Word: khmer
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...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 there to its most intense level since the Paris Peace Accords were supposed to have ended...
...unrealistic attitudes of President Lon Nol, who sometimes acts as if the war were taking place in another country. Last week, for example, rumors circulated in Phnom-Penh for several days that he might resign, which could possibly pave the way toward some kind of negotiations with the Khmer Rouge insurgents. Instead, Lon Nol staged a modest Cabinet reshuffling and fired his arrogant commander in chief, Lieut. General Sosthene Fernandez, who is hated both for his corruption (his army payroll is inflated with fake names) and for refusing to take orders from the National Assembly. At the presidential palace...
...somewhat fainthearted response to the crisis, ailing, ineffectual President Lon Nol let it be known once again that his government was prepared to resign in exchange for peace talks -but nobody expected the Khmer Rouge to take up the offer. In Washington, Congress continued to debate the merits of an Administration request for increasing emergency aid to the Lon Nol regime (see following story), which has already received almost $2 billion in U.S. aid during the last five years. An equally serious problem, however, was the morale and fighting spirit of the government forces, as Correspondent Range discovered while...
Ford insisted that his Administration had no intention of sending U.S. troops back to Indochina. "All American forces have come home," he said. "They will not go back." But his strong pitch for more aid was based on two major worries. First, that a Khmer Rouge victory would lead to a bloodbath in Phnom-Penh. "The record shows in both Viet Nam and Cambodia," he said, "that Communist takeover of an area does not bring an end to violence but, on the contrary, subjects the innocents to new horrors." Secondly, Ford argued that a failure to supply more...
...Indochina, remarked: "I'm concerned about the humanitarian situation, the kids' bellies. The military situation was lost long ago." Minnesota Democrat Donald Fraser was more explicit: "In my judgment, the only thing we can do is help arrange for the orderly transfer of power to the [Khmer] insurgents...