Word: lons
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Clearly the opponents of aid to Cambodia were more aggressive. Generally they insisted that Lon Nol's forces were doomed with or without U.S. aid, that further help would merely prolong the killing without affecting the outcome and that the U.S. had neither a vital interest nor a commitment to either side in Cambodia's internal fighting. Defenders of aid echoed Ford's claim that the funds were needed to sustain the government troops until the rainy season, when a negotiated settlement could be sought, thus avoiding a "bloodbath" that might be inflicted by rampaging rebels...
...debate in Washington was remarkably calm and reasoned, even though it revived the nation's receding emotions over its most distressing military entanglement. At issue were the Ford Administration's request to send $222 million in additional military aid to President Lon Nol's shaky Cambodian government and, less urgently, $300 million in more arms to the less immediately endangered government of South Viet Nam's Nguyen Van Thieu...
...startling even Ford-as a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted to provide $125 million in emergency aid and $90 million for humanitarian help (such as food and medical supplies). Democrat Hubert Humphrey, who chaired the subcommittee, argued that Cambodia's military situation was "hopeless," the Lon Nol government was too weak to negotiate and the Administration wanted the aid merely to show that the U.S. had not "copped out." Javits contended that one final injection of help could make negotiations more likely by "continuing some level of resistance" to the rebels. "I'm reluctant...
Cambodia is a ruined fairyland, with a government to match. Even foreign diplomats who privately hope that the present regime can pull through have been exasperated by the indolence and 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...
Like the countless other congressional missions to Indochina over the past decade, the most recent junket was a grueling, rapid plunge into the complexities of war and politics. There were mandatory visits with the heads of state, Nguyen Van Thieu in Saigon and Lon Nol in beleaguered Phnom-Penh. Congressmen William Chappell and John Murtha donned fatigues and trooped off to a Cambodian army post. After a tour of a huge refugee center set up in Phnom-Penh's unfinished Cambodiana Hotel, a shaken Millicent Fenwick, Republican Representative from New Jersey, said: "I can't believe this...