Editing Pathet Lao (section)

===1960's and 1970's===
In the 1960s, more attempts at neutrality agreements and coalition government were attempted but as North Vietnam had no intention of withdrawing from Laos, these agreements all failed. By the mid-1960s, the country had fallen into proxy warfare between pro-US and pro-Vietnamese irregular military groups. In 1968, the Army of North Vietnam launched a multi-division invasion of Laos. The Pathet Lao were pushed to the side in the conflict and reduced to the role of an auxiliary force to the North Vietnamese army. Unable to match the heavy Soviet and Chinese weapons in addition to the numerical strength of the Vietnamese forces, the Royal Lao Army took itself out of the conflict after heavy losses.

The communist forces battled the Royal Lao Army, US irregular forces (including Air America and other contract employees and Hmong commandos), and Thai volunteer forces in Laos winning effective control in the north and east. The government itself was effectively powerless. The Pathet Lao held hundreds of US "detainees" as prisoners of war during and after the [[Vietnam War]] (Second Indochina War).

Shortly after the Paris Peace Accords ended US involvement in the Vietnam War, the Pathet Lao and the government of Laos signed a cease-fire agreement, the Vientiane Treaty, in February 1973.

In December 1974, they were responsible for the killing of Charles Dean and Neil Sharman.

The coalition government envisaged by the treaty lasted only two years. The Pathet Lao refused to disarm and the North Vietnamese Army did not leave the country. In late May 1975, the Pathet Lao, with the direct assistance of the North Vietnamese Army, began attacking government strongholds. With the fall of the South Vietnamese government to the North Vietnamese on 30 April 1975 and the fall of the Cambodian government to the Khmer Rouge on April 17, the non-communist elements of the national government decided that allowing the Pathet Lao to enter power would be better than to have them take it by force. On 23 August 1975, Pathet Lao forces quietly entered the Lao capital city of Vientiane.

On 2 December 1975, the Pathet Lao firmly took over the government, abolishing the monarchy and establishing the Lao People's Democratic Republic. Shortly thereafter, the Pathet Lao signed an agreement with Vietnam that allowed Vietnam to station part of its army in the country and to send political and economic advisors into Laos. Vietnam afterward forced Laos to cut any remaining economic ties to its other neighbours, including Thailand and Cambodia.

After the Pathet Lao took over the country in 1975, the conflict continued in isolated pockets. In 1977, a communist newspaper promised the party would hunt down the "American collaborators" and their families "to the last root". With the demise of the Soviet Union, control of Laos by Vietnam waned at the end of the 1980s. Today, "Pathet Lao" is often invoked as a general term signifying Lao nationalism.
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