Foreword: As the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan plays out, I am cast back in memory to the final days of the United States in Cambodia. It has been 46 years since the United States with allies evacuated Phnom Penh (above) as a hostile force advanced, an event I remember vividly. The story is one I have never before put to paper. Now seems the time.
In December 1971 the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where I was a staff assistant, asked me and a French-speaking colleague to do fact-finding on the conflict there by going to Cambodia. The experience clearly indicated the follies of U.S. intervention. Our critical report, to my chagrin, was quashed by the Nixon Administration and never officially published. From then on, however, I continued to be involved with Cambodia, including a mission there in 1974 and frequent contact with its embassy.
In 1975 the situation declined swiftly. An indigenous radical Communist force, known as “The Khmer Rouge” had taken over virtually all of Cambodia, leaving only the capital Phnom Penh in the hands of the U.S.-installed government. The population of the city was being reached with food and other supplies only by daily airlifts from Saigon. Nixon recently had resigned and Gerald Ford was President.
At home one evening in February 1975, I received a telephone call from a colleague telling me that as a last-ditch effort, the White House was recruiting a delegation of Senate and House members to go to Indochina and had requested that I be among the small staff accompanying them. My wife was furious, demanding: “What are you, some kind of lap dog of Gerry Ford?” Nonetheless, with a partner, Jack Brady, I went.
Our group flew into Phnom Penh in a small Air America (CIA) passenger plane that was obliged to “corkscrew” its landing because of fear of taking fire from the periphery of the airport. The U.S. Ambassador, John Gunther Dean, shown herein a suit, was there to meet us. As I emerged from the plane he lowered his coat and said: “Stab me again, Sullivan.” His reference was immediately clear. In a report to Congress a year earlier I had documented that the embassy was evading a Congressional restriction on the numbers of American officials who could be in country by sending personnel to Saigon every night and returning them in the morning. It caused a ruckus on Capitol Hill.
Ours was a one-day investigation, it being considered too dangerous for the delegation to stay overnight. After an Embassy briefing I accompanied some of the members to the airport warehouses and defense perimeter. Pallets of food stretched for yards, defended by adolescent boys with antiquated rifles. “Look at these soldiers,” enthused a South Carolina Republican, “I’ll bet they can put up a fierce fight!” Astounded I replied: “Congressmen, these are children!”
From there Brady and I went off for a private briefing by the CIA station chief and his staff. It was sobering. They described the killings and other brutality that the Khmer Rouge was inflicting on the people they controlled, even among groups allied with them. Their victory, our briefers predicted, would be followed by a bloodbath. We believed them and meeting the delegation for an official lunch passed on the information. Congresswoman Bella Abzug responded: “Why am I hearing these unacceptable things from guys I like.” Her similar intransigence during the meal caused the Cambodian Army Chief of Staff to weep.
The post-lunch discussion broke up suddenly as the warning came of an incoming rocket. Taking cover, we heard one explode not far from where we were gathered. Brady and I then left the delegation for a useless U.S. military briefing. We split and I met solo with a group of U.S. NGO representatives about their plans for getting their people out of the country. Late in the afternoon I headed alone back to the airport in a car and armed escort provided by the Cambodian army. As we drove, suddenly the sound of continuous rifle shots had me ducking to the floor. It was “friendly” fire. My escorts were discharging their weapons in the air to clear the two-lane road of a multitude of people, some with luggage, apparently hoping to leave the country.
I was the first to arrive at the landing area where the Air America plane would pick us up. As I stood waiting, a Cambodian soldier who spoke English approached and said: “Sir, please get under that truck,” pointing out a military vehicle standing nearby. “We have incoming rockets.” By stooping low, I complied and upon looking up saw the Foreign Minister, Long Boret, crouched beside me. He had come to see us off. We exchanged greetings. Luckily, no rockets appeared. Soon the delegation, my partner, and the airplane arrived. Hot, tired and tense we boarded without conversation, corkscrewed our way into the air, and headed back to Saigon.
Upon returning to Washington it fell to me to draft legislation desired by the Administration to salvage something out of this impending debacle. The delegation and other members assembled to provide input. When no consensus emerged, the final draft was rendered nothing but an accumulation of meaningless phrases. No member could be found to introduce it.
Within a few days Ambassador Dean with his staff, a few high-ranking Khmer officials and others were flown out of Phnom Penh by Marine helicopters. The Khmer Rouge entered the city and began their reign of terror during which an estimated 1,000,000 Cambodians died, either murdered or from starvation.
I often look at an elaborately decorated silver box displayed on a table in our living room. It was gift from Prince Sirik Matak, then Prime Minister of Cambodia, when I met with him during my 1974 mission. Inside is a slip of paper with an excerpt from a letter that he wrote Ambassador Dean near the end: ”I never believed for a moment that you have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. I have only committed this mistake of believing in you the Americans.” Refusing to be evacuated, Sirik Matak was executed by the Khmer Rouge on April 21, 1975.
A former U.S. military adviser in Cambodia has said it well: "The downfall of the Khmer Republic not only resulted in the deaths of countless Cambodians, it has also crept into our souls.”
Note: Because of the nature of the trip I took few photos. Those of our arrival and departure are mine. The others are stock photos.
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