Remembering Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=37353
by Sichan Siv
06/06/2010
Spring 2010 marks the 35th anniversary of the fall of Cambodia and
South Vietnam to communism. In a recent speech at the Gerald R. Ford
Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Mich., to commemorate the sad
anniversary, I mentioned a pivotal date: April 10, 1975.
While in Cambodia, I listened to President Ford's address to the
joint session of Congress through the Voice of America. My heart sank
when I heard him say: "The situation in South Vietnam and Cambodia
has reached a critical phase requiring immediate and positive
decisions by this government. The options before us are few and the
time is very short." I quoted this in my memoir Golden Bones
(HarperCollins, 2008).
In his recently published book An American Amnesia (Beaufort Press,
2010), Bruce Herschensohn speaks to this date more extensively,
including President Ford's request for "Congress to appropriate
without delay $722 million for emergency military assistance and an
initial sum of $250 million for economic and humanitarian aid for
South Vietnam." Herschensohn concludes his quotes with the following
paragraphs from Ford's speech:
"In Cambodia, the situation is tragic. And yet, for the past three
months, the beleaguered people of Phnom Penh have fought on, hoping
against hope that the United States would not desert them, but
instead provide the arms and ammunition they so badly needed. In
January, I requested food and ammunition for the brave Cambodians,
and I regret to say that as of this evening, it may soon be too late…
Let no potential adversary believe that our difficulties or our
debates mean a slackening of our national will. We will stand by our
friends, we will honor our commitments, and will uphold our country's
principle." But we didn't, adds Herschensohn.
Ford's address was one of the most difficult he had ever delivered.
On the copy of the speech that he read, he added his own hand-written
words to begin the speech: "I stand before you tonight after many
agonizing hours and solemn prayers for guidance by the Almighty."
An American Amnesia starts on January 23, 1973 in the corridors of
the White House, where Bruce Herschensohn was working for President
Nixon. He describes the cheerful mood in the executive compound after
the peace agreement had been signed in Paris by the United States,
its ally South Vietnam, Communist North Vietnam, and the Vietcong,
known as the Provisional Revolutionary Government.
It was more than a cease-fire, Herschensohn points out. It called for
the United States and North Vietnam, a.k.a. the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam, to respect the right of the South Vietnamese people to
self-determination. Following articles urged all parties to settle
issues through negotiations and avoid armed conflicts and acts of
reprisal, to insure democratic liberties, including freedom of speech, etc.
Cambodia and Laos were barely mentioned in the Accords; not until
chapter 20, article 20. (I was a high school teacher in Phnom Penh
and working at a conference of Southeast Asian nations on January 23,
1973. In all naďveté, I was happy that Cambodia was mentioned at all).
Without referring to North Vietnam and the Vietcong, who had occupied
Cambodia's eastern parts since the mid sixties, the accords stated:
"Foreign countries shall put an end to all military activities in
Cambodia and Laos, totally withdraw from and refrain from
reintroducing into these two countries troops, military advisers and
military personnel, armaments, munitions and war material. The
internal affairs of Cambodia and Laos shall be settled by the people
of each of these countries without foreign interference."
These all sounded idealistic and wishful. There was hardly any
provision to penalize the offenders of these articles. If anything,
it was like trying to give speeding tickets at the Indy 500.
Obviously, the North Vietnamese and Vietcong had no intention of
respecting the accords. Two years later they ran their tanks through
Saigon and took over South Vietnam. The Khmer Rouge went even farther
by immediately turning Cambodia into a land of blood and tears, where
some two million people died. It was said there were only two kinds
of people: those who had died and those who would die.
After 12 Congresses and five Presidents (Eisenhower, Kennedy,
Johnson, Nixon and Ford), Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam fell to the
Communists. Who lost them?
An American Amnesia details the role of the 94th Congress which came
to Washington after the November 5, 1974 post-Watergate landslide. It
brought 291 Democrats and 144 Republicans to the House, 61 Democrats
and 39 Republicans to the Senate. When it convened on January 3,
1975, President Ford became no more than a caretaker. The
Democratically controlled Congress, along with the biased media, the
anti-U.S. and pro-North Vietnam protesters (Jane Fonda, Ramsey Clark,
and the like) made President Ford's job at best challenging and at
worst impossible.
Nixon probably said it best in 1969: "Let us be united for peace. Let
us also be united against defeat. Because let us understand: North
Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans
can do that."
Herschensohn's chapter on "Hotel Journalism" is very telling about
"cocktail reporting," a tendency of anti-war journalists who filed
stories from hotel bars based on propaganda fed by communist
sympathizers. Incidentally, I was at one of those hotels, Le Royal in
Phnom Penh, with my brother on April 17, 1975 when the Khmer Rouge
came in and opened the darkest chapter of Cambodia's history.
Bruce Herschensohn does an excellent job in painting the reality of
this period, exposing the biased press and the overtly pro-Communist
anti-war movement, and saluting the real heroes (Bud Day, John
McCain, Jim Stockdale). He debunks many myths about the Vietnam War
which he refers to as the Southeast Asian War.
President Reagan once quoted a Russian proverb: "Trust, but verify."
I would add, "For Communists and dictators, never trust, and always verify."
Bruce Herschensohn's American Amnesia is a must read for those
interested in this critical period of history.
--
Sichan Siv (www.sichansiv.com) is a former United States ambassador
to the United Nations and author of "Golden Bones: An Extraordinary
Escape from Hell in Cambodia to a New Life in America."
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