Thanat Khoman

To a great many Americans and Europeans, Southeast Asia today must look like an incurably troubled area. They see that there has been fighting in Laos and vicinity, and that a shooting war is raging in South Viet Nam, killing not only natives but also foreign advisers who have been sent there to help the South Vietnamese defend themselves. They also have read that one nation is confronting another, threatening to crush it flat as a pancake; and perhaps they may have noticed vociferous statements by an ex- king who wants to lay his country at the feet of Communist leaders unless certain Western nations beckon him to take back a few million dollars of aid which he had spurned and proceed to fall on their knees to receive his diktat at an international conference. All this must appear a hazy, unhealthy and utterly confusing situation. Leading their own orderly and prosperous lives, they must incline to shrug their shoulders and ask why their governments don't keep out of such brawls and leave these quarreling people to their own fate.