Word: lons
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...weeks ago, Lon Nol set up a four-man "High Political Council" in response to U.S. demands that he broaden his regime's power base (TIME, May 7). So far, however, the new council has not demonstrated much solidarity. When Lon Nol appeared at a May Day rally last week, Washington's favorite council member, Sirik Matak, remained conspicuously absent. "Perhaps he is a bit ill," suggested one Cambodian official. "Perhaps he does not like to celebrate May Day, which has Communist connotations," speculated another. Whatever the reason, it was not an encouraging sign. When asked to describe...
...strategy has been to try to strengthen the Lon Nol government in advance of negotiations with the Khmer insurgents. But at the moment the insurgents do not seem to have much interest in negotiating anyway. One unresolved question was whether or not they would accept the titular leadership of deposed Prince Sihanouk, who is strongly backed by both Hanoi and Peking. Although Communist elements among the insurgents have little use for Sihanouk, there was a possibility that they might try to use his popularity with the peasantry to broaden their own movement. One Eastern European diplomat in Phnom-Penh suggested...
Meanwhile, Lon Nol's undermanned, overmatched army waited resignedly for a renewed insurgent attack on the capital. "It's only a temporary rest," said one Cambodian lieutenant in charge of twelve men who were guarding a highway bridge ten miles from the capital. His soldiers, he said, were in need of uniforms and rice, and two enemy regiments were waiting a few miles away to seize the highway, thereby securing a level position within easy rocket range of the capital. "In a week or two," said the lieutenant matter-of-factly, "they will come and take the bridge...
...Cambodia, where virtually everyone has a favorite fortune teller, the advice of astrologers often determines whether armies advance, governments fall or prime ministers take trips. When rebels bombed his presidential palace recently, Marshal Lon Nol was rumored to have fired some of his senior soothsayers. Last week TIME Correspondent Barry Hillenbrand ventured into the back streets of Phnom-Penh to visit a gray-haired old astrologer whose clients include the marshal himself. Hillenbrand's report...
...What about Lon Nol?" I ventured. In reply, he drew on his slate twelve horizontal bars of equal length and twelve vertical bars, some short and some long. The long vertical bars represented good months and years, the short ones bad months and years. This was Lon Nol's chart, he explained. The marshal had visited him many times, and after the recent bombing of the palace compound, Lon Nol had rushed an aide to the astrologer for a fresh reading...