants carry over their shoulders: two bulging baskets at either end of a thin pole. One bulge is northern Viet Nam (Tonkin), and the other southern Viet Nam (Cochin China). In the slender central region (An-nam), the mountains ripple almost down to the coast. .In the northwest and southwest, as in the relatively unimportant kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia, the country is calm.
Ho Chi Minh is a great figurehead whose prestige as a "liberator" still stands high, even outside the areas he controls. But his star in the Communist firmament has waned. His health is poor (tuberculosis). He has traveled too far, and seen too much, and talked to too many people to have the rigidly closed type of mind required of a top party militant in time of war. He is one of those international Communist bosses—France's Maurice Thorez is another—who retain titular leadership mainly because their names still ring strongly in the world's ears.
Nevertheless, French force in Indo-China is buying time for the West, and the first axiom of U.S. policy here, therefore, must be aid for the French army. It is sometimes suggested that the French ought to hand over total independence to Bao Dai and get out. But two weeks after the French left, a Communist government would rule in Saigon.
This is partly an Indo-Chinese civil war, which can only be completely won by a majority of a free people inspired by a national ideal.
There are other things, little things, that count. Some Frenchmen continue to address adult Vietnamese in the familiar "tu"—a pronoun which in French is reserved for children, intimates and riffraff. This habit could be uprooted with slight effort.
Five months ago, only seven men were attached to the U.S. legation in Saigon, and now there are-nearly 200. [Escalation of US troops in 1953!.]
Time Magazine, April 27, 1953 “Reds in Shangri-La”
BATTLE OF INDOCHINA
The water drops, the ants eat the fish. The water rises, the fish eat the ants. So it is better to love than to hate. —Old Laotian Proverb
It was low water in Laos last week, and thousands of Communists were pouring across the northern border of the little Buddhist kingdom. The government of Laos, one of the three Associated States of Indo-China, was gasping on the mud-bank of its unpreparedness.
Six months had passed since Communist General Vo Nguyen Giap began probing the defenses of Laos with his Viet Minh commandos. In his exquisite white palace overlooking the palm-fringed Mekong River, aging (67), crew-cropped King Sisavang Vong told the French: "This is my country; this is my palace; I am too old to tremble before danger." Not until three of Giap's crack divisions appeared at Laos' borders last week did King Sisavang Vong call on his happy-go-lucky Laotians to mobilize.
Elephants. Laos, once known as Lane Xang (the Land of a Million Elephants), is the Shangri-La of Southeast Asia. It is mistily mountainous, covered with tiger-haunted jungle and elephant-inhabited rain forest, and can only be reached by air, by traversing two very bad roads, or by sailing up the mighty Mekong. Half its people are Thais, living in the lowland valleys; the other half are primitive Khas and Meos. Huge, smiling statues of Buddha dot the landscape, and saffron-robed Buddhist monks are everywhere. Wearing scarlet jackets, gold and silver beads and bracelets and flowers in their hair, the Laotian women are graceful and attractive and given to music, dancing and proverbs.
Time Magazine, May 4, 1953 “Urn Burial”
In the high mountains of the kingdom of Laos, there is a wide, grassy plateau which the French call the Plaine des Jarres because of the ancient stone burial urns dotted about the landscape. According to French military thinking, the invading Viet Minh Communists "had to pass through" the Plaine des Jarres on their way to conquer Laos. There last week, in a two-mile perimeter around an airstrip, the French were hastily improvising a defense system of barbed wire and entrenchments. Soon Legionnaires and loyal Laotian troops were as securely trussed-up in their "hedgehog" as the ancient Laotians in their old stone jars.
There was plenty of room: Laos, one of the two kingdoms in the Associated States of French Indo-China, is as big as Oregon. [First Pennsylvania, now Oregon...]
