Word: sihanouk
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...weeks ago, it seemed that U.S. relations with Cambodia's sensitive Prince Norodom Sihanouk were finally looking up a bit. The Pentagon was talking less heatedly about the North Vietnamese infiltrating the south through Cambodia. Roving Ambassador W. Averell Harriman had wangled an invitation to visit Pnompenh in September to discuss a resumption of diplomatic relations, which Sihanouk suspended 15 months ago. A few days later, at a Washington press conference, Secretary Rusk even had a few words of gentle praise for Sihanouk, who had "done a very constructive and positive job in the development of his country...
...Pnompenh's royal palace. Last week American officials in Saigon disclosed that U.S. troops near the town of Lo Go on the Cambodian border had received heavy weapons fire from Cambodian territory, and were ultimately forced to silence it with howitzer fire. Even more interesting evidence of Sihanouk's cooperation with the Communists was the discovery of a new infiltration route into South Viet Nam-a chain of truck roads, bicycle trails and rivers that provides transport for supplies moving north and east out of Cambodia to some of the most important fighting areas of South Viet...
...heard the sound of blasting and rumble of heavy equipment in a region virtually empty of inhabitants. By early April, Ma's aviators could follow the trail for 60 miles from Cambodia to where it entered South Viet Nam. Last week TIME Correspondent Don Neff flew over the Sihanouk Trail in one of six Laotian T-28 fighter-bombers led by General Ma. His report...
...many as 40 trucks a day use the gravel-topped Sihanouk Trail. The trail bristles with 12.7-mm. antiaircraft emplacements, and other sources say that there are at least 30 Viet Cong supply depots strung along its length. A dozen North Vietnamese regiments are currently poised for action in South Viet Nam, and of these, at least four are inside Cambodia. Half of the remaining eight are within easy marching distance of the Cambodian sanctuary and the supply lines of the Sihanouk Trail. Its strategic value to the Communists is as an alternate route to the Ho Chi Minh Trail...
Since Cambodia's Sihanouk now offers the Reds active support, he is risking a widening of the war. If the Communist monsoon offensive is to be checked before the rains come, both trails must be severed-or at least heavily interdicted-before they join up in a ribbon of men and supplies that cannot be cut. Though there is no indication that the U.S. will cease to respect Sihanouk's phony neutrality, his policy inevitably carries with it the chance that more and more of the bullets of war will spill over into Cambodia itself...