Abroad

Paris Le Petit Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s disappearance in a plane in 1944 over the south of France ranks with that of Amelia Earhart in the annals of lost aviators. The author of Wind, Sand, and Stars, Night Flight, and the ever-popular The Little Prince was last seen flying a Lockheed P-38 fighter on a reconnaissance mission shortly before the Allied invasion of the French Mediterranean coast. Now, however, the French Pilot Syndicate’s publication /care has published an account left by a German pilot, Robert Heichele, himself shot down later that year, which tells of how a German patrol, equipped with the then new FW-190 prototypes, planes unfamiliar to the French pilot, surprised him near St. Raphael and opened fire with their cannon. Saint-Exupéry’s plane was unarmed, as he relied on its speed and maneuverability. Heichele’s report says that such a plane was shot down just at the time. Saint-Exupéry was reported missing. This explanation is accepted as the most likely so far of the famous pilot-author’s fate.

Kabul Soviet Achievements It is well over a year and a half since the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan on the pretext of protecting its people. And its achievements, in military and political terms both, are fairly limited. The Russians have indeed managed to occupy and hold the principal cities and towns and the road network, at least by day, although in recent weeks the country’s second largest city, Kandahar, has been heavily infiltrated by rebel guerrillas. The Russians have attempted to use the helicopter gunship as a means of controlling unoccupied areas, recently increasing the number of these aircraft from sixty to 240. Politically, their venture has not paid off. Defections and desertions have reduced the Afghan army, the Soviets’ principal instrument of control, from 70,-00 to 25,000. The Soviets for their part have had to maintain their forces at the 85,000-man level with a reserve of 30,000 more troops in border zones within the Soviet Union. The rebels, or insurgents, as they are variously called, are using staging areas mainly on the Pakistani frontier, where there is considerable arms smuggling despite attempts by the Pakistani government to remain neutral. The rebels in many places have set up their own local governments, levying taxes and either colluding with local officials or murdering them. “We have been joined by many defectors who bring with them weapons, ammunition, and armored cars,’’ says one insurgent leader. “The Russians have the advantage of helicopter gunships, but we are fighting on home soil and have God at our hand.”