ABSTRACT
The United States stood for the survival of the Kingdom of Laos and of its elected government, threatened by subversion from within and coercion from without. Neutralization of Laos thus implied US withdrawal, leaving the Pathet Lao, pliable instruments in the hands of the Vietnamese Communists, to carry on the revolution. Hanoi's certainty about the move toward war in Laos was reinforced by the mission of General Maxwell Taylor, Kennedy's special emissary, to Saigon in October 1961. In Laos, the presence of North Vietnamese divisions was too well known to require any emphasis, and the fact that they took no actual part in the Communist seizure of control does not diminish the importance of their role. US bombing of the trails had been effective enough to compel Hanoi to commit some sixty thousand troops to southern Laos alone by early 1973.
