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Phnompenh, June 1979, six months after Communist Vietnam
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had invaded Communist Cambodia,ousting its rulers, the Khmer Rouge.
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Phnompenh, four years after the Communist Khmer Rouge had defeated
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an American-backed government:
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four years of terror that followed five years of war.
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On the day of victory, the Khmer Rouge began to empty
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all of Cambodia's cities and towns at gunpoint.
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They went on to starve or slaughter hundreds of thousands,
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perhaps two million Cambodians -- nobody knows.
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The Geneva Conference of 1954 had guaranteed
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the neutrality of Cambodia and Laos.
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But neither country could prevent the war in neighboring Vietnam
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from spilling across its borders.
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The neutralist government in Laos included
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members of the pro-Communist Pathet Lao.
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The Pathet Lao were supported by the North Vietnamese who moved
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supplies through eastern Laos to the Vietcong fighting in South Vietnam.
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The United States backed the anti-Communist forces in Laos.
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Here now is the Chief Executive.
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My fellow Americans, Laos is far away from America.
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But the world is small.
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Its two million people live in a country three times the size of Austria.
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The security of all Southeast Asia will be endangered
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if Laos loses its neutral independence.
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Its own safety runs with the safety of us all.
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In real neutrality, observed by all.
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All we want in Laos is peace, not war.
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To back up Kennedy's words of support for Laos, his administration
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secretly organized the largest of the hill tribes, the Meo or Hmong.
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Now most people don't know that in '61 and '62,
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there were teams of U.S. special forces in the mountains of Laos
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-- and it's a very rugged country -- who were training and equipping
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and leading the Meo guerrilla forces against the Pathet Lao.
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Later, the CIA took charge, often using its airline, Air America, as cover.
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I was working for an airline the whole time I was there basically.
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That was my cover -- thin though it was.
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Everybody knew exactly what I was doing.
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But then no one ever saw me so it didn't really make a whole lot of difference.
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But that if I were killed, my identification was as an airline employee.
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Like the Soviet Union, America supplied its allies
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in the case of the Hmong, covertly.
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Now it obviously wouldn't have done to publicize in The Washington Post,
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Post, for example, we had just lost three aircraft in Laos
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because of enemy groundfire,
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because we weren't supposed to be there in the first place.
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So the general subterfuge was that any incident
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was called "aircraft malfunctioning" or "inclement weather."
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And so the families of survivors of these people at home
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would simply be told that unfortunately your husband or your son
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was killed in a crash in the mountains of Laos.
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In 1961, Laos was the major Southeast Asia crisis.
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But nobody wanted to fight, least of all the big powers.
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At an international conference in 1962, they patched together another
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neutralist government giving the pro-Communist Pathet Lao more prominence.
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But despite early optimism, Laos was still divided,
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and as the war in neighboring Vietnam escalated,
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the fragile coalition fell apart.
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In March 1964,
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five months before the first American bombing raid on North Vietnam,
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the United States organized a secret bombing campaign in Laos.
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Using unmarked planes, they mainly attacked the Ho Chi Minh Trail,
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the increasingly important Communist supply route from North to South Vietnam.
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The air war intensified, hitting Laotian villages
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and driving a million peasants from their homes.
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For eight years, Laos was the most bombed country in the world.
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The Pathet Lao forces grew.
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Equipped with heavier weapons by the North Vietnamese,
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their guerrillas began to fight in battalion-sized units
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against their principal enemy, the Hmong.
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When the whole context of the war in Southeast Asia changed,
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and it became expedient, perhaps, for the Americans to push
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the Hmong into something other than their traditional way of fighting,
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this is the place where we sold them down the river.
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The United States spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the war.
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The Hmong army, suffering heavy casualties, recruited children.
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What sort of gun is that he's carrying?
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M- 16. He says can do two things: automatic and semi-automatic.
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How old is he?Ten years old.
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In Vientiane, the Laotian capital, the mountain war seemed far away.
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There were no American combat soldiers in Laos
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only officials, aid workers, military advisers and CIA agents.
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No troops.
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Yet American spending was ten times bigger than the Laotian national budget.
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We provided the logistics, the air support,
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transport, the communications, ammunition weaponry and so forth,
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while the North Vietnamese forces grew from seven to 70,000.
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These tribal forces up in the country that were supported by CIA
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not the Royal Lao army, which stayed right down in the comfortable valley
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and almost never heard a shot fired in anger.
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But the forces supported by CIA held
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that increase force off for about ten years.
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Now I think that's a pretty good record.
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Ammunition was plentiful, but the Hmong were running out of soldiers.
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The United States covertly imported and paid for 8,000 Thais to fight in Laos.
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In early 1973, cease-fire agreements were reached in Vietnam and Laos.
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Two years later, the Communist Pathet Lao took over.
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Ten years after the 1954 Geneva agreements,
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neighboring Cambodia was still at peace.
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Cambodia's ancient grandeur was carved in the stones of Angkor,
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once the center of an empire that stretched across Southeast Asia.
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Hindu God-Kings had ruled a powerful state constantly at war with its neighbors.
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In the fifteenth century, the empire collapsed.
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Angkor was overrun and abandoned for more than 400 years.
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In 1960, the last king of Cambodia was cremated.
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His son, Prince Norodom Sihanouk.
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Sihanouk had been put on the throne by colonial France.
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After independence, he abdicated in favor of his father,
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in order to play a more direct political role.
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Sihanouk remained chief of state,
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and skillfully maneuvered to preserve his nation's neutrality.
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Cambodian folk dancers celebrated the country's abundance of rice and fish.
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Nearly 90 percent of all peasants owned their land.
