We noticed mainly the explicit criticism of the United States — which was in fact one of Mao’s “empty cannons” — rather than the subtle dissociation from Hanoi and the Khmer Rouge. On April 13, therefore, we sent an unusually sharp note to Peking expressing our “extreme disappointment” at Zhou’s remarks. We called attention to Hanoi’s flagrant violations of the Paris Agreement, especially of Article 20, which required withdrawal from Laos and Cambodia. But even this note, which must have made the Chinese wonder whether we were ever capable of understanding anything complex, ended with an affirmation that we were willing to proceed with negotiations on the basis of compromise:
The US side wishes to reiterate its continued willingness to adhere to the Vietnam agreement, end all military operations in Cambodia, and work for a political solution in that country that brings about true neutrality and independence. The US side believes, however, that it is the responsibility of all interested countries to work for moderation on these matters.
That Peking was stung was apparent in the rapidity of its reply. Huang Hua, then Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations, spoke to me on April 16 in a “personal” capacity — an inconceivable procedure for a Chinese diplomat unless he wished to say something that could be officially disavowed. He could not understand, he averred, our expression of extreme disappointment; China had done no more than restate its previous positions. He urged that the United States end its support of Lon Nol; the formulation, aimed at an individual and not a structure, left open the prospect discussed in Peking in February of including other elements of the Phnom Penh government in a coalition without their present chief.
I picked up the theme in my response:
With respect to Cambodia, we are prepared to work with you to bring about some coalition structure along the lines that the Prime Minister and I discussed in Peking. We are not committed to any particular personality. And we would encourage negotiations between representatives of Prince Sihanouk and the other forces.
Our objective in Southeast Asia seems to us not totally dissimilar from yours. We want to prevent a security system extending in South and Southeast Asia controlled by one unit and one outside power. We believe this is best achieved if each country in the region can develop its own national identity.
On April 24 I reiterated this theme in a written message to Zhou Enlai:
With respect to the Cambodian situation, the U.S. side wishes to repeat its willingness to see a settlement which includes all political forces, including those of Prince Sihanouk. The U.S. side is prepared to undertake discussions with the Chinese side looking towards this objective either in Washington or Peking after Ambassador Bruce’s arrival.
The Chinese did not respond immediately. However, on May 18, 1973, in his first meeting with David Bruce, recently appointed the head of our new Liaison Office in Peking, Zhou turned the conversation to Cambodia: He told Bruce that “the only way to find a solution was for the parties concerned to implement fully all the subsidiary clauses of Article 20.” China thus agreed with our interpretation that North Vietnamese forces had to vacate Cambodian territory. And Zhou reiterated this point in another allusion. Though our viewpoints differed, he said, China and the United States shared the goal of a peaceful, neutral, and independent Cambodia, in fact “more peaceful, neutral, and independent than ever before” — which could only mean that North Vietnamese base areas had to be eliminated. Zhou added that Huang Zhen, the newly designated head of China’s Liaison Office in Washington, would leave on May 25 for the United States and would be authorized to pursue the subject. Clearly, Zhou hoped for an answer by the time Huang Zhen reached Washington.
Meanwhile, I was engaged in the Paris negotiations with Le Duc Tho, whose definition of Cambodian neutrality and independence spelled North Vietnamese hegemony. He would hear nothing of implementing Article 20 before there was a political settlement, and he would not discuss a political solution out of respect for the “sovereignty” of his Cambodian allies. So tender was Hanoi’s regard for the independence of a country it had first invaded in 1965 and was to invade again in 1978 that Le Duc Tho would not even agree to my plea that we jointly recommend a cease-fire to both parties in Cambodia. My May-June negotiations with Le Duc Tho ended irrelevantly. As noted, Le Duc Tho would commit himself to no more than a pledge that both sides would put forward “their best efforts to bring about a peaceful settlement.” By now, “best efforts” was a clear euphemism for doing nothing. If it depended on the North Vietnamese, Cambodia would be settled on the battlefield. Our diplomacy would have to seek other channels.
