It was an event that, while clearly destructive to American interests in Asia, served as something of a wake-up call to those American isolationists who had downplayed the regional threat of communism. It also ushered in a horrid era for this nation's 4.8 million people. Fundamental rights and liberties vanished, and all of the brutal characteristics of totalitarianism--"reeducation" camps, nationalized property, the crushing of individual thought--became the norm.

        Over the past two decades, Laos has suffered. The Pathet Lao regime became a Soviet client state that relied on the use of Vietnamese troops and Soviet advisers to maintain its totalitarian power. The Laotian economy, already stifled in 1975 by war and Third World conditions, suffered even more under the regime's nationalization of land. Today, the country's GNP is among the world's lowest, and social conditions are among the world's worst. Life expectancy is a dismal 49 years, and treatable diseases (like malaria, influenza, dysentery, and pneumonia) present major national health challenges.