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Cambodia prospered. Unlike Vietnam and Laos, it was at peace.
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To Cambodia's peasants, Sihanouk was almost divine.
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Many believed that he was even responsible for the success of their crops.
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Sihanouk relied on them, rather than on the urban population, for support.
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But Sihanouk's prestige and popularity could not change Cambodia's geography.
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In 1963, Sihanouk organized denunciations
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of America's growing involvement in Vietnam.
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He feared that the war would spread across his borders
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as South Vietnamese troops pursued the Vietcong into Cambodia.
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He was willing to befriend any country or leader
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that he thought might assure Cambodia's survival.
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He formed a close relationship with China's Mao Zedong.
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He also courted leaders of non-aligned nations like Indonesia's President Sukarno.
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He strengthened his ties with France's President Charles de Gaulle.
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He also wrote, directed and starred in his own feature films
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all of them glorifying Cambodia.
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In 1966, Cambodia continued its carefree festivities
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despite growing dangers within the country and along its borders.
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Sihanouk had broken relations with America.
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His officers were becoming restless.
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Sihanouk was also beginning to face trouble in the countryside,
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where small groups of Cambodia Communists, the Khmer Rouge,
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were recruiting some discontented peasants.
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Sihanouk continued to juggle.
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In 1967, he invited Jacqueline Kennedy to Cambodia,
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hoping to draw America's attention to his dilemma.
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Sihanouk was concerned by the Vietnamese Communist buildup in the sanctuaries,
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and he feared a large-scale U.S. attack across his borders.
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As a counterbalance to this visit he denounced America's Vietnam policy.
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It would be immoral to support, you know, your aggression,
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the aggression of the United States against the people of Vietnam.
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We want to have the right to continue to have the right to be united,
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to be free,and how could we deny to Vietnam the right to self-determination?
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Pursuing their enemy, American and South Vietnamese aircraft
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often attacked across the Cambodian border.
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Sihanouk criticized Secretary of State Dean Rusk,
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who was then trying to repair relations.
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There is a contradiction between the declaration of friendship
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and respect from Mr. Dean Rusk on one hand and on the other hand your
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your forces in South Vietnam continue to come into Cambodia and to kill..
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...what is necessary...
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..our peasants and innocent peasants, innocent civilian servants.
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In 1969, newly elected President Nixon launched
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secret B-52 bombing raids over Cambodia against North Vietnamese
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and Vietcong sanctuaries driving them further into the country.
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Nixon neither informed Sihanouk, nor sought his approval for this escalation.
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We had many indirect evidences of Sihanouk's acquiescence in the bombing.
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Repeatedly, when he was asked at press conferences he would say
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that of course he did not approve attacks on Cambodia territory,
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but he did not know what was going on in territory occupied by
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what he called the Vietminh, which was the earlier name
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for the North Vietnamese sponsored guerrilla activity.
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He invited Nixon to visit Cambodia while the bombing was going on.
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He reestablished diplomatic relations with us.
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I didn't know anything about the bombing when I went to Cambodia,
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and in fact i didn't know anything about it until after it broke in the newspapers.
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For some reason I was never briefed on what was going on.
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I was aware of the bombing, but not necessarily in Cambodia,
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because in my house on the banks of the Bassac River,at night,
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I not only could hear the bombing, but the whole house shook from
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the load of bombs when they were dropped, I assumed, in Vietnam.
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I suppose it eventually, I mean, most of them were being dropped in Cambodia.
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In January 1970, Sihanouk departed for a vacation in France
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a trip that would take him on to Moscow and Peking.
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He wanted help to curb the Vietnamese Communist presence,
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which was arousing Cambodian hostility.
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In March, anti-Communist officers unleashed mobs against
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the North Vietnamese and Vietcong embassies in Phnompenh.
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They demanded the expulsion of the Vietnamese Communists.
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I can say that some officers in our army and many deputies
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and many members of the government in Phnompenh,
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they want to be your allies in order to have a bowl of your dollars.
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They do not take, they don't think about
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the destiny and the weight of our homeland. They don't mind about it.
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They are more patriot for dollars than for Cambodia.
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A week later, Sihanouk's anti-Communist opponents
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ousted him and issued orders for his execution.
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Sihanouk's former prime minister, General Lon Nol, led the new government,
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which promptly received secret American military aid.
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Well after the coup, and of course Lon Nol's government
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gave the Vietnamese I think 48 hours to get out as I remember,
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there was wild enthusiasm in Phnompenh itself.
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All the children from the schools turned out and enlisted
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and got weapons and went off to the front and that kind of thing
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it was really real enthusiasm.
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Within three weeks, the Cambodian army gained 60,000 recruits.
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They were convinced that U.S. aid would quickly help them
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drive the Vietnamese Communists out of Cambodia.
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Sihanouk, now in China, sided with the Khmer Rouge, his former opponents.
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He became chief of state of a government in exile.
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Norodom Sihanouk appealed from Peking over the radio.
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"Brothers and sisters," he said, "go to the jungles and join the guerrillas."
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Back in that period none of us even knew who the guerrillas were.
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I didn't know who the guerrillas were. I didn't know.
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In the countryside, several thousand peasants were on rampages,
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demanding Sihanouk's return.
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In the town of Kompong Cham a mob killed two members of Parliament.
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I saw the livers of the two politicians being carried past my church.
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Then a little while later, around four or five in the afternoon,
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the livers of the two men were skewered and grilled
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in the marketplace of Kompong Cham.
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Through examples like this, one can understand
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a little the brutality of the Khmers,who are a race of warriors.
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And that should not be forgotten.
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The next day, Lon Nol's troops shot and killed nearly 100 unarmed peasants.