It became clear that Giap's objective was the ancient Laotian capital of Luang Prabang, seat of King Sisavang Vong, on the great Mekong River. With the leading Communist column only 35 miles distant, a Communist-rebel underground proclaimed itself the "sole legal government" of Laos, named a Laotian rebel, Souphanou Vong, as President. Luang Prabang would be defended, the French promised: "It is a matter of prestige."
Time Magazine, September 28, 1953 “We Must Attack”
The man with the four stars and unsmiling face was Henri Eugène Navarre, a quiet but steely, cultured but tough general of the French army. He had come from Paris to take command of a war that was going badly for France and the non-Communist world—a Red nightmare that had clung to the green jungles and rice fields of Indo-China for seven years.
French Union troops, slogging through the steamy jungles and paddy mud, were demoralized after seven years of battle with Red Viet Minh forces that seemed to attack from everywhere, only to fade into nowhere when counterattacked.
Their fortunes and their spirits at a dismally low ebb, the leaders of France were seriously wondering whether to cut their lines and pull out the one plug that was blocking Asian Communism from flooding through to Burma, Siam, and probably all Southeast Asia.
By last week new spirit and optimism had surged up in the men in Indo-China who must fight the ugly war, and the men in Washington and Paris who must see that they get the means and the will to win it. The new lift in morale came partly from the Allied governments, which had decided to plunge fresh resources into the war—more troops from France, more millions from the U.S.
The French Union troops have suffered 147,000 casualties..
The Plan: Bring the independence-minded Indo-Chinese into full support of the war by really moving towards the independence that France has long but hesitantly promised. The Indo-Chinese, whose memories of French colonialism often blind them to the threat of Red domination, have not trusted these promises, need more guarantees to give them something to fight and die for.
Navarre shed his shell of icy reserve and sent a ringing order of the day to his troops: "I have now acquired a personal opinion of the situation and I am sure of the solution . . . "I speak directly to you because all of you . . . have the right to know how and why you are going to fight. And I wish to make the main point that from now on I will look after you . . .
"Logically victory is certain. But victory is a woman. She does not give herself except to those who know how to take her. [I didn’t know this...] One cannot win without attacking . . .”
In the delicate and crucial political field, the French and Indo-Chinese have settled down to sincere and generally smooth negotiations that promise to give the Indo-Chinese the independence they crave and deserve after 90 years of French colonial rule, and to give the French the help and manpower needed to transform the bloody stalemate into victory. The general idea: a plan which will allow the French to stay and fight until it is certain that independence will not be exploded overnight into engulfment by Communism.
So intense is the desire for cutting French ties that even leaders of Viet Nam's 2,000,000 Catholics have been heard to prefer domination by the Reds if necessary). Laos' King Sisavang Vong, who doughtily insisted on remaining in his capital last spring when the Viet Minh invaded his kingdom (then inexplicably retired a few days later), is cooperating... The U.S. has come to realize that the Red nightmare in the jungles and paddies is really a twin of the Red nightmare in the forlorn heights and valleys of Korea, the best the West can look forward to is a long and costly battle of attrition.
The Reds cannot be dealt with around a council table; a Korea-style truce would, more than Korea, represent defeat. There is no battle line behind which they can be confined by armed force or ultimatum. Even if the Navarre Plan goes ahead on oiled bearings, the Viet Minh probably can never be wiped out to the last unit. But with an aggressive plan aggressively carried out, the defenders can hope to show the Communists they cannot win, to pound and slash them until they finally will simply stop fighting—as the Greek Communist guerrillas did in the Greek civil war.
Time Magazine, January 11, 1954 “Buzzing Flies”
The major difficulty of the French command in Indo-China is to come to grips with the Viet Minh. They are like a swarm of flies buzzing around a tree. If you shake the tree they fly away in all directions . .
Time Magazine, March 15, 1954 “The World’s Oldest War”
Duration: Seven years, two months and three weeks to date.
