Word: cambodias
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Within a few weeks, seasoned North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops had gained an upper hand in most of Cambodia east of the Mekong River. Moreover, there were signs that they hoped to link their five major sanctuaries into a continuous fortified buffer, leaving South Viet Nam's entire western flank exposed. The threat of wide Communist gains began worrying Nixon. After his April 20 speech, the President flew back from San Clemente to Washington to be greeted with the news that Communist troops had attacked two key Cambodian towns. In the next four days, they attacked and occupied four...
...government put out an SOS for massive arms assistance, which South Viet Nam, with U.S. approval, answered in part by shipping in some 5,000 captured, Soviet-designed AK-47 rifles. The chances of equipping and training Cambodia's largely volunteer army in time for it to beat off a coordinated Communist attack, however, were next to nil. Meanwhile the South Vietnamese, in a number of exploratory probes, had proved that the Communists were vulnerable to attack on their sanctuaries from the west...
...drawing up contingency plans whenever foreign crisis threatens. Headed by White House Foreign Affairs Adviser Henry Kissinger, it includes CIA Chief Richard Helms and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Earle Wheeler. On April 23, the group drafted a set of four options for the President: 1) massive military aid to Cambodia; 2) a U.S. call for a reconvening of the 14-member Geneva Conference on Cambodia, similar to Washington's request earlier this year in the case of Laos; 3) a massive bombing operation inside Cambodia; and 4) a military campaign against the border base areas...
...touchiest parts of the plan involved Cambodia's neutral status. The Lon Nol government, though plainly pro-Western, is determined to preserve at least the facade of neutrality. Moreover, it hopes to win diplomatic support?and arms aid?later this month at a conference of Asian nations called to discuss Cambodia by Indonesia. To avoid weakening the shaky regime, the U.S. decided to forgo the legality of wangling an invitation from Phnom-Penh to attack the Communist bases in Cambodia. The omission meant that Washington was openly violating the Geneva accord of 1954 (which it did not sign...
...from several sources, including U.S. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker and General Creighton Abrams in Saigon. He took the suggestions back to the White House and read past midnight. Next morning, he summoned Rogers, Kissinger and Laird to give them the news: not only would U.S. advisers accompany ARVN troops into Cambodia, but the American-led Fishhook attack would be staged a day later as a second and even more unexpected jolt to the Communists. The orders were quickly passed to a delighted South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu. As Nixon retired to the luxuriant White House Rose Garden to work...