Word: sihanouk
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Last week, uncaged and happy, Citizen Sihanouk was flitting from village to village in a ruby-red Studebaker convertible, escorted by a fetching songstress and a loud jazz band on wheels. It was election time in Cambodia...
...Cambodia's impetuous young King Norodom Sihanouk entreated his subjects in a surprise broadcast last March, "permit me to leave my gilded cage." With that, he turned over the monarchy's six-tiered parasol to his father, Suramarit. After 14 years on the throne, 32-year-old Sihanouk was convinced that, "If I ever lose this King job, maybe I can go to Hollywood. They like Oriental characters over there, don't they? Maybe I could be a Cambodian Charlie Chan...
Princely Portrait. As King, Sihanouk enjoyed tootling a saxophone, composing love ballads, keeping race horses and elephants, a troop of dancing girls and a harem of concubines. But he was no mere playboy Oriental monarch. He also helped to win his country's freedom from French colonial rule, led his army in a skirmish against invading Viet Minh Communists and encouraged his diplomats to stand up successfully to Molotov and Chou Enlai at last year's Geneva meeting. Yet he felt powerless really to run his land, to keep it clear of corruption and out of a head...
Married. Norodom Sihanouk, 33, saxophone-playing ex-king of Cambodia who abdicated in March in favor of his father. Prince Suramarit, after charging an international commission with interfering in Cambodian affairs; and Princess Norodom Norleak, his shy second cousin; both for the first time; secretly, in Pnompenh...
...mother, Princess Norodom Suramarit, is a handsome woman who has long kept a sharp, appraising eye upon her royal son's dancing girls and political enemies. "I am a sick old man," proclaimed the new King, getting into the spirit of his son's abdication. "My son Sihanouk will help...