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Show SpringviHe man writes from Laos of present crisis and customs behind him for passenger. One also sees a lot of ox-carts, he said. Karl reported that so far, he has not seen any boys from Utah in Laos and that there are no members of the LDS church in the area. He has been in his present location since early spring of 1959. He wrote that he had a nice Thanksgiving celebrating with about 75 or 80 other people in the compound. Latest NBC news from Vientiane, Vi-entiane, Laos, states that Russian Rus-sian diplomats there said Moscow Mos-cow was halting its air supply because the Laotian crisis had gone far enough and that it must now be settled by negotiation. nego-tiation. This should be good news to Mr. and Mrs. Albert H. Smith, 136 E. 2nd No., of this city, whose son Karl R. Smith is employed with the U. S. Postal Department in the city of Vientiane Vi-entiane in Laos. Newspaper accounts however of what is going on in that faraway land are far more exciting ex-citing than Karl's description, although he is closer to trouble trou-ble than would be comfortable for most people. In his most recent letter he stated: Here it is the day after Christmas. It was a very quiet day especially after the 13th, 14th, 15th. It got pretty noisy here then. The Minister of Defense De-fense building is close by the Embassy and they shot it all up. The front end of the Embassy Em-bassy caught on fire, so that burned up the Ambassador's office. I burned a lot of classified classi-fied papers in the file room using incendiary kits which really made it burn and as a result our whole file room needs to be done over and refurnished. re-furnished. There hasn't been any mail service here until the last few days and I wasn't able to send anything for Christmas. Christ-mas. A lot of people's homes were looted but here on the compound we were lucky and didn't lose anything. I am receiving the Spring-ville Spring-ville paper which keeps me in touch with the home town. Letters previous to the one after Christmas told his folks not to worry, that the pro-communist pro-communist troops had been driven dri-ven out and it was almost over and that the Embassy had been hit only a few times. The country of Laos is southwest south-west of China, with the northern north-ern part bordering next to China and its eastern border along North and South Viet Nam. As far back as August, Karl wrote of the trouble in the country stating that about 500 people had been evacuated to Bangkok. He said they had a 10 p.m. curfew and were, "beginning "be-ginning to get mail and food from Bangkok again." Also that things were not too serious ser-ious and that their food supply was always adequate. In October, he said things had not been straightened out and that they still had the 10 p.m. curfew. He was quite disappointed dis-appointed that the political situation sit-uation had kept him from that much anticipated hunt in which he hoped to get an elephant. In another letter in October, Karl commented that the situation situa-tion was getting quite tiresome tire-some with police guards on the Embassy and the compound where he lived. He said he was sleeping at the Embassy every other night until further notice. no-tice. In other letters, Karl made interesting comments concern- mg the country and the people. He celebrated New Years April Ap-ril 13 to 17 last year noting that the people observed the celebration by throwing water about and also by setting off home-made rockets with tails extending some 40 feet. The rainy season is in the fall and he described the terrific ter-rific rains as depositing about a foot of water in front of the embassy in about two hours. He related in one letter that there is no snow in that country. coun-try. Although January is the coldest month, it is warm enough then for short sleeved shirts. Many of the people, he relates, re-lates, ride bicycles or motor bikes and there are also three wheeled-bicycles called Samo-lars Samo-lars with the driver sitting in the front seat and another seat |