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Many Cambodians still displayed Sihanouk's portrait
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and continued to protest in his favor.
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The Lon Nol regime whipped up hatred against the Vietnamese.
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The victims were not the Vietnamese Communists in the border sanctuaries.
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The victims were Vietnamese villagers and merchants,
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whose families had lived in Cambodia for generations.
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Centuries of hatred erupted as Cambodian troops butchered Vietnamese.
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Taking advantage of Lon Nol's hostility towards the Communist sanctuaries,
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South Vietnamese army units launched raids into Cambodia.
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President Nixon also decided to send U.S. ground forces into Cambodia
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to wipe out the sanctuaries and the elusive Communist headquarters, COSVN.
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For the past five years, as indicated on this map that you see here,
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North Vietnam has occupied military sanctuaries
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all along the Cambodian frontier with South Vietnam.
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As Nixon spoke, U.S. troops were preparing to move into Cambodia.
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The decision to invade, like the earlier secret decision to bomb,
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was withheld from the Cambodian government.
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When we began detailed planning of this operation,
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it was evident to us, since we'd never operated in Cambodia,
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that we needed some kind of map or aerial photo,
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00:23:18,215 --> 00:23:23,017
so I dispatched the G-2 down to pick these up at the headquarters in Saigon
239
00:23:23,052 --> 00:23:25,037
and he had great difficulty in getting them.
240
00:23:25,072 --> 00:23:28,368
And in a few hours he returned with the photographs and
241
00:23:28,403 --> 00:23:32,716
then we found out why: the photographs of course disclosed these huge craters;
242
00:23:32,751 --> 00:23:35,537
the B-52 bombing had been going on for some time
243
00:23:35,572 --> 00:23:37,496
and we weren't aware of it officially,
244
00:23:37,531 --> 00:23:40,484
and indeed I wasn't aware of it at all, and most of us weren't.
245
00:23:40,519 --> 00:23:46,945
Tonight, American and South Vietnamese units will attack the headquarters
246
00:23:46,980 --> 00:23:51,306
for the entire Communist military operation in South Vietnam.
247
00:23:51,341 --> 00:23:56,062
This key control center has been occupied by the North Vietnamese
248
00:23:56,097 --> 00:24:01,039
and Vietcong for five years in blatant violation of Cambodia's neutrality.
249
00:24:01,074 --> 00:24:04,078
One of the things that I found interesting was,
250
00:24:04,113 --> 00:24:08,156
as I looked at Nixon's speech on the incursion,
251
00:24:11,228 --> 00:24:13,049
after we had started it-- a few minutes after we had started it --
252
00:24:13,084 --> 00:24:16,909
was the great emphasis he had placed on the COSVN headquarters,
253
00:24:16,944 --> 00:24:20,466
sort of portrayed it as a kind of a Pentagon that we were going to capture.
254
00:24:20,501 --> 00:24:24,631
And my guess is that at best it was a foxhole and a couple of radios,
255
00:24:24,666 --> 00:24:29,129
but in any case, we knew that in the last 24 hours,
256
00:24:29,164 --> 00:24:31,197
it was well out of the area we were going to operate in,
257
00:24:31,232 --> 00:24:33,395
which we knew from our normal intelligence means.
258
00:24:33,430 --> 00:24:37,251
And so it was never really an objective, although as he portrayed it,
259
00:24:37,286 --> 00:24:40,329
it was a major objective to the American people.
260
00:24:44,237 --> 00:24:50,216
More than 20,000 American and 40,000 South Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia.
261
00:24:50,251 --> 00:24:55,140
The operation, Nixon said, would protect American forces in Vietnam.
262
00:24:55,175 --> 00:25:02,060
The Americans first clashed with their enemy at the Cambodian town of Snoul.
263
00:25:02,095 --> 00:25:07,832
Responding to rifle fire, jets and tanks pounded the town for two days.
264
00:25:07,867 --> 00:25:11,272
The Americans were meeting little resistance.
265
00:25:11,307 --> 00:25:16,100
The body count was four civilians and three Vietnamese Communist soldiers.
266
00:25:33,008 --> 00:25:37,907
My soldiers haven't been looting. They have strict instructions not to.
267
00:25:37,942 --> 00:25:42,779
We of course destroy or evacuate any war material
268
00:25:42,814 --> 00:25:45,592
-- anything that's obviously identifiable as war material --
269
00:25:45,627 --> 00:25:49,322
or associated with the NVA.
270
00:25:49,357 --> 00:25:52,123
As far as civilian property is concerned, our instructions to them,
271
00:25:52,158 --> 00:25:54,612
and what we've been doing is just leaving it in place,
272
00:25:54,647 --> 00:25:57,162
hoping the civilians will come back in and recover it.
273
00:25:59,753 --> 00:26:04,243
A U.S. spokesman said that the tons of captured enemy equipment
274
00:26:04,278 --> 00:26:07,048
had reduced the pressure on American troops in Vietnam.
275
00:26:07,083 --> 00:26:12,224
We did destroy a good number of supplies,
276
00:26:12,259 --> 00:26:15,688
and so I think in that very narrow sense,
277
00:26:15,723 --> 00:26:17,671
that the operation was probably a success.
278
00:26:17,706 --> 00:26:22,239
But of course one must weigh that versus what happened later in Cambodia
279
00:26:22,274 --> 00:26:26,486
and what the impact was politically at home, and it turns out to be
280
00:26:26,521 --> 00:26:29,338
a rather small part of the equation, a sort of technical...
281
00:26:45,417 --> 00:26:50,137
More than 350 American soldiers had died during the invasion.
