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The following is an extract of an article that originally appeared in Collier's Year Book in 1970 and incorporated in Encarta 2002.
1970: Laos
This year was another one of struggle between the Laotian right wing, supported by the Americans, and the left wing, supported by the North Vietnamese. However, although both confrontation and stalemate persisted, a shift from military operations to political maneuver began to be apparent. But the impact of the Vietnam war on Laotian affairs—especially the bombing by the U.S. Air Force of the Ho Chi Minh trail, which Hanoi uses as a supply route to South Vietnam—remained too heavy to allow a decisive breakthrough toward a political compromise.
The Plain of Jars.
The threat General Vang Pao's Meo guerrillas were developing against North Vietnamese communication lines—in September 1969 the Meo guerrillas had swept leftist units off the Plain of Jars, which they had held for six years—made the recapture of the plain an essential task for the Communists. Americans were said to have warned Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma that it would be too costly to defend the plain. Knowing that the Americans wished to evacuate the strategic plateau and then subject it to intensive air strikes, the premier tried to use the plain as a bargaining point. On February 3, in an appeal to Hanoi, he proposed that the plain be neutralized as a first step in a common effort to bring the war to an end. Souvanna Phouma said he hoped the Americans would cease their bombing if the North Vietnamese withdrew from the plain, which could then be kept neutral. He hinted that he considered the use of the Ho Chi Minh trail by the North Vietnamese and its bombing by the U.S. Air Force as an affair between Washington and Hanoi, the solution of which had to be found later. Hanoi rejected the call.
Between February 5 and 9, American aircraft evacuated 23,000 inhabitants from the Plain of Jars. On February 12 leftist forces launched their expected offensive, which was first described as "powerful" and said to involve elements of three North Vietnamese divisions. Actually, the battle was waged with small numbers, and the U.S. embassy in Vientiane said that North Vietnamese forces never exceeded 3,000 to 4,000 men. On February 24 the Communists captured both Xieng Khouan and Muong Soui and then advanced southward; in three weeks they recovered all the ground they had lost the previous year. [...] President Richard M. Nixon defined U.S. aims in Laos on March 6. He said that North Vietnam had increased its forces there to over 67,000 men, who were now penetrating farther into the territory held by the Royal Laotian Army. ... There were no American ground forces there, he said, and no plans to introduce them. He added that there were only 1,040 American advisers in Laos. [...] Hanoi [...] claimed that the true figure of American personnel in Laos was not 1,040 but 12,000, including 1,200 Green Berets.
Meanwhile, the military situation had steadily worsened for the government forces and especially for the American-supported Meo guerrillas. The Sam Thong base, southwest of the Plain of Jars, had to be evacuated on March 18. To save Long Cheng, the headquarters of General Vang Pao, commander of the Meo mercenary army, two battalions of Thai troops were rushed to reinforce Laotian units holding the base and intensive air strikes were ordered against the attackers, whose offensive then came to a halt. On March 30, Sam Thong was recaptured by government forces.
