![\"Stars](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Stars-and-Stripes-May-29-1975-scaled.jpg?ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\nStars & Stripes. May 29 1975<\/p>\n
VIENTIANE, Laos (AP) \u2014
\nLooters are cutting holes in the
\nfence of the sparsely guarded
\nU.S. residential settlement out-
\nside Vientiane and carting off
\nthe household possessions left
\nby Americans evacuated from
\nLaos.
\nAn American interviewed
\nthrough the locked gates of the
\nresidential compound four
\nmiles outside the city said only
\nabout 80 persons remain there,
\nincluding six American women
\nsecretaries.
\nHe said four or five homes
\nwere stripped Sunday because
\nthere were only two unarmed
\nvolunteer patrols to guard the
\n150-house compound.
\nMost of those remaining who
\nlived on the periphery of the
\ncompound have moved into va-
\ncant houses in the center, he
\nsaid. Volunteers have crated
\nwhat they can in abandoned
\nhomes and taken them to the
\nsettlement\u2019s gymnasium, but
\nsuch large items as furniture,
\ncarpets and refrigerators re-
\nmain in the houses.
\nThe guards on the gate from
\nthe Communist Pathet Lao
\nallowed the departing Ameri-
\ncans to take only one suitcase
\neach out of the compound.
\nTw,o U.S. Marine guards and
\nan American civilian remained
\nlocked inside separate buildings
\nin the downtown compound of
\nthe U.S. Agency for Inter-
\nnational Development (AID)
\nwhich has been occupied by
\nstudents since Wednesday. The
\nU.S. Embassy said all three
\nwere in good condition and had
\nenough to eat and drink.
\nAn Embassy spokesman said
\nan agreement aimed at per-
\nsuading the students to end
\ntheir occupation had been hand-
\ned back and forth several times
\nbetween the Embassy and the
\ngovernment but still had not
\nbeen signed. The agreement is
\nexpected to provide for Ameri-
\ncan personnel to regain’control
\nof the compound but with stu-
\ndent representatives remaining
\nthere.
\nOnce agreement has been
\nreached, the spokesman said,
\nthe Embassy and the govern-
\nment will begin renegotiating
\nthe 1951 aid agreement. The
\nPathet Lao, which now domi-
\nnates the coalition government,
\nsays it wants American aid to
\ncontinue but without any Amer-
\nican restriction or supervision
\nof its use.
\nThe evacuation of U.S. gov-
\nernment employes and their
\nfamilies because of leftist agi-
\ntation has reduced the official
\nAmerican community to 280
\npersons, about 100 of them at-
\ntached to the Embassy and the
\nrest to the AID mission. The
\nspokesman said no further re-
\nduction in personnel is planned
\nfor the time being.
\nBefore the evacuation began,
\nAmerican officials and their
\nfamilies totaled about 820 per-
\nsons. Most of the 150 private
\nU.S. residents have also left.
\nThe Pathet Lao continued to
\nextend its control over areas
\nformerly held by the right-wing
\nor \u201cVientiane\u201d faction of the
\ncoalition government. Officials
\nreported that the Pathet Lao
\narmy on Sunday took over the
\ntown of Champassak, the seat
\nof the once-powerful, right-wing
\nChampassak family.
\nThe leader of the Champas-
\nsak clan, Prince Boun Oum,
\nonce was the third-ranking per-
\nsonage in Laos, behind the king
\nand crown prince. Sisouk Na
\nChampassak, defense minister
\nin the coalition government, re-
\nsigned and fled to Thailand
\nwhen the Pathet Lao began to
\ntake over and drive the leading
\nrightists from the government.
\nIn other Indochina develop-
\nments four South Vietnamese
\nships that fled to Singapore have
\nreturned to Saigon, Hanoi Radio
\nreported. It gave no details of
\nrefugees or military men
\naboard.
\nThe Thai Interior Ministry
\nannounced that three South
\nVietnamese fishing boats carry-
\ning 60 refugees landed during
\nthe weekend in Rayong Prov-
\nince, 100 miles southeast of
\nBangkok.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just a random news clipping I found among my dad’s effects, some of which ended up in a foot locker my sister shipped here from the bedroom in which I grew up in Tampa. Random stuff, dad would have been happy to see this online. Those looters look like they’re having a fun time. Lao […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digital-hoarding","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Stars-and-Stripes-May-29-1975-scaled.jpg?fit=1314%2C2560&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paumAn-6RX","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26409"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47427,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26409\/revisions\/47427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}