282
00:26:50,172 --> 00:26:55,340
Within 60 days, as promised, the American forces pulled out of Cambodia.
283
00:26:55,375 --> 00:26:58,909
Nixon called the operation the most successful of the war.
284
00:27:06,468 --> 00:27:10,281
The U.S. troop withdrawals from Vietnam were speeded up.
285
00:27:18,115 --> 00:27:26,052
Whether Nixon and his associates, like myself, were right in ordering
286
00:27:26,087 --> 00:27:31,717
the incursions into Cambodia can be discussed forever.
287
00:27:31,752 --> 00:27:35,764
But once they had taken place, the only way out
288
00:27:35,799 --> 00:27:41,716
was to prevent the Khmer Rouge from taking over the country.
289
00:27:45,317 --> 00:27:50,507
A plan to save American lives had plunged Cambodia into full scale war.
290
00:27:50,542 --> 00:27:55,925
As the war widened, the North Vietnamese moved into the interior,
291
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:59,832
helping the Khmer Rouge to organize and expand.
292
00:28:11,899 --> 00:28:14,767
Cambodia was now a battlefield.
293
00:28:35,233 --> 00:28:39,433
Financed by American money, Cambodia's army, FANK,
294
00:28:39,468 --> 00:28:42,058
was now the best paid in Southeast Asia.
295
00:28:42,093 --> 00:28:46,367
But it was inexperienced and inefficient as it sought its elusive enemy.
296
00:28:47,962 --> 00:28:53,685
My view was that the Cambodians were certainly an amateurish army
297
00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:57,540
without much capability but a tremendous amount of enthusiasm.
298
00:29:01,518 --> 00:29:04,235
Some Cambodians had been fighting and training with
299
00:29:04,270 --> 00:29:06,579
the American special forces in Vietnam.
300
00:29:12,921 --> 00:29:20,283
OK, stop right there...bang...bang...
301
00:29:20,318 --> 00:29:26,277
They became the elite force in Lon Nol's army.
302
00:29:26,312 --> 00:29:30,664
...at the same time we will yell at the top of our lungs we will move...ARGH!
303
00:29:30,699 --> 00:29:35,048
Fear...it makes a man scared...you know, fear.
304
00:29:35,083 --> 00:29:40,686
In October 1970, Lon Nol ended the centuries-old Cambodian monarchy
305
00:29:40,721 --> 00:29:43,276
and created the Khmer Republic.
306
00:29:43,311 --> 00:29:53,045
The early optimism had crumbled and the economy was in a shambles,
307
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:58,820
but the army, with U.S. aid, had grown four-fold, to 100,000 men.
308
00:30:04,746 --> 00:30:09,414
Lon Nol was still opposed by Prince Sihanouk, still in China.
309
00:30:09,449 --> 00:30:18,963
We can only fight and fight until, you now,
310
00:30:18,998 --> 00:30:25,161
the Americans accept to withdraw from our country.
311
00:30:25,196 --> 00:30:32,898
And I am optimistic, so far as the defeat of the Americans is concerned.
312
00:30:32,933 --> 00:30:35,221
It will be inevitable.
313
00:30:39,752 --> 00:30:43,351
On January 22, 1971,
314
00:30:43,386 --> 00:30:47,089
the Vietnamese Communists hit Phnompenh for the first time,
315
00:30:47,124 --> 00:30:50,460
destroying ammunition dumps and oil supplies
316
00:30:50,495 --> 00:30:53,490
and wiping out the Cambodian air force.
317
00:30:58,176 --> 00:31:00,811
Within days, help arrived.
318
00:31:00,846 --> 00:31:05,200
Twenty American soldiers flew in from Vietnam,
319
00:31:05,235 --> 00:31:08,752
carrying guns but wearing civilian clothes.
320
00:31:13,540 --> 00:31:19,521
They formed what they called the military equipment delivery team, M.E.D.T.C.
321
00:31:19,556 --> 00:31:24,064
By the time they got themselves organized, they replaced my little group
322
00:31:24,099 --> 00:31:29,270
of myself and four people with a general and about 113 people.
323
00:31:29,305 --> 00:31:35,966
In effect, they took over most of the military activities
324
00:31:36,001 --> 00:31:38,329
for the FANK headquarters,
325
00:31:38,364 --> 00:31:43,316
which was what I hoped to preclude the Yankees
326
00:31:43,351 --> 00:31:49,439
running all over the place, and making decisions and providing all guidance.
327
00:31:49,474 --> 00:31:55,544
Only American airpower and funds kept Lon Nol's army from defeat.
328
00:31:55,579 --> 00:31:59,846
No Americans were dying in Cambodia, and they still were in Vietnam.
329
00:31:59,881 --> 00:32:05,564
For the moment, Congress went along with Nixon's war.
330
00:32:05,599 --> 00:32:06,984
Now let's look at Cambodia.
331
00:32:07,019 --> 00:32:11,374
We've made a conscious decision not to send American troops in.
332
00:32:11,409 --> 00:32:15,741
There are no American combat troops in Cambodia.
333
00:32:15,776 --> 00:32:18,632
There are no American combat advisers in Cambodia.
334
00:32:18,667 --> 00:32:22,360
There will be no American combat troops or advisers in Cambodia.
335
00:32:22,395 --> 00:32:24,295
We will aid Cambodia.
336
00:32:24,330 --> 00:32:28,531
Cambodia is the Nixon doctrine in its purest form.
337
00:32:28,566 --> 00:32:34,498
Vietnam was in violation of the Nixon doctrine because in Cambodia
338
00:32:34,533 --> 00:32:38,323
what we are doing is helping the Cambodians to help themselves.