During a hiatus in my talks with Le Duc Tho, I therefore approached the Chinese with a formal proposal to follow up the exchanges with Zhou Enlai. On Sunday, May 27, my fiftieth birthday, I told Huang Hua in New York that in my view American and Chinese interests were compatible. We both sought to prevent “a bloc which could support the hegemonial objectives of outside powers.” In other words, we did not want an Indochina under Hanoi’s tutelage aligned with the Soviet Union. To achieve this purpose I made the following proposal:
We are prepared to stop our bombing in Cambodia, and we are prepared to withdraw the very small advisory group we have there. And we are prepared to arrange for Lon Nol to leave for medical treatment in the United States. In return we would like a cease-fire — if necessary, say for ninety days — a negotiation between the Sihanouk group and the remainder of the Lon Nol group; and while this negotiation is going on in Cambodia, we would authorize some discussions between the staff of Ambassador Bruce and Prince Sihanouk in Peking. And when this process is completed, in some months, we would not oppose the return of Prince Sihanouk to Cambodia. But it is a process that has to extend over some time, and it must not be conducted in a way that does not take into account our own necessities.
Huang Hua was a thoroughgoing professional. He asked a few clarifying questions. I told him I had presented the basic idea to Le Duc Tho. Huang Hua knew that Hanoi would not favor such a scheme but might not be able to block it. He reminded me that Premier Zhou Enlai had told David Bruce that both Sihanouk and the Khmer Rouge were in principle willing to talk to the United States. This might not mean much if the precondition was the destruction of the non-Communist forces; but the Chinese had to have something more in mind. For after all, Zhou himself had said in February that a completely “red” government would compound everybody’s problems.
Interestingly enough, Huang Hua did not reject my proposition as he surely would have done had it been Peking’s policy to keep aloof from events in Indochina. He said he would report to Peking what I had said.
On May 29, I reiterated our proposal to Huang Zhen on his first call on me at the White House. He, too, said he would report back; he too pointedly reminded me of Zhou’s conversation with Bruce and its emphasis on the strict implementation of Article 20. The next day Nixon used the occasion of an Oval Office courtesy call by Huang Zhen to stress the importance he attached to a peaceful solution for Cambodia.
The Chinese were swift to follow up. On June 4, eight days after my original proposal, Huang Hua in New York requested a meeting with me to hand over a message. It noted our “tentative thinking on the settlement of the question of Cambodia.” It stressed that all parties concerned — and therefore by implication Hanoi as well — needed to respect the sovereignty of Cambodia. China could not conduct talks with the United States on behalf of Cambodia; direct talks with Sihanouk would be necessary at some point. Nevertheless China was now prepared to:
communicate the U.S. tentative thinking to the Cambodian side, but as Samdech [Prince] Sihanouk is still visiting Africa and Europe, it is inconvenient for us to contact him through diplomatic channels. For the sake of accuracy, the Chinese side would like to repeat the U.S. tentative thinking. . . .
In an unusual step, the Chinese note then repeated absolutely verbatim the proposal that I had read to Huang Hua, and concluded: “If there are any inaccuracies in the above, it is expected that th
e U.S. side will provide corrections.”
Thus did the Chinese offer themselves as intermediary and step into the middle of a Cambodian negotiation. Anyone familiar with Zhou Enlai could be certain that he would not check so meticulously except to signal that he was committing himself, and he would not act as intermediary unless he expected to succeed. The careful Chinese would never risk demonstrating their impotence to affect events in Southeast Asia; they would never offer to pass on a message that they thought would be turned down. And it was significant, too, that Peking designated Sihanouk as our interlocutor; no reference whatever was made to the “internal resistance,” that is to say, the Khmer Rouge. Still, it was inconceivable that the Chinese would expose themselves in this manner without having checked with the Khmer Rouge. And if the Cambodian Communists were ready to deal, the military stalemate that they had decided in March would cause them to negotiate by July must be imminent.
