WORLD OUTLOOK
Vol.6, No.2
THE ENEMY
January 19, 1968
ERNEST MANDEL:
The Dollar Crisis
In Defense of
Stokely Carmichael
-- a Reply to the French CP
Camiri Oil Workers
Plant Torch for Debray
Kremlin Finally Considers
the Defeat in Indonesia
50¢
WASHINGTON PUTS THE SQUEEZE ON PRINCE SIHANOUK
President Johnson has sent Chester Bowles as his special envoy to Pnompenh, the capital of Cambodia, to persuade or pressure the country's leaders to fall in line with U.S. military operations against the Vietnamese. Since the escalation of American intervention in 1965, Prince Sihanouk has been trying to resist Washington's attempts to undermine his country's neutrality. In May 1965 he broke off diplomatic relations with the United States and has several times threatened to call in Chinese volunteers to help defend Cambodia if U.S. troops barged in.
Now American officials are press-— ing a gun against his ribs as the stage is being set for expanding the war into Cambodia and Laos. Under this menace Sihanouk has been leaning fitfully and fearfully now to one side, now to the other.
After taking an intransigent stand against any incursions into Cambodian territory, he has apparently sought accommodation with Washington. The prince declared that his government would not militarily oppose American forces chasing enemy units into unpopulated areas of his country, provided no Cambodians were hurt, but would limit itself to protests.
On the other hand, his son, Prince Norodan, sent a message to the International Cultural Congress meeting in Havana that Cambodia was prepared to follow "the example of our Vietnam brothers" against the threat of U.S. aggression. His message stated: "Why, after heroic Vietnam, has Cambodia been made the target of an arrogant country whose scientific and technical advances are at the service of barbarism? Our only crime is to stubbornly reject the domination which the United States seeks to impose upon us."
In any event, by ending his diplomatic boycott of Washington and meeting with the president's mission, Sihanouk has done Johnson a favor. At this point the Johnson administration faces the problem of making the Pentagon's contemplated steps to extend the field of military action outside Vietnam palatable to the American people. Washington is the arena of a tug-of-war between the advocates of "hot pursuit" and its congressional opponents.
After a White House conference, Senate Majority leader Mike Mansfield, who is trying to restrain the hawks, swore that the president did not intend to yield to their insistent pressures for immediate action to prevent Communist use of Cambodia as a sanctuary and supply base. This does not mean that the policy of "hot pursuit" recommended by the generals has been shelved. If Sihanouk fails to comply with Washington's demands and the decision is made to violate his borders, Bowles' conference with the prince can be presented as evidence that efforts were made to seal off Cambodian territory by diplomatic means but that these efforts failed.
Sihanouk declared that the resumption of diplomatic relations with the United States hinges on American recognition of Cambodian frontiers and that the president's envoy assured him that the United States would not adopt a policy of "hot pursuit" into Cambodian territory. However, as the New York Times editors remarked on January 11: "Just how firm such assurances were seem to be in some doubt." In fact Bowles stopped short of any formal pledge that Westmoreland's and Ky's troops would in no case cross into Cambodia if forces of the National Liberation Front or North Vietnam were alleged to have taken refuge there.
The firmness of Sihanouk's resistance depends a great deal upon how much counterpressure will be forthcoming from China. Peking said on January 3 that it would be "closely watching" for American troops that entered Cambodia and warned that it "will not look on with folded arms" if they did so.
The next day the Chinese government dispatched eleven planes, including three MIG-17 jet fighters and several dozen antiaircraft guns to Pnompenh. In accepting this aid, Prime Minister Son Sann said: "The important military aid that our friend China gives us has a great significance in the present circumstances. We see growing continuously the threat of American intervention against our independence, our neutrality and our territorial integrity, and it is not impossible that in the weeks or months to come, we will have to mobilize all our energies to resist the aggressor."
During a visit to Hanoi by the Cambodian foreign minister, the North Vietnanese foreign minister, Nguyen Duy Trinh, pledged that his country will help defend neutral Cambodia in the event of American attack.
Sihanouk is undoubtedly on the hot spot. The vacillations of this royal bourgeois nationalist leader indicate that, when the chips are down, his resistance to the imperialist aggressor may not be so resolute and vigorous as the valiant statements by his son and his prime minister promise.