IV. The Mysteries of Military Assistance to Cambodia

By the time we left Phnom Penh on May 8, the Cambodian Government had received three kinds of military assistance of which we were aware. These were: some 6,0001 captured AK-47 automatic rifles and ammunition therefor; 7,2001 U.S. M-2 carbines; and several thousand Khmer CIDG soldiers, ethnic Khmers from Vietnam many, if not most, of whom had been serving as mercenaries under contract with U.S. Special Forces in Civilian Irregular Defense Group teams. (Journalists reported from Phnom Penh that 2,100 had arrived, but President Thieu told reporters in Saigon on May 8 that 4,000 had been sent.)

The AK-47's, it was said in Phnom Penh, had been flown there from Saigon in South Vietnamese Air Force planes and had been drawn from stocks of weapons captured in Vietnam. U.S. officials in Phnom Penh said they did not have detailed information on the AK-47 shipments and suggested we inquire in Saigon. We were referred there to the South Vietnamese military. In the course of a briefing by a general on the Vietnamese Joint General Staff, one of the dozen or so most important generals in South Vietnam, we asked several detailed questions and were told, to our astonishment, that he knew nothing about the AK-47's and that they could not have been taken from ARVN stocks or flown to Phnom Penh in Vietnamese planes without his knowledge. In response to further inquiries at the Embassy in Saigon and at MACV, we were told that the rifles had been sent in Vietnamese planes and that most had come from ARVN stocks. But everyone with whom we discussed the question at the Embassy and at MACV-including, in the latter case, a senior officer in the MACV logistics section who told us he had been assigned to answer our questions-said they did not know, or even who would know, how many of these rifles had come from U.S. stocks and how many from ARVN stocks, whether they had been reconditioned and if so by whom, when the first shipment had arrived, what exact disposition was made of the AK-47's captured by U.S. forces in Vietnam and what stocks of AK-47's the United States had.

In the case of the M-2's, MACV's responses to our questions were unequivocal. We were told that MACV had no authority to brief us on this matter, and it was suggested that our inquiries be made in Washington in writing to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Similarly, in the case of the Khmer CIDG soldiers, officials in Phnom Penh referred us to Saigon. There we requested a briefing from MACV or Special Forces on such details as how many Khmer had been sent to Cambodia, whether all had been serving with U.S. Special Forces, when the first had arrived, when the United States had stopped paying their salaries, and whether the United States had paid for their arms. Again, we were told that Special Forces in Saigon had "no authority" to brief us.

We found in Phnom Penh that the arrival of the Khmer CIDG soldiers had first been discovered in the Cambodian capital by a correspondent who had spent years in Vietnam. He had noticed a Cambodian, who seemed to be wearing an American uniform, walking in the center of town and had asked him, in English, whether he was from Vietnam. The Cambodian replied: "Say again, sir," and when queried

1 These figures were actually not released in Washington until May 14 in the course of a press conference after Ambassador Bunker had testified before the Committee in executive session.

further replied, "I am not authorized to speak to the press, sir.” The correspondent had little difficulty in concluding from the language of these replies that the Cambodian soldier in question had worked closely with American forces. Another reporter told us that he had talked to one of the Khmer soldiers who had told him that he had been in Phnom Penh for 4 to 6 weeks which would mean that he had arrived there during the month of March.

There had probably been other South Vietnamese, and perhaps United States, assistance to the Cambodian Government by the time we left Phnom Penh, but we were unable to discover what other assistance or its source. We had heard, for example, from several journalists in Phnom Penh, all experienced war reporters, that Chinook and Huey helicopters had been seen landing in the city. We visited the Embassy on our last morning in Phnom Penh and discussed these reports with the military attachés. They said that they knew nothing about either American or South Vietnamese helicopter flights into the capital and suggested that the reporters might have seen French Alouette helicopters, which the Cambodians have, and concluded mistakenly that they were Hueys, which the Cambodians do not have.

At this point in the conversation, we heard the unmistakable sound of a helicopter approaching. Together with the military attachés, we ran out on the balcony of the Embassy in time to see a helicopter flying directly over the building at an altitude of a few hundred feet. The air attaché immediately identified the helicopter as a Huey, although none of us could see the markings on the fuselage, if indeed there were any. We asked repeatedly in Saigon for an explanation of this curious incident but without success. The mystery therefore remains, fleeting evidence of the difficulty of ascertaining what we and the South Vietnamese are doing in Cambodia.

