Word: pnompenh
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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First Things First. The King sits in his countinghouse in the many-templed Cambodian capital of Pnompenh (pop. 260,000), which a TIME correspondent visited last week. He had just sacked his Premier, Huy Kanthoul, for failing to put first things first, i.e., to get rid of Communism before getting rid of the French. Norodom shrewdly recognizes that an "independent" Cambodia would be a free gift to the Communists, if the French marched out. Last month he dismissed his nationalistic cabinet and took charge of the kingdom himself. His cabinet of princes (TIME, June 23), he announced, would stay...
...King* succeeded his grandfather, King Sisowath II, in 1941. The Japanese army which occupied Pnompenh, kept its royal prisoner in his gilded cage; real power in Cambodia was exercised by a shifty-eyed demagogue and Japanese puppet named Son Ngoc Thanh. After V-J day, Puppet Son Ngoc Thanh was sent to jail in France; the King enrolled as a student officer (honorary rank: brigadier general) at the French army's school of cavalry and armor. His Majesty was a brilliant student. He returned to his people in 1947 an excellent horseman, an accomplished linguist and an enthusiastic driver...
Bloodless Coup. Communist plots soon took away the King's fun. Pardoned by the French, Son Ngoc Thanh returned to Pnompenh. His Pnompenh newspaper, Khmer People Awake, sowed disaffection in the royal army. Viet Minh Communist battalions, 10,000 strong, skirmished along Cambodia's borders, and Son Ngoc Thanh cheered them on. Suddenly last month the King reacted. He closed down Khmer People Awake. Son Ngoc Thanh ducked off to join a band of Red guerrillas...