Battleground: An area about the size of Texas forming the Associated States of Viet Nam (pop. 23 million), Laos (1,100,000 ) and Cambodia (3,700.000)
In October 1945, the French returned to Indo-China, their "marvelous balcony on the Pacific." The Japanese had surrendered, the British and the Nationalist Chinese were in merely nominal occupation—by order of the Big Three at Potsdam—and would soon be gone. But the French were not wanted back. Frenchmen had made a lot of money out of Indo-China. and their administrators were often disliked. They had been discredited by the easy Japanese conquest. Like most South Asians, the Indo-Chinese simply wanted their independence.
In March 1946, the French made a deal with Ho, who held the north firmly with Japanese arms and Nationalist China's support...President Franklin D. Roosevelt had referred to French colonialism's "shocking record"; the U.S. now stipulated that U.S. economic aid to France must not be diverted to its colonial war.
In 1948, the French asked Bao Dai to return to Indo-China as chief of state for Viet Nam. In March 1949, the French gave Bao Dai's state "independence within the framework of the French Union." In April, Bao Dai landed in Indo-China. "I risk my skin," said he, justifiably, for he got but little support. "COMMUNISM No—COLONIALISM NEVER" was the current slogan, and Bao Dai was widely held to be a French puppet. In time, some 200,000 Vietnamese came to join Bao Dai's army. But many more Vietnamese stayed away; they chose wait-and-seeism instead.
In June 1950 the U.S. sent its first shipment of arms.
U.S. Involvement: The U.S. is now paying 70% of the war's financial cost. Since 1950 it has sent $500 million a year to Indo-China. Among the items: 360 military planes, 390 warships, 21,000 trucks and trailers, 1,400 tanks, halftracks and other combat vehicles, 175,000 rifles and machine guns. In September 1953, President Eisenhower stepped up this aid by $385 million. "We are not voting a giveaway program," the President said. "We are voting for the cheapest way we can prevent the occurrence of something that would be of a most terrible significance to the U.S.A."
Time Magazine, July 12, 1954 “The Three Nations of Indo-China”
NOW that Indo-China is falling apart, the question is whether any of its three Associated States— Laos, Cambodia and Viet Nam — can survive on their own. All three are technically independent of France in domestic affairs; their own rulers run their own governments, their own civil service, their own courts. But France runs their foreign affairs and has been managing (or mismanaging) their defense.
LAOS (pop. 1,100,000)
A footprint said to be that of the eternal Buddha lies preserved within the Golden Pagoda at Luang Prabang the royal capital. It is believed to protect the Laotians from their enemies. Laos has been invaded by Tibetans, Mongols, Javanese Annamites, Indians, Chinese, Frenchmen and Khmers, but the craggy, mountainous state has survived with its ethnic unity just about intact. More than two-thirds of Its people are Laotians and related Thais. Its language is still its own native Thai. Its religion is still Buddhism. Even the French prefer to channel their rule through Laotian kings, and they have established their own purely administrative capital at Vientiane 130 miles from Luang Prabang. Since 1904 the French have ruled through one venerable monarch, King Sisavang Vong, now old (68) and gouty, but no easy man to scare. When the Communists threatened Luang Prabang November 1952, the King refused to quit, declaring: "This is my country. This is my palace. I am too old to tremble before danger."
VIET NAM (pop. 23 million)
Viet Nam is rich in rubber, tin, zinc, iron and coal; it has a notable surplus of rice, and a strategic 1,200-mile coastline. Viet Nam is the prize, the arena where the French and the Viet Minh have contended for the past eight years. The Viet Nam nation is a recent French consolidation of three ancient provinces: Tonkin, Annam and Cochin China. The Chinese ruled Tonkin and northern Annam for more than the 1,000 years, until they were expelled in the 10th century by native Annamites who were themselves of part-Chinese stock. About 150 years ago, the Annamites split into warring factions, and French missionnaires and traders moved in along the coast. By 1802, the French were strong enough to install a puppet king on the imperial throne of Annam; by 1870, the French army was ashore to protect French interests; by 1900, the French had all of Indo-China.