So much for the willingness of U.S. military authorities in the field to provide representatives of the legislative branch with the details of U.S. assistance, or of U.S. involvement in South Vietnamese assistance, to the Government of Cambodia. If the details had been given to us on a classified basis, they could not have been discussed in a public report of this nature. But the fact of the matter is that the details were not provided.

In connection with the question of relations between the executive and legislative branches in the field, it may not be generally known that there is a practice in Vietnam of requiring that U.S. military officers and civilian officials report in writing on conversations with, and the activities of, legislative branch representatives. On both this trip and our last visit to Vietnam in December 1969, our military escorts, as well as the military officers and civilian officials we met in the course of our trip, were asked to submit memoranda of their conversations with us, and to report on what questions we asked and what our views seemed to be. We were not told that this practice would be followed. We happened, by chance, to have seen several of these memoranda over the past 6 months and have found them to be inaccurate and incomplete in some important respects and to reflect the perhaps understandable desire of the reporting officer to put his comments in the best possible light and to report ours somewhat less generously. We have never been given the chance to confirm the accuracy of these reports. They thus stand as official records of conversations, although they are often reports of what might have been, but was never quite, said.

V. Looking Ahead

With U.S. and ARVN forces fighting North Vietnamese and Vietcong troops on Cambodian soil; with allied naval forces patrolling rivers and the southern Cambodian coast; with some Cambodians fighting in the Army, others in the Khmer Rouge and still others joining pro-Sihanoukist units fighting with enemy forces, Cambodia has become a theater of war. Virtually no one with whom we talked believed that it would not continue to be a theater of war after U.S. forces leave. On the contrary, it was the view of almost everyone we met that Cambodia has now been linked inextricably to the war in Vietnam and that the terms of references of that war have been permanently changed because its geographic area has been expanded.

While U.S. and South Vietnamese military authorities believe that the North Vietnamese and Vietcong have suffered serious short-term military disadvantages as a result of ARVN and U.S. attacks, many in Phnom Penh expressed the view that in the long run the enemy will now have new sources of food and manpower as well as new supply routes. We were told that, as far as manpower is concerned some ethnic Vietnamese are already joining the North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces, and others are being pressed into service. One high Cambodian Government official cited instances in which the enemy had, in this way, already been able to triple the size of his forces.

Many observers believe that even if the Cambodian Army does receive large amounts of military assistance-which does not seem at all certain given the reluctance of the United States to become directly involved and the hesitant reaction of other Asian countries-and even if the Thais do contribute some troops, the main burden of any fighting against the North Vietnamese and Vietcong on the ground in Cambodia, and perhaps of training the Cambodian army, will fall to the ARVN. The result will be that, unless Cambodia is abandoned to the enemy, the area of ARVN operations will have been extended. ARVN will have to go deeper into Cambodia to attack new North Vietnamese supply bases and will have to keep returning to the sanctuaries along the border to keep them from being used again. High ARVN officers told us that they intended to go back into the border sanctuaries if they are reoccupied, and one senior Vietnamese general said: "I will go back whenever I want to." Some ARVN and U.S. officers implied that the ARVN might well maintain a continuing military presence in some of the eastern parts of Cambodia. Opinion seems divided on the question of whether ARVN can conduct operations deep in Cambodia without U.S. support, but most American military officers told us that in their opinion the ARVN could not do so.

Several observers pointed out to us that as the area of operations of the ARVN is expanded, the United States will be divesting itself of progressively more of the direct military responsibility in Vietnam. South Vietnamese military forces will thus be spread thinner and gaps may well open up within South Vietnam. While enemy pressure on

III Corps and IV Corps may be relieved by forcing enemy troops and their sanctuaries westward into Cambodia, the North Vietnamese could step up the pressure on the two northern corps areas where the redeployment of American forces is already beginning to bite. In fact, one American officer in Vietnam said that the North Vietnamese had already increased the pressure in I Corps to such an extent that, were it not for the attacks on the sanctuaries, the action in I Corps would have dominated the news in early May.

Can the ARVN leave Cambodia? One Vietnamese official observed to us that the survival of the Lon Nol government has now become vital to South Vietnam because if it is replaced by a government under North Vietnamese domination the threat to South Vietnam would be far greater than that formerly posed by the presence of the enemy in the limited area of the sanctuaries. The threat would also be far greater, he noted, if the country were to be partitioned.

