Word: indochina
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Once united in their opposition to U.S. involvement in Indochina, the two Senators were now divided on whether to provide more American military aid to Cambodia. The split dramatized the agony among political leaders in Washington as battlefield events in the small nations of Cambodia and South Viet Nam once again troubled America's long-tortured conscience concerning its role in that distant part of the world. The persistent Khmer Rouge rebels seemed on the verge of final military success as they pinched the Cambodian capital of Phnom-Penh. Communist forces in South Viet Nam stepped up the fighting...
...moment, Gerald Ford was pressing his Cambodia request hardest, personally telephoning key Republican members of Congress. Only a few years ago, any such relatively trifling request for military funds in Indochina would have speeded through Congress with barely a whimper of protest. Now, while prospects for approval of some limited aid varied day by day, they appeared forlorn by week's end. The House, in particular, seemed adamantly opposed...
Some opponents of more aid to Indochina suspected that the Administration's push for Cambodian funds was aimed at enlisting help later for South Viet Nam. The Cambodia request allows members of Congress to appease anti-aid sentiment at home by voting against it, this theory goes, and thus makes a later vote for Viet Nam funds less risky. Moreover, if Cambodia soon falls and there are recriminations, it will be harder to vote against aid for Saigon...
...issues raised by the current debate over aid to Indochina...
...strong. It would be better, however, to give Saigon some warning first and set a deadline. A year or 18 months should be enough. At that point the Saigon government should be as strong as it will ever be to resist further attacks. Thereafter, like the other countries of Indochina, it will have to rely largely on its own strength to maintain its independence if its people want it. By then the U.S. would also have more than amply demonstrated to the world that it is not an unreliable ally, if it has not done so already...