339
00:32:38,358 --> 00:32:43,760
The doctrine was also tested against the Ho Chi Minh Trail in southern Laos.
340
00:32:43,795 --> 00:32:48,663
In early 1971, South Vietnamese forces, using American equipment,
341
00:32:48,698 --> 00:32:51,336
moved against the Communist supply routes.
342
00:32:56,230 --> 00:32:59,695
The Laotian government was not informed in advance.
343
00:32:59,730 --> 00:33:04,884
The prime minister said to me, "I don't know anything about this either.
344
00:33:04,919 --> 00:33:08,368
I only just learned about the operation from the American ambassador."
345
00:33:11,258 --> 00:33:16,160
I answered, "This is quite serious." He replied, "Yes, quite serious.
346
00:33:16,195 --> 00:33:19,476
Military operations are being conducted in our country.
347
00:33:19,511 --> 00:33:23,347
It is very serious but what can we do?
348
00:33:23,382 --> 00:33:25,365
They have taken the decision.
349
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:29,460
All we can do is to lodge a protest. That is all."
350
00:33:38,127 --> 00:33:42,993
The United States planned the invasion and gave it air and artillery support.
351
00:33:43,028 --> 00:33:45,936
But without American combat troops beside them,
352
00:33:45,971 --> 00:33:48,898
the South Vietnamese forces fled in disarray.
353
00:33:55,371 --> 00:33:59,254
They took 3,000 casualties in the first week alone.
354
00:34:07,687 --> 00:34:14,768
In Laos, the Nixon doctrine had failed. But in Cambodia it was still intact.
355
00:34:17,333 --> 00:34:20,070
As American aid poured in,
356
00:34:20,105 --> 00:34:23,922
corrupt Cambodian officers invented phantom soldiers.
357
00:34:23,957 --> 00:34:30,146
A quarter of Cambodia's army existed only as names on pay slips,
358
00:34:30,181 --> 00:34:34,266
endangering the lives of those who fought on in understrength units.
359
00:34:36,077 --> 00:34:39,891
In 1973, after three years exile in China,
360
00:34:39,926 --> 00:34:43,065
Sihanouk went into the Khmer Rouge zone of Cambodia.
361
00:34:43,100 --> 00:34:47,389
Norodum Sihanouk embraces Khieu Sampan,
362
00:34:47,424 --> 00:34:51,575
vice prime minister of the royal government of the National Union of Cambodia,
363
00:34:51,610 --> 00:34:55,884
and Commander-in-Chief of the People's National Liberation Armed Forces.
364
00:34:55,919 --> 00:35:01,010
The enemies say that Mr. Khieu Sampan has been dead for several years.
365
00:35:01,045 --> 00:35:05,138
But here you can see him chatting cordially with Norodom Sihanouk.
366
00:35:05,173 --> 00:35:11,429
Sihanouk also embraced another Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot.
367
00:35:15,371 --> 00:35:18,030
Sihanouk knew he was only a figurehead.
368
00:35:20,809 --> 00:35:24,720
The Khmer Rouge leaders planned to remold Cambodia
369
00:35:24,755 --> 00:35:29,211
into a rural Communist utopia and would spare no life to do it.
370
00:35:29,246 --> 00:35:32,181
"When they gain power," Sihanouk said,
371
00:35:32,216 --> 00:35:34,907
"they will spit me out like a cherry stone."
372
00:35:36,794 --> 00:35:41,593
They were using Sihanouk's prestige to mobilize peasant support.
373
00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:49,153
The Khmer Rouge leaders said that important cadres like us were Communists.
374
00:35:49,188 --> 00:35:51,789
The people believed in Sihanouk, but they said that
375
00:35:52,660 --> 00:35:54,378
we who had joined the party should not believe in him.
376
00:35:54,413 --> 00:35:56,592
Starting with candidates for party member-ship,
377
00:35:56,627 --> 00:36:00,535
there was this kind of education,no one should have faith in Sihanouk.
378
00:36:00,570 --> 00:36:03,099
But they still allowed the people to believe in him.
379
00:36:03,134 --> 00:36:06,861
You see, there was public education and covert education.
380
00:36:06,896 --> 00:36:09,607
If we still believed in Sihanouk, they explained,
381
00:36:09,642 --> 00:36:11,786
there was no point in our making revolution.
382
00:36:11,821 --> 00:36:16,762
Sihanouk and the revolution they told us secretly, were enemies of each other.
383
00:36:16,797 --> 00:36:22,009
If, at any time, the Khmer Rouge had not aligned themselves with Sihanouk,
384
00:36:22,044 --> 00:36:24,739
they would not have been able to carry on their fight.
385
00:36:24,774 --> 00:36:27,157
They wouldn't have been able to challenge Lon Nol.
386
00:36:27,192 --> 00:36:29,763
That's why they got Sihanouk on their side and put him up front.
387
00:36:29,798 --> 00:36:32,902
They made him front man because his subjects
388
00:36:32,937 --> 00:36:34,967
had admired and respected him for so long.
389
00:36:41,098 --> 00:36:43,517
In less than three years,
390
00:36:43,552 --> 00:36:48,009
the Khmer Rouge forces had grown from 3,000 to 60,000.
391
00:37:00,784 --> 00:37:03,836
The Khmer Rouge were no longer completely
392
00:37:03,871 --> 00:37:06,609
dependent on their Vietnamese Communist allies.
393
00:37:11,398 --> 00:37:16,765
America stepped up the bombing. During six months of 1973,
394
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:20,731
more than a quarter of a million tons were dropped on Cambodia.