There are two ways in which the North Vietnamese could drive the Lon Nol government from power. One is by direct military action. By occupying large portions of the country, even temporarily, by drawing an ever tighter ring around Phnom Penh, perhaps then by depriving the capital of its fuel and food supplies by cutting all road, river, and rail access, sufficient pressures could be brought to bear on the Lon Nol government to bring it close to falling. And if these did not succeed, it would always be possible to take the capital by force. In fact there were some in the city when we were there who thought that it had already been thoroughly infiltrated from within. It was the opinion of virtually everyone with whom we talked, including those in the Cambodian government, that without sizable military and economic assistance, the government forces would not be able to hold out against the enemy. Cambodian officials seem confident that with such assistance they could defend their country without the help of foreign troops, but most foreign observers did not share that view.

The Lon Nol government could also be brought down as a result of a civil war. While many Cambodian Government officials said that they considered it most unlikely that Sihanouk would return, and also said that they saw no possibility of a civil war because Sihanouk's close identification with the Chinese and North Vietnamese would diminish his appeal, there were many Cambodians and experienced and knowledgeable observers of the Cambodian scene who considered a civil war not a probability but a virtual certainty. They credited Sihanouk with the capability of rallying large numbers of peasants who still consider him to be a god-king, and they expected the presence of the ARVNwho are to the peasants, after all, not only foreigners but Vietnameseto make the recruitment of a "Sihanoukist" army all the easier. Some expected Sihanouk to return and remain on Cambodian territory. Others believed that he would stay abroad, concentrating or mustering support for his cause and on broadcasts to Cambodia, and would leave the work of representing the Royal Government of National Union on Cambodian soil to others. In sum, there were few in Cambodia, excent for those in the inner circles of the Cambodian Government, who dismissed out of hand the possibility that there would soon be a sizable "Sihanoukist" movement in Cambodia and a guerrilla force fighting in his name.

There remains one question for the long term and that is how recent events have affected the prospects for a negotiated settlement of the war. As far as the South Vietnamese are concerned, Vietnamese officials convey the impression that South Vietnam is riding the crest of a wave which obviously makes the government less disposed to compromise. In this connection, President Thieu told a group of correspondents in Saigon on May 8 that if pressure were kept on "the Communists" for 6 months "they will have no choice but to negotiate a settlement or fade away." Furthermore, and the point was emphasized to us by a number of people, the presence of ARVN forces in Cambodia puts the South Vietnamese in position to block any possible attempt at accommodation between the Lon Nol government and the North Vietnamese and would seem to insure that any settlement relating to Cambodia is linked to a settlement in Vietnam.

The North Vietnamese and Provisional Revolutionary Government, it was pointed out to us by some observers, will be less disposed to compromise now because they believe that any concessions at this time would be regarded by others as having been made from a position of weakness. Furthermore, for the North Vietnamese and the Provisional Revolutionary Government there is a positive reason for not compromising now and that is the upsurge of antiwar sentiment in the United States which they believe will weaken the American tolerance for pursuing the war. Events in Paris will prove whether this estimate of North Vietnamese attitudes toward a negotiated settlement is too pessimistic.

In the opinion of most observers, the possibilities of some positive contribution to a political settlement on the part of the Soviets have been severely reduced in the past few months. For one thing, they are still confronted with competing considerations of support for North Vietnam and for the Provisional Revolutionary Government. For another, there are the new questions, related to future Soviet influence in Southeast Asia, of increased Chinese influence in Hanoi and in the Sihanouk government which may, after all, not always be a government in exile.

These considerations explain, at least in part, the present negative Soviet attitude toward a resumption of ICC.activities in Cambodia. The Soviets contend that these activities cannot be resumed by decision of the two Cochairmen of the Geneva Conference, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, but only by action of the full Conference. And in their view, conditions do not now exist which make it possible for a new Geneva Conference to be held.

One knowledgeable observer of the talks in Paris commented to us, in the course of our trip, that in all international negotiations the moment at which success can be achieved arrives when two conditions exist. The first is that all the principal parties must believe that they can yield and not have their concessions interpreted by others as having been made under pressure from a position of weakness. The second is that the principal parties must be willing to forego certain and important gains in order to reach a settlement. It was his view that, as a result of recent events in Cambodia, the moment when these two conditions will exist lies even further in the future.

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