U. S., South Vietnam Invade Laos News Blackout Continues

A U.S.-South Vietnamese invasion of southern Laos has been underway since early Monday, but Washington is still trying to keep the action a secret.

Japan's Kyodo News Service reported from Saigon yesterday that between 4000 and 5000 South Vietnamese troops parachuted into Southern Laos early Monday. Kyodo said that U.S. planes and helicopters were assisting in the operation, but that no American ground combat troops were involved.

Meanwhile, the United States Command in South Vietnam has imposed a news blackout on the operations, and U.S. officials are refusing to confirm or deny that the sweep into Laos has occurred.

Confronted by shouting newsmen on Capitol Hill yesterday morning, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird at first tried to ignore questions about the Laotian situation, and then stated only that no U.S. ground troops would be sent into Laos. "I want to make sure that we will not open any credibility gap," Laird said.

Sen, George Aiken (R-Vt.), ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Monday that he had been briefed late last week by State Department officials on an impending massive sweep of U.S. and South Vietnamese troops in the vicinity of the Laotian border.

Aiken said that he has been told nothing more about the operations since last Friday, and called the government's information blackout "the tightest censorship since World War II."

The reason for the news blackout appeared to be political rather than military. According to a report from Vientiane in the Washington Star, the Allied incursion into Laos was based on a secret agreement between South Vietnam and rightwing Laotian generals.

The agreement was said to have been made without the approval of Prince Souvanna Phouma, the nominally neutralist premier of Laos, Diplomats in Vientiane believe, the Star reported, that Souvanna Phouma would probably be forced to resign in the event of an Allied invasion of his country.

'Outrageous Invasion'

While the U.S.-imposed news embargo continued yesterday, Soviet Premier Alexei N. Kosygin charged that American and South Vietnamese forces had launched "an outrageous invasion" of southern Laos. The North Vietnamese Foreign Ministry issued a statement over Radio Hanoi accusing Washington of "intensifying and expanding its war in Indochina."

In Washington, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman J. William Fulbright (D-Ark.) asked the Nixon Administration for a report on the operations in Laos "as soon as possible."

Boston Protest

In Boston yesterday, some 800 people rallied in Government Center to protest the Laotian invasion. The demonstration, which was called by the National Coalition against War, Racism and Repression, later moved through downtown Boston to the main office of the New England Telephone Company, where a brief sit-in was held.

The demonstrators were protesting the telephone company's decision to mail to its subscribers an appeal to write to Hanoi about American bomber pilots being held in North Vietnam.

In Laos, meanwhile, U.S. B-52 bombers and smaller tactical bombers pounded North Vietnamese supply trails for the 117th consecutive day. The U.S. bombing campaign, which is reported to be the heaviest and most sustained of the entire Indochina war, is intended to slow down the dry-season movement of supplies and reinforcements to Communist forces in South Vietnam and Cambodia.