395
00:37:26,142 --> 00:37:29,859
The ordinary people were terrified by the bombing and the shelling,
396
00:37:29,894 --> 00:37:31,800
never having experienced war,
397
00:37:31,835 --> 00:37:35,280
and sometimes they shit in their pants when the big bombs and shells came.
398
00:37:38,091 --> 00:37:41,691
Two hundred to 400 shells would fall in each attack,
399
00:37:41,726 --> 00:37:44,056
and some people became shell-shocked --
400
00:37:44,091 --> 00:37:46,072
just like their brains were completely shattered.
401
00:37:46,107 --> 00:37:50,158
Even after the shelling had stopped, they couldn't hold down a meal.
402
00:37:50,193 --> 00:37:54,944
Their minds just froze up and they would wander around mute,
403
00:37:54,979 --> 00:37:57,236
not talking for three or four days.
404
00:37:57,271 --> 00:38:03,154
Terrified and half-crazy, they would believe anything they were told.
405
00:38:07,479 --> 00:38:09,928
And because there was so much shelling,
406
00:38:09,963 --> 00:38:12,866
they believed whatever the Khmer Rouge told them.
407
00:38:12,901 --> 00:38:17,792
The fear was pervasive. Everybody was scared.
408
00:38:17,827 --> 00:38:21,628
But the real Reds weren't dying. They weren't being hit.
409
00:38:21,663 --> 00:38:25,813
The Khmer Rouge, who were doing the fighting, had dug bomb shelters.
410
00:38:25,848 --> 00:38:30,197
So whenever the planes came, they jumped into their holes while the people,
411
00:38:30,232 --> 00:38:33,104
sometimes didn't even have time to get out of their houses.
412
00:38:33,139 --> 00:38:37,853
The Khmer Rouge would say that the purpose of the bombing
413
00:38:37,888 --> 00:38:41,732
was to completely destroy the country, not simply just to win the war,
414
00:38:41,767 --> 00:38:43,792
but to annihilate the population,
415
00:38:43,827 --> 00:38:46,373
and that it was only because we were taking cover
416
00:38:46,408 --> 00:38:49,897
-- moving around to avoid the bombing -- that some of us were surviving.
417
00:38:49,932 --> 00:38:53,705
So they used the bombing, the bomb craters and the bomb shrapnel
418
00:38:53,740 --> 00:38:56,076
to educate the people politically,
419
00:38:56,111 --> 00:38:59,572
to make the people hate and be enraged at the Americans.
420
00:39:01,896 --> 00:39:06,691
OK, we'd like to go ahead and hit that same target again,
421
00:39:06,726 --> 00:39:11,053
it looks like it still might be lucrative, we can see some stuff down there,
422
00:39:11,088 --> 00:39:13,225
and if it's OK with you we'll just go ahead
423
00:39:13,260 --> 00:39:15,513
and put this set of air in on that target and see
424
00:39:15,548 --> 00:39:18,971
if we can put the next one on the first target...OK?"
425
00:39:19,006 --> 00:39:24,166
"OK...Ol Hotel 4/3, the charlie, charlie 01,
426
00:39:24,201 --> 00:39:25,887
will you put some bomb over there, sir?
427
00:39:25,922 --> 00:39:27,902
And move to the number 1 target please."
428
00:39:27,937 --> 00:39:30,846
Despite Congressional restrictions,
429
00:39:30,881 --> 00:39:34,658
the U.S. embassy in Phnompenh coordinated bombing targets.
430
00:39:38,418 --> 00:39:42,744
The extent of Nixon's secret bombing was not uncovered by Congress
431
00:39:42,779 --> 00:39:47,229
until July 1973,four years after it had started.
432
00:39:54,719 --> 00:39:59,407
Nixon had waged war in Cambodia without Congressional approval.
433
00:39:59,442 --> 00:40:02,304
It prompted angry Congressional reaction
434
00:40:02,339 --> 00:40:05,346
and led to the first call for Nixon's impeachment.
435
00:40:05,381 --> 00:40:11,564
No, the President doesn't have the right to bomb a neutral country.
436
00:40:11,599 --> 00:40:14,479
The question is, does the President have the right
437
00:40:14,514 --> 00:40:18,948
to react against concentrations of enemy troops
438
00:40:18,983 --> 00:40:21,764
that have already occupied neutral territory,
439
00:40:21,799 --> 00:40:26,744
have established themselves there for three years, and are killing,
440
00:40:26,779 --> 00:40:31,019
have expelled the local population and are killing Americans
441
00:40:31,054 --> 00:40:37,577
from that territory? All the opinions we received was that
442
00:40:37,612 --> 00:40:41,908
this was a clear exercise of the right of war.
443
00:40:41,943 --> 00:40:44,609
On this matter of the bombing of Cambodia,
444
00:40:44,609 --> 00:40:47,240
it was considered sufficiently sensitive
445
00:40:47,275 --> 00:40:51,865
that I was not privy to the information at the time it was going on,
446
00:40:51,900 --> 00:40:56,978
nor at the time that I submitted the reports to the Congress.
447
00:40:57,013 --> 00:40:59,166
I'm sure, Mr. Chairman, you will agree,
448
00:40:59,201 --> 00:41:01,816
and I think the American people will agree,
449
00:41:01,851 --> 00:41:05,498
that we should take whatever action is necessary
450
00:41:05,533 --> 00:41:08,624
in order to protect the lives of the American people.
451
00:41:08,659 --> 00:41:12,236
And that's what this operation was all about...and it was very effective.
452
00:41:12,271 --> 00:41:15,250
Why didn't you tell us about it and justify it?
453
00:41:15,285 --> 00:41:18,249
Why do we have to rely on false information?
