Laos: To Broadway & 72nd Street

Under the terms of last summer’s 14-nation Geneva agreement establishing Laotian neutrality, all foreign troops were to be withdrawn from Laos under the supervision of the International Control Commission, a troikalike group composed of Indian. Polish and Canadian inspectors. Last week, just ahead of the withdrawal deadline, the last of 666 U.S. military advisers in Laos pulled out. With weeping Laotian girl friends .tugging at their arms, 78 officers and men climbed aboard four C46 transports heading for Bangkok.

It was a far different story with the estimated 10,000 North Vietnamese combat troops and technicians who have been fighting with the Communist Pathet Lao. At the exit point set up at Nhommarath, in central Laos, the Pathet Lao has cooped up the I.C.C. inspectors in a fenced-in compound to keep them from checking on the withdrawal. With a straight face, the Pathet Lao commander said to the I.C.C.: “We’ve put up the fence to prevent wild buffalo from attacking you.”

Many of the North Vietnamese have changed uniforms and moved into Pathet Lao units, while others have settled into villages controlled by Laotian Reds. In remoter areas of eastern Laos, North Vietnamese units reach battalion size.

Theoretically, the I.C.C. has the authority to check on all alleged violations of the Geneva accord. But in Laos’ thick jungles, such transgressions are difficult to prove. “People talk about the Ho Chi Minh trail back into North Viet Nam as though it were the New Jersey Turnpike.” said Major General Reuben Tucker, chief of the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group in Laos, just before leaving. “It’s actually a complex system of trails in dense jungle, nearly impossible to penetrate and move around in.” While fighting has come to a standstill, the U.S. is not taken in by Red claims that the major body of the North Vietnamese has moved out. Says Tucker: “We keep getting reports that the North Vietnamese are churning around. But it’s as if they’re moving from Broadway and 42nd Street to Broadway and 72nd Street.”