Time Magazine, August 02, 1954 “Terms of Surrender”
VIETNAM is to be partitioned provisionally at the 17th parallel, the north portion (pop. 12 million) to go to the Communists. Cambodia is to be cleared of all guerrillas and left free to deal with its local Communist problem as it can.
Laos, though remaining independent like Cambodia, must set aside two enclaves in the north for "indigenous" Communists.
Time Magazine, Jan. 21, 1957 “Conquest by Negotiation”
Life in Shangri-La was never quite so dreamlike as life in Laos since that country became an independent nation 2½ years ago. With the French no longer directing its political life, the unwarlike people of this Buddhist kingdom in the interior of the Indochinese peninsula relapsed into their old hedonist ways.
The Geneva conference that ended the Indo-China war left unsettled the status of the Communist-directed movement called Pathet Lao (estimated membership: 6,000), whose olive-green "resistance" army dominates two of Laos' twelve provinces. Because the leader of Pathet Lao is Prince Souphanouvong, a half-brother of the Premier, Prince Souvanna Phouma, and because both brothers have sworn fidelity to aging, gout-crippled King Sisavang Vong, the Laotians have been inclined to dismiss Pathet Lao as une affaire de famille. Since August the moonfaced, Paris-educated princes have been going about the capital of Vientiane arm in arm, sipping champagne together, and promising an early settlement of their "family affair." Says trusting Prince Souvanna Phouma: "My brother has never been a Communist, only a misled patriot."
Time Magazine, November 4, 1957 “Scandal on the Mekong”
There are few more backward nations in the world than the 91,400 square mile kingdom of Laos...The nation’s main export is opium.
Time Magazine, December 2, 1957 “Perilous Course”
Ever since they set about to reunite their country in the wake of the Geneva Conference three years ago, the royal government of Laos and its Communist-led rebels in the northeastern provinces of Samneua and Phongsaly had been conducting on-again-off-again negotiations (and on-again-off-again war) that nobody seemed to take very seriously. After all, the Premier, Prince Souvanna Phouma, is the half-brother of Communist Boss Prince Souphanouvong, and many of the handful of educated Laotians who make up the government insisted that the whole thing was just a family affair. Last week the family affair was settled. Sarong-clad Laotians from villages and the deep bush along the Mekong streamed into the capital of Vientiane. They had cheers for Souvanna Phouma, cheers for Souphanouvong, and smiles for everyone.
Time Magazine, April 18, 1958 “The Sister States”
Out of the smashup of French Indo-China in 1954 emerged four states: 1) Communist North Viet Nam, dark as night; 2) South Viet Nam, run by a strongly anti-Communist friend of the West; 3) the unpredictable Kingdom of Cambodia, which chose "active" neutrality; 4) a Red-riddled Kingdom of Laos, which felt it could afford nothing more dynamic than "plain" neutrality.
Time Magazine, September 1, 1958 “Phoui to the Communists”
Although Laos had been a month without a government, a Laotian official explained: "We have a proverb which says, 'Do Not Hurry,' so the formation of a new government will probably take some time." [Of course Laos since 1975 is officially the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and people say the PDR really stands for Please Don’t Rush...nothing changes!] Last week Laotian Deputies finally got around to confirming a new Premier, and he seemed to be worth waiting for.
Phoui Sananikone, 54, whose 6-ft. height makes him giant-sized for Laos, is a muscular, quick-witted politician who in World War II was his country's deputy commander of anti-Japanese partisans. Most remarkable feature of his new government: it excludes Communists from its Cabinet.
Laotian Communists are led by Prince Souphanouvong, who last year convinced his half brother, ex-Premier Prince Souvanna Phouma, that he was really just a harmless agrarian democrat, and got included in the government. Last week, seeing himself about to be shoved outside again, Prince Souphanouvong rose in the Assembly to deny that he was a Communist. Answered Phoui smoothly: "I did not definitely say the Prince was one. I simply wondered why he had sent 100 Laotian students to study in North Viet Nam and 300 to study in Red China, including his own children." Phoui was excluding Communists, he went on, because, "a horse cannot have two riders—one going right and one left."
