Oh Hunter was pretty well known by then...Fear & Loathing already out, a regular at Rolling Stone.....so more than 'in the making' !!!

As for Laos, pretty remarkable....but hardly as frightening as the fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge that I'd just covered (including being surrounded by KR troops at one point!) .... I'd been sen to to Saigon as Times correspondent, having learned Vietnamese....but never got there! Cambodia 'fell' the same time as Saigon !!