Zhou had clearly committed China to a compromise that preserved key elements of the Lon Nol structure — that was the thrust of everything we both had been discussing for nearly a year. The proposal, reflecting the military balance, would stop short of the total victory the Khmer Rouge had heretofore demanded. The cease-fire would preserve the structure of free Cambodia; Sihanouk would return with the support of the United States and China not simply as a temporary figurehead as the Cambodian Communists preferred, but with the power inherent in the necessity of reconciling different factions.
Zhou Enlai could have sold any such proposition to the Politburo in Peking — and especially to Chairman Mao — only with the argument that a total Khmer Rouge victory was impossible because Washington would never tolerate it and that it would in any event aid the hegemonic aims of Hanoi. Nor could he possibly have made it palatable to the Khmer Rouge without the argument that only this scheme would bring about the end of American bombing. And the Khmer Rouge would not have acquiesced unless convinced that they could not prevail militarily in the face of continued bombing. Hence, even though he would not admit it, Zhou needed our military actions in Cambodia for the effectiveness of his policy almost as much as we did. Our bombing was a bargaining chip for two parties even though one of them condemned it.
But our domestic situation, it soon appeared, would not sustain our policy as it was nearing its culmination. By early June, the President was at bay. He was spending time, we now know, playing back tape recordings of his conversations in the Oval Office to see whether they were damaging to him. In Los Angeles on June 5, a grand jury began hearings on the break-in at Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office. On June 6 Nixon agreed, under pressure from the Senate Watergate Committee, to reverse a refusal two days before to release the logs of his taped conversations with John Dean. And on June 8, one of the Watergate burglars, James McCord, asked Judge John Sirica for a new trial on grounds that the government withheld evidence and perjury was committed at his trial.
Neither Zhou Enlai nor I appreciated quite how far Presidential authority had been eroded by Watergate, so we proceeded buoyantly enough. On June 13 in a meeting in Paris with Chinese Acting Foreign Minister Ji Pengfei, I confirmed the accuracy of what Zhou intended to convey to Sihanouk. I emphasized the importance of a transition period of several months before Sihanouk could return to Cambodia. There was no disagreement between us about the Prince’s ultimate role as head of state. Each of us agreed to respect the requirements of the other. I promised that as soon as a cease-fire was brought about in Cambodia we would, as requested, consult Sihanouk himself; Ji agreed on our transition period “for a certain period of time.” Ji Pengfei observed that the sole obstacle to further progress straight away was Sihanouk’s globe-trotting and the difficulty of communicating rather delicate and complex matters while he was traveling (not to speak of the unpredictability of his temperament if he dealt with matters at long range). If he enjoyed his African and European trip too much, he might extend it and delay the negotiations he had been seeking.
That was the sense, too, of a conversation I had with Huang Zhen the next day, June 14, in Washington. I briefed him on my negotiations with Le Duc Tho. We both expressed our impatience for Sihanouk’s early return to Peking and our frustration at the unpredictability of his movements. Huang Zhen and I began to discuss a trip by me to Peking. Ostensibly it was to brief Zhou on the results of Brezhnev’s imminent visit to the United States. It would also be the occasion for beginning contact with Sihanouk.
On June 19 I told Huang Zhen that if a cease-fire existed in Cambodia by the time of my visit to China — expected around August 6 — I would be prepared to meet Sihanouk for political discussions. We had gone to the limit of what was possible. Meantime, Sihanouk continued his travels, apparently oblivious to my talks with the Chinese. He seemed above all concerned that Le Duc Tho and I might settle Cambodia over his head. Sometime in June, while visiting Yugoslavia, he gave an interview to my old nemesis Oriana Fallaci; it is a tribute to his skill that he emerged from the encounter with that formidable Italian journalist in much better shape than I had the previous year. Sihanouk emphasized that Hanoi had no right to speak for the Khmer insurgents. Then he repeated the Communist hard-line position, again in the subtle form of reporting the views of his allies — not his own: “The Khmer Rouge will never accept a cease-fire. They will never bow to an agreement. Never.”