Time Magazine, April 27, 1959 “Aiding Friends”
The process of giving away U.S. money to strengthen friendly foreign governments sometimes seems to have a built-in mechanism of self-defeat.
Time Magazine, August 24, 1959 “The Old One-Two”
Laos (pronounced Lah-oze) is a faithfully Buddhist kingdom known as "the land of a million elephants," which five years ago was carved out of French Indo-China in the Geneva conference after Dienbienphu. It has Communists to the north of it (China), Communists to the east of it (North Viet Nam), and Communists inside it (the Pathet Lao). Only 18 months ago it seemed to be slipping inexorably toward Red rule. As the result of a queer, credulous armistice with its own Communist rebels, the Laotian government reserved two of its Cabinet posts for Communists and agreed to absorb two battalions of Communist rebels into the royal Laotian army.
But in a scant year since taking office, hard-driving Premier Phoui Sananikone. 55, has reversed this tide. Publicly lining Laos up "on the side of the free world," Phoui (pronounced Pwee) cleansed his government of Communists and successfully "integrated" the army, i.e., interned one of the rebel units—a move that sent the other fleeing toward Communist North Viet Nam. He made it clear that he no longer wanted any part of the three-power (Poland, India, Canada) International Control Commission established by the 1954 Geneva agreement, for while the Canadians sat around frustrated, the Reds used the Poles to keep close tab on Laos. Things were going well for the West in Laos.
Fact is, as Peking well knows, that the U.S. has no bases in Laos and U.S. "troops" there consist of 70 men supervising the supply of light World War II U.S. weapons to the royal Laotian army, plus 100 army officers on inactive duty assigned to a French military training mission.
Time Magazine, September 7, 1959 “On the Line in Laos”
The afternoon before he flew to Europe, President Eisenhower thoughtfully drew a State Department policy paper out of the ''urgent study" pile on his desk. Its contents: a report on the Communist guerrilla bands swarming antlike out of Red China's puppet state of North Viet Nam into the Utah-sized nation of Laos [Pennsylvania, Oregon and now Utah...]. This "very dangerous" situation signaled the revival of full-scale guerrilla warfare in Indo-China for the first time since Red China agreed at Geneva in 1954 to stop it. The President, approving State's recommendations, cranked up machinery for stronger counterpressures against the Red thrust.
The U.S. had begun to move against guerrilla activity in Laos last month, when it sent 25 U.S. officers to help the French train the 25,000-man Laotian army in the use of U.S.-supplied infantry weapons. In last week's decision, the President went much further. He approved outlays from his own presidential contingency fund and other military aid sources to raise the little nation's armed strength to 29.000, ordered Navy Admiral Harry D. Felt, U.S. commander in the Far East, to airlift arms and equipment to the scene of trouble. With those two orders, and with the publicizing of them at his press conference, President Eisenhower threw still another major force into the struggle: he laid U.S. prestige on the jungle line in Laos almost as surely as he once committed it along the rocky shores of Quemoy-Matsu and upon the hot sands of Lebanon.
Time Magazine, September 14, 1959 “Over the River”
But time plays tricks in primitive Laos, where communications are so poor that reports from the provinces are often as deceptive as stars that are burned out and dead by the time their light finally reaches the earth. Fact was that 29 hours before Phoumi spoke an estimated 4,000 fresh Communist troops, including North Vietnamese regulars, had come sweeping out of Viet Nam across the Nam Ma river into Samneua province. With their attack the situation in Laos changed from merely ugly to critical.