454
00:41:18,284 --> 00:41:21,909
Why does the secretary of the Air Force have to come before this committee
455
00:41:21,944 --> 00:41:24,748
and say he "deeply regrets" and he's ashamed of the fact that
456
00:41:24,783 --> 00:41:29,483
he didn't give us accurate information, because he himself was misinformed?
457
00:41:34,478 --> 00:41:39,940
In August 1973, a B-52 dropped its bombs on Neak Luong,
458
00:41:39,975 --> 00:41:43,337
the river town just 30 miles from Phnompenh.
459
00:41:46,724 --> 00:41:49,012
The bombing was a mistake.
460
00:41:49,047 --> 00:41:52,976
More than a hundred villagers were killed and several hundred were wounded.
461
00:42:03,524 --> 00:42:07,627
A crew member was fined $700 for the error.
462
00:42:07,662 --> 00:42:15,497
The American ambassador, Emory Swank, handed the survivors $100 each.
463
00:42:15,532 --> 00:42:22,053
Congress had finally forced a bombing halt on August 15, 1973.
464
00:42:22,088 --> 00:42:32,742
Mes condoleances personnelles et les condoleances de tous les peuples Americaines.
465
00:42:32,777 --> 00:42:36,240
With the end of American bombing,
466
00:42:36,275 --> 00:42:38,894
they tiny Cambodian air force was on its own.
467
00:42:46,086 --> 00:42:48,911
The Khmer Rouge had rebuilt their forces
468
00:42:48,946 --> 00:42:51,392
and prepared to launch their biggest offensive yet.
469
00:42:51,427 --> 00:42:57,845
From one-twenty in the morning of the new year, 1975 on,
470
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:03,399
the Communists launched a very fierce attack
471
00:43:03,434 --> 00:43:07,628
from every point of the compass against Phnompenh.
472
00:43:07,663 --> 00:43:13,697
They used first some 80,000 troops which would increase,
473
00:43:13,732 --> 00:43:16,258
as the attack progressed.
474
00:43:21,658 --> 00:43:25,841
Many Cambodian government posts were soon to be overwhelmed.
475
00:43:29,875 --> 00:43:33,495
The Khmer Rouge, now close to Phnompenh,
476
00:43:33,530 --> 00:43:36,076
fired rockets into the city every day.
477
00:44:24,535 --> 00:44:28,190
More than two million refugees had fled to Phnompenh,
478
00:44:28,225 --> 00:44:31,788
to escape the American bombing and Khmer Rouge brutality.
479
00:44:31,823 --> 00:44:36,778
They survived on meager rations provided by Western aid organizations.
480
00:44:41,529 --> 00:44:44,001
The city was slowly starving.
481
00:44:48,617 --> 00:44:52,009
People were running back and forth every which way,
482
00:44:52,044 --> 00:44:54,274
afraid to stay in the same place for long.
483
00:44:54,309 --> 00:44:57,735
Sometimes the shells would fall right in the center of town,
484
00:44:57,770 --> 00:45:00,105
and everybody would flee to the river bank.
485
00:45:00,140 --> 00:45:02,421
Then the shells would fall near the river bank,
486
00:45:02,456 --> 00:45:04,714
and everybody would run back to the middle of town.
487
00:45:04,749 --> 00:45:07,199
It just went on like this, chaotically.
488
00:45:24,247 --> 00:45:28,025
To skirt Congressional restrictions, the U.S. military
489
00:45:28,060 --> 00:45:31,668
chartered civilian planes to fly in a thousand tons of rice,
490
00:45:31,703 --> 00:45:34,331
fuel and ammunition a day.
491
00:45:38,888 --> 00:45:42,829
They came under constant rocket and artillery attack.
492
00:45:42,864 --> 00:45:44,874
Supplies ran low.
493
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:58,456
Lon Nol's air force now strafed their enemy on the outskirts of the city.
494
00:45:58,491 --> 00:46:01,525
Road and rail links had already been cut.
495
00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:07,068
In the countryside, the Khmer Rouge decided to push for the final victory.
496
00:46:07,103 --> 00:46:15,543
Phnompenh was being strangled.Rocket attacks continued daily.
497
00:46:18,776 --> 00:46:21,784
A single rocket hitting the center of the city
498
00:46:21,819 --> 00:46:25,246
killed 11 people and injured more than 20 others.
499
00:46:36,545 --> 00:46:40,822
Government troops became desperate as the areas under their control shrank.
500
00:46:40,857 --> 00:46:44,752
In one town, they resorted to cannibalism to survive.
501
00:46:49,410 --> 00:46:53,387
Cambodian officers used ambulances to carry ammunition
502
00:46:53,422 --> 00:46:55,765
until the International Red Cross stopped them.
503
00:47:08,130 --> 00:47:11,814
Phnompenh's hospitals were overflowing with wounded,
504
00:47:11,849 --> 00:47:15,807
basketball courts were covered with makeshift beds.
505
00:47:15,842 --> 00:47:21,476
Medicine had to be bought on the black market.
506
00:47:21,511 --> 00:47:23,459
Blood plasma was running out.
507
00:47:36,097 --> 00:47:40,097
The Cambodian army had fewer than 20 surgeons.
508
00:47:40,132 --> 00:47:50,145
I feel this war is a real genocide. Khmer are killing Khmer.
509
00:47:50,180 --> 00:47:53,173
At the beginning of the war, of course,
510
00:47:53,208 --> 00:47:56,653
there were a lot of North Vietnamese in our country.
511
00:47:56,654 --> 00:48:01,926
But now there is only Khmer. Khmer are killing and fighting Khmer.
