Word: phan
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...administration ground to near-standstill. Vietnamese army staff officers, anxious to come out on the winning side, sent greetings to Bao Dai, whom they expect to come back from the French Riviera as his country's "arbiter." There was much talk of the Premier's possible replacements: Phan Huy Quat (whom Diem considers a Fascist) and Ho Thong Minh (a former Defense Minister who quit rather than send the army against rebellious sects...
...necessary funds would be transmitted through a new Vietnamese (not French) bank. ¶ Accepted the allegiance of 8,000 troops of the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao religious sects, whose hostile private armies were thereby reduced by about one-third. ¶ Started proceedings against wealthy Phan Van Giao, onetime Vice Premier and business manager for Chief of State Bao Dai, accusing him of misappropriating 5,650,000 piasters...
Missed Deadline. But there was a hitch. In a small office in the Palais des Nations, a mild little man reached for a telephone, and called Mendés. He announced himself: Tep Phan, Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia. He was sorry, he said apologetically, but he had no intention whatever of signing the projected agreement...
...little man was peremptorily summoned, got an irate reception from Mendès, Eden and Molotov. The agreement provided that Cambodia and Laos were to be "neutralized."' But explained Tep Phan politely, Cambodia did not want to be neutralized. The agreement banning any foreign bases violated Cambodia's sovereignty, would deprive it of allies if Cambodia were invaded. French. British and Russian stormed in vain. Molotov denounced the whole thing as an American trick. Bedell Smith was called and asked to reason with the awkward fellow. Tep Than would not budge...
Midnight-Mendès' deadline-came and went. At 2 a.m., the Communists, who plainly wanted their cease-fire badly, gave in to Cambodia's obdurate Tep Phan. Changes in the texts were ordered, to allow Cambodia to call for outside help if it considered its security threatened. Tep Phan was gratified, but he had one more question. Who would pay for the truce operations? Said Molotov with a laugh: "You have won everything else-you at least ought to foot the bill...