Urgent Appeal. When the news of the defeat finally reached Vientiane, something like panic seized the otiose Laotian government. Crown Prince Savang Vat-hana, 52, was speedily invested as Regent of Laos, taking over from his 74-year-old father, King Sisavong Vong, who abdicated because he felt the country needed a younger and more energetic chief of state. At the risk of exposing the southern provinces of Laos to attacks from Communist guerrillas operating out of northern Thailand, a fresh battalion of loyal troops was airlifted to threatened Samneua. And late in the week Laotian Foreign Minister Khampan Panya took a step that his government had desperately hoped to avoid, directed an urgent appeal to the U.N. Cabled Khampan: "In face of this fagrant aggression, for which [North] Viet Nam must bear the entire responsibility . . . the Royal Laotian Government requests the prompt dispatch of a [U.N.] emergency force."
Time Magazine, September 21, 1959 “Laos: The Unloaded Pistol”
SCARCELY any country on earth is less fitted to serve as a pivotal point in the struggle against Communism than Laos, a land of blue mountains, green jungles and affably unambitious people. Roughly the size of Oregon, Laos is shaped like a pistol with the butt pressing against Red China and the barrel aimed at Cambodia. [Back to Oregon...] Statistics are foreign to the Laotian mind, and the population can only be guessed at; estimates range from 1,000,000 to 4,000,000. Though it possesses two capital cities—Luangprabang for the royal family. Vientiane for the civil government—Laos has no railroad.
Though their relaxed attitude toward sex shocks some Westerners,* most visitors agree that the pleasantest thing in Laos is the Laotian people. In most years Laotians catch enough fish, grow enough rice and yams and brew enough wine to allow ample time for their festivals.
Totally without industry, the country's main crop is opium (one-third of world production") grown on the mountaintops by Meo tribesmen who also profess to be werewolves. Laos' biggest import is U.S. dollars—for the past five years U.S. aid has run from $43 million to $54 million a year. [A great book on the history of opium use in Laos is Poppies, Pipes, and People. Opium and Its Use in Laos. by Joseph Westermeyer]
Historically, Laos was never a strong power. When not invaded by their neighbors, the Laotians wrangled among themselves, divided and subdivided their country into tiny principalities. A great hero, Fa Ngoum, united Laos in the 14th century under the name of the Land of the Million Elephants and the White Parasol. But when France made it a protectorate in 1893, Laos was again a patchwork of small states.
All Laotians are careful to propitiate the phis (malignant and mystic spirits of the earth and sky) and nagas (dragon spirits who inhabit rivers), but the prevalent Laotian faith is Buddhism, with its strong emphasis on harming no living creature.
Time Magazine, September 28, 1959 “Welcome in Beauty”
In their own fashion, Laotians last week gave a red-carpet welcome to the fact-finding subcommittee sent by the U.N. Security Council to determine formally whether Laos is a victim of foreign Communist aggression. There were no military bands, no spotless guard of honor, no protocol-wise assemblage of local diplomats. Instead, hundreds of lissome girls wearing flowing silk scarves and brilliant sarongs trimmed with gold appeared at the airport bearing silver bowls of flowers. It was the traditional Laotian "welcome in beauty," which requires that the wisest and most beautiful girls of a village greet an important stranger by kneeling along the path and offering him flowers.
Early in the week Moscow had made a plain bid to undercut the U.N. subcommittee by proposing that the nine nations that attended the 1954 Geneva Conference on Indo-China should meet again and revive the three-power (India, Poland, Canada) International Control Commission for Laos. The U.S., recalling that the Laos government itself 16 months ago refused to tolerate the Control Commission's interference any longer, rejected the Soviet proposal, recommended instead "the cessation of Communist intervention and subversion" in Laos
Time Magazine, November 9, 1959 “The Long Reign”
During all his 55 years on the throne—the longest reign of any living monarch —it sometimes seemed as if King Sisavang Vong of Laos had found a way to survive history simply by ignoring it. He never openly fought for independence from the French, but instead of earning the resentment of his people, he won only greater affection. When the French urged him to take a firmer stand against the Japanese in World War II, he patiently explained: "My people do not know how to fight; they only know how to sing and make love." Later he proved equally uncooperative with the invading Japanese, and French commandos had to parachute in to rescue him. Finally, in 1953, when the Viet Minh threatened to overrun the gold-spired royal capital of Luangprabang, the King flatly refused to flee. "This is my country and my palace," he said, "and I am too old to tremble." Then he went calmly to bed.