Sihanouk paid tribute to the American bombing: it was “the only thing that prevents us from entering Phnom Penh right now.” But he also showed his awareness of Watergate and the Congress’s efforts to terminate American military activities: “Nixon is in a very difficult situation. The Watergate scandal has done him a great disservice and in the end the Senate and Congress will oppose his expenditures.” As for his relationship with the Khmer Rouge, Sihanouk had few illusions and many premonitions: “The Khmer Rouge do not love me at all. I know it! . . . I am useful to them. . . . I understand very well that when I shall no longer be useful to them, they’ll spit me out like a cherry pit.” Cambodia would one day be Communist, he said. He disdained any ambition, saying he had no desire to be a figurehead like Queen Elizabeth or Hirohito.19
We did not learn of the interview until August 12, when the die had already been cast. It would not have meant much to us in any event. We would have believed that Sihanouk in his travels was almost surely out of touch; that Zhou knew what he was doing; that he would not have committed himself to a course unless confident that he would succeed in it.
In mid-June we believed for better or worse that we were on the homestretch. We could envisage a cease-fire, Sihanouk’s return, and then Sihanouk’s dealing with existing political forces so as to give himself room to maneuver between them and the Communists. We nearly made it, with all that it would have meant for Cambodia’s future. But our inability to maintain domestic support was to doom our proposal and Cambodia — and to shake Zhou Enlai’s position at home to its foundation.
Congress Halts the Bombing
MANY factors contributed to the final series of events that led to the abandonment of Cambodia. There was simple war-weariness in the United States. Some legislators sincerely thought they were conferring a great boon on the peoples of Indochina by prohibiting any American military action there. For others, humanitarian pretensions were probably secondary to the opportunity to score on a hated adversary, now a crippled President; liberals sought to vindicate the antiwar positions of four years. Congressman Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., then Democratic Majority Leader, remarked in the House that Cambodia was not worth the life of one American flier.20 Conservatives, already disheartened by the ambiguities of ten years of war, were demoralized by the travails of their old standard-bearer, Nixon. In the event, Congress marked the final breakdown of domestic consensus by taking the United States out of military operations in Indochina. Thus were the people of Cambodia abandoned to their fate.
Congressional agitation against the bombing started to boil up in April and May. Our air operations were denounced as “illegal,” th
ough their constitutional basis was substantial (as elaborated in the backnotes).21 The series of Congressional votes against the bombing in May was described earlier in this chapter. Le Duc Tho had gloated to me in May of the Congressional pressures on us. For the first time there was no conviction in my brusque rejoinder that we would handle our own domestic situation. I feared that only a miracle would enable me to convince Congress of a truism that I stated in a press conference on May 12:
No one can expect that an agreement for a cease-fire will be observed simply because it is written down, and the Congress and others have to ask themselves whether it is possible to maintain an agreement without either sanctions or incentives.
I was straining to bring off a cease-fire in Cambodia before the Congress acted. But at almost the same moment in mid-May, John F. Lehman, NSC staff aide in charge of Congressional relations, sent me a shrewd report forecasting a rough season of Congressional votes attempting to halt the bombing. The White House was doing its best to block or delay these attempts. According to Lehman, Watergate was “the factor in the adverse votes”; he optimistically considered it a temporary phenomenon.
By early June, the legislative scene was bleaker still. On June 4, the Senate approved the Case-Church amendment to cut off all funds for military operations in Indochina. In a memorandum of June 5, Lehman told me that a bombing cutoff might be delayed until the end of the month: “After that it will be touch and go, but not hopeless.” Some success had been achieved in persuading Senators at least to wait until the conclusion of my negotiations in Paris with Le Duc Tho; a success there might further strengthen our hand.
Years of Upheaval Page 53