VIENTIANE, LAOS (DNSI)-An old Laotian proverb, "when the elephants fight, the grass gets trampled," is usually applied to battles between outside powers here. It is equally apt, however, in describing the conflicts among giant American agencies over the use of air power in this tiny nation.

The history of policy-making in the air war is largely one of conflict between harder and softer-lining elements within the State Department, Pentagon and CIA. Debate has raged over such questions as which villages would be bombed, whether napalm would be used, and how many aircraft would be made available for a given operation. Gradually, as control flowed to the Air Force, as the influence of the CIA grew greater, and as a new American Ambassador came to rely more on air power, the tougher line was taken.

Control of the air war involves two aspects: targeting and operations. Operational control has always rested with the Air Force. As former Ambassador William H. Sullivan said in Senate hearings last May, "the Air Force does not second the command of its aircraft... to the control of the Ambassador."

From the very beginning, the Air Force determined how many sorties would be flown, which aircraft and ordinance would be used, and when strikes would be made.

From May 1964 until November 1968, however, the Ambassador retained a good deal of functional control over the all-important area of targeting. Photo reconnaissance units in Thailand, South Vietnam and Laos and the CIA would submit targets to the Ambassador for approval. The authorized list numbered over 900 by the fall of 1968.

Each week a meeting would take place at Udorn Air Force Base in Thailand, attended by representatives of the Ambassador, Air Force, and CIA. Twenty to fifty targets would be selected from the overall list for the week's strikes. These would then be presented to the Ambassador for final approval before being turned over to the Air Force for execution.

The Ambassador during this period, William Sullivan, was opposed to unrestricted bombing of civilian targets, and imposed other limitations such as forbidding the use of napalm in populated areas. He argued basically that a widened air war could only result in an escalated ground war, and possibly open up a second front for the United States in Laos. Opposing the introduction of American troops against the Ho Chi Minh trail on much the same basis, he was in frequent conflict with both the military and the CIA.

Y 1967 the CIA had become a forceful advocate of bombing population centers in Pathet Lao territory. Unlike Vietnam, where its main function was intelligence-gathering, the CIA has been intimately involved in operations here. It directs the 30,000-man Armee Clandestine, which does the bulk of the fighting. And with its own team of photo interpreters, control of reconnaissance aircraft, and teams of local ground observers, the CIA has played a key role in targeting sessions as well. As the Armee Clandestine began suffering reverses on the ground, the CIA held that heavy bombing of the Pathet Lao civilian infrastructure was necessary.

Its position was in part conditioned by the attitude taken by Meo General Vang Pao, who controls most of the Armee Clandestine's forces. Vang Pao is generally reluctant to launch offensives unless they are preceded by massive American bombing. He is well known in Laos for his periodic retreats to his base at Long Cheng, where he is said to sulk until his requests are granted. The need to keep Vang Pao fighting had much to do with the CIA's hard line on the bombing.

As long as the Air Force placed first priority on the air war over North Vietnam, however, Sullivan was able to enforce a policy of limited strikes. And, through the use of his own photo interpretation team, Sullivan managed to keep tabs on most of the bombing.

When the bombing began, a group of four photo interpreters was assigned to Vientiane. Although members of the Air Force, they were assigned to the top-secret Project 404 of supplementary military personnel. As such, they were directly responsible to the Ambassador. Going over reconnaissance films daily, they provided an independent check on Air Force activities.

This means of verification, however, had its limitations. Unlike in North Vietnam, reconnaissance missions were not flown after each strike. Rather, a given target would be photographed by jets of the 432nd tactical reconnaissance squadron once over a period of from two weeks to three months. Thus it was often most difficult to assess when a given strike had occurred, or who had been responsible for it. In addition, reconnaissance was rarely done on areas which had not been approved as targets.

The Terrain Following Radar, meant to record the point at which bombs were released, proved equally imprecise. Depending upon the wind and angle of delivery, ordinance might land as far as a half mile away from the point over which it was dropped. And it was rarely possible to check back over the tens of thousands of feet of barely distinguishable black blobs recorded on the radar tape.

THESE restrictions on the Ambassador's control over the bombing were dramatically illustrated by the bombing of Sap Nao in September 1967. Sap Nao was a small village in northern Laos, about two miles from a communist off-landing area near Highway 19. The CIA, arguing that ammunition was being stored in Sap Nao, put it forth as a target for bombing on four separate occasions. The Ambassador refused to authorize it each time, on the grounds that there was no evidence that it was an arms depot and that as a village it was thus off-limits.

In November 1967, however, a reconnaissance aircraft accidentally strayed off target and happened to photograph Sap Nao. A routine chick of the film revealed that the village had been obliterated. Unofficial investigations showed that CIA personnel on their own initiative had instructed AIE pilots of the 56th Special Operations Wing at Nakhorn Phanom Air Force base in Thailand to bomb Sap Nao. The pilots, unaware that the Ambassador had not approved the target, had made the strikes. It was later established as well that in fact no ammunition had been stored in the village.