Last August King Sisavang Vong finally turned his duties over to his eldest son, Crown Prince Savang Vatthana, 52. Last week 21 cannon volleys thundered over Luangprabang, and the fires in the temples burned all night. At 74 the old King was dead.
Time Magazine, November 16, 1959 “Report from Laos”
Like a specialist called in to diagnose a serious infection but not permitted to bring all his instruments along, the U.N. observer team sent in September to Laos to investigate charges of Communist Viet Nam aggression was hamstrung by explicit instructions to simply look and listen.
Laotian witnesses testified that troops attacking them were identifiable as North Vietnamese not only by their green uniforms but by their language ("Mau! Mau!"—Quick! Quick!) and even by the common rice they ate (Laotians eat glutinous rice).
In December 2006 we set up a special two-week tour for Elli on the textile traditions of northern Laos. Elli wanted to do research in Laos on “Thai-Lao Textiles: Shamanic and Buddhist syncretism” so we set up an itinerary that was designed to facilitate her research needs. We started off in Vientiane where we visited some of the main textile galleries such as Taykeo’s, Phaeng Mai and Carol Cassidy’s. Elli’s main source of information though was a Tai Daeng (Red Tai) expert, Tong, where Elli was able to bring photos of textiles she bought and ask questions about the motifs used in the textiles. On our third day we were invited to a Tai Daeng funeral and there are a couple photos in the gallery taken at the funeral.
We didn’t leave until late afternoon and caught a beautiful sunset on the way back and thankfully I took probably fifty plus photos and I got one great shot with the glint of the setting sun on a distant boat. December is a great time to travel to Laos since it is the dry season and it rarely rains, but there can be cold spells and we were there when temperatures were only in the fifties and I remember how cold I was in the boat that day, but the sunset made it all worthwhile.
There are also some photos of Earl and Bai making papaya salad at one of the small restaurants where we chose to eat dinner. I need to come up with a better name of though for these restaurants/food stalls. In small towns like Sam Tai, their menu is very basic, usually they’ll serve noodle soup, maybe fried rice and whatever wild game and/or fish someone has sold them. Earl is a gourmet cook at home, and was interested in learning more about Lao food so here Bai showed Earl how to make papaya salad and by looking at the photos in the gallery you can see they had a good time.
When we were driving back to Sam Neua we stopped in a small village to get some 150, a Red Bull type drink, for Sousath, who was getting very tired while driving. In this village we saw a woman sitting in front of a charcoal fire roasting something. On closer examination it was a rat, and she had a basket of rats she had already toasted. I saw a great photo opportunity here and asked Earl if he would like to be immortalized in a photo toasting a rat. Being a easy-going soul, he agreed and there are a couple of photos of Earl toast a rat over the fire, and the first one shows the woman holding a crossbow her husband used to kill the rats. In Laos, almost anything, anything, will be eaten, and a well-toasted rat is considered a tasty treat. At the same home was a string of bats waiting to be bought, the key ingredient in “Laotian Bat Soup.” 
What I haven’t mentioned is that wherever we were driving on these rural roads, we often drove through Hmong villages, and since Hmong New Year is celebrated during the month of December in many of the villages there were groups of Hmong girls dressed up and often lined up in rows tossing the ball with boys or other girls. This is a traditional social ceremony where teens from different villages, and different clans, get to meet each other and while tossing the ball, engage in small talk that might lead to their eventually getting married. In the past, they were so busy working on the farms and after the harvesting of rice in November, December finally provided some free time where they could travel to another village There aren’t any malls to hang out in Laos…