512
00:48:01,961 --> 00:48:09,412
And many, many of we, of us are dead or get casualties, or wounded.
513
00:48:09,447 --> 00:48:17,602
I suppose since five years of war, half million of Khmer in this country,
514
00:48:17,637 --> 00:48:23,030
among seven million, half million are dead or wounded.
515
00:48:27,882 --> 00:48:33,139
In the once abundant land of Cambodia, there was famine and disease.
516
00:48:38,367 --> 00:48:43,020
Volunteer doctors from abroad flew into Phnompenh to help.
517
00:48:43,055 --> 00:48:47,017
It's worse than I expected.
518
00:48:47,052 --> 00:48:49,359
The conditions that I've seen have been pretty bad.
519
00:48:49,394 --> 00:48:55,399
I've been helping with the malnutritioned infants.
520
00:48:55,434 --> 00:48:58,956
I also assisted on some surgery last night.
521
00:48:58,991 --> 00:49:03,839
We did an amputation on one of the soldiers, amputated his arm.
522
00:49:03,874 --> 00:49:13,271
The soldier's ten-month-old daughter also had her left arm amputated.
523
00:49:13,306 --> 00:49:17,302
As you know, the families follow the
524
00:49:17,337 --> 00:49:22,038
soldier/father into the battles and live near them.
525
00:49:27,580 --> 00:49:32,838
Lon Nol was encouraged to leave the country on April 1, by American diplomats
526
00:49:32,873 --> 00:49:36,180
who thought negotiations might be possible with Prince Sihanouk.
527
00:49:44,254 --> 00:49:48,530
The Khmer Rouge, poised for victory, was not about to bargain.
528
00:49:48,565 --> 00:49:53,285
They broadcast lists of traitors to be executed after they won.
529
00:49:53,320 --> 00:49:57,596
On April 12, Operation Eagle Pull began.
530
00:49:57,631 --> 00:50:01,808
Helicopters evacuated the remaining Americans from Phnompenh
531
00:50:01,843 --> 00:50:05,224
to a naval task force in the Gulf of Thailand.
532
00:50:05,259 --> 00:50:08,973
Most Cambodian government ministers declined to leave.
533
00:50:09,008 --> 00:50:14,068
One who stayed -- and died -- wrote to the American ambassador:
534
00:50:14,103 --> 00:50:18,627
"You have refused us your protection, and there is nothing we can do.
535
00:50:18,662 --> 00:50:23,076
I hope that you and your country find happiness under Heaven."
536
00:50:23,111 --> 00:50:30,249
We try so hard to please the Americans, but I now looking back to that time,
537
00:50:30,284 --> 00:50:32,233
think we should not have done that much,
538
00:50:32,268 --> 00:50:35,049
because the withdrawal of the American was decided upon
539
00:50:35,084 --> 00:50:40,063
without taking into consideration all the Cambodian affairs,
540
00:50:40,098 --> 00:50:43,686
without taking into consideration even of the Amer-, of Cambodian lives...
541
00:50:48,619 --> 00:50:51,634
An air of death hung over Phnompenh.
542
00:50:55,289 --> 00:51:00,930
Less than one week later, the Khmer Rouge overran Phnompenh airport.
543
00:51:02,941 --> 00:51:06,586
The people were fleeing, running across the fields in front of the airport.
544
00:51:06,621 --> 00:51:13,700
The planes came and thought that they were Khmer Rouge and bombed them.
545
00:51:13,735 --> 00:51:17,245
The bodies were all mixed up.
546
00:51:17,280 --> 00:51:20,586
Some soldiers, some ordinary people, some Khmer Rouge.
547
00:51:20,621 --> 00:51:23,290
The survivors jumped over the corpses.
548
00:51:23,325 --> 00:51:25,761
Then there was shelling and everything was aflame.
549
00:51:25,796 --> 00:51:31,625
It was already dusk and people could hardly recognize each other.
550
00:51:31,660 --> 00:51:34,607
When everyone was gone, the Khmer Rouge came in.
551
00:51:34,642 --> 00:51:37,288
The next morning they went on to Phnompenh.
552
00:51:44,354 --> 00:51:48,068
The Khmer Rouge soldiers had captured Phnompenh.
553
00:51:50,869 --> 00:51:55,970
They broadcast appeals to politicians and officers to cooperate.
554
00:51:56,005 --> 00:52:00,419
Those who showed up were taken away and executed.
555
00:52:06,250 --> 00:52:09,111
The Khmer Rouge fired a few shots and shouted,
556
00:52:09,146 --> 00:52:12,833
"Leave! Leave quickly! The Americans are going to bomb the city."
557
00:52:12,868 --> 00:52:15,114
And having experienced bombing,
558
00:52:15,149 --> 00:52:17,801
the people of Phnompenh had reasons to be afraid.
559
00:52:17,836 --> 00:52:21,044
It was terrifying, the B-52 bombing;
560
00:52:21,079 --> 00:52:23,772
you could see the sky redden at the horizon,
561
00:52:23,807 --> 00:52:27,578
then feel the air burst, then hear the explosion.
562
00:52:27,613 --> 00:52:31,926
So you can understand why the population in my neighborhood left
563
00:52:31,961 --> 00:52:34,526
even though the Khmer Rouge committed no violence.
564
00:52:34,561 --> 00:52:37,427
Everyone took his belongings and left.
565
00:52:48,234 --> 00:52:51,750
There were no American plans to bomb Phnompenh.
566
00:52:51,785 --> 00:52:56,361
Within two days, its population was driven into the countryside.
567
00:53:03,162 --> 00:53:08,225
The war had ended. Starvation and slaughter lay ahead.
53651
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