Word: sihanouk
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...chubby little man in a dark blue suit strode into the sports stadium of the steamy Cambodian capital of Pnompenh (pronounced Nom-pen) last week, mounted the platform, and began haranguing the assembled crowd in a whiny, high-pitched voice. The speaker was Prince Norodom Sihanouk, neutralist, mercurial ruler of Cambodia, and he had called the rally to announce in effect that the U.S. was working to undermine his regime. Turning theatrically to the throng, Sihanouk asked whether the national honor did not demand that Cambodia reject any future help from the Americans. When his subjects roared obedient approval...
...Sihanouk might change his mind again, as he has before. In a formal note to Washington, he called for a halt to all American economic and military aid, which in the past eight years has amounted to $366 million. And so the J.S.-already striving to save war-torn South Viet Nam and "neutral" but tottering Laos from the Reds-faced another mess in Southeast Asia...
Shaken Neighbor. What was ailing the Prince? A suspicious, emotional, French-educated descendant of Cambodia's medieval Khmer kings, he once performed slapstick parts in movies (which he produced himself) and has often played slapstick politics. Friends seriously reported last week that two contributing reasons for Sihanouk's bad mood might be that 1) he had been crash-dieting to lose 15 Ibs. in ten days, and 2) the U.S. transferred a former military advisory chief with whom the Prince enjoyed playing volleyball. The Prince himself accused the U.S. of supporting a clandestine radio, on South Viet...
...Communist China's takeover of Southeast Asia, hence may be trying to save himself by cozying up to the Red dragon. What precipitated his latest performance could well have been the overthrow and assassination of his late neighbor, South Viet Nam's Ngo Dinh Diem. Although Sihanouk and Diem were bitter enemies, the Prince was shaken by Diem's death and attributed it to the cutoff of Diem's American aid. Possibly determined never to get himself on the same vulnerable spot, Sihanouk moved quickly to lessen his dependence...
...ranks abound with "neutralists" and leftward-drifters. Indonesia, which stubbornly fights the new Federation of Malaysia, a Colombo partner, on the ground that it is a front for British "neocolonialism," used the Bangkok conference to snap insults at the new state. Cambodia's petulant, neutralist Prince Norodom Sihanouk boycotted the conference because of his antagonism to the host country, strongly anti-Communist Thailand; he also announced that he wanted no more U.S. aid, would kick out all U.S. military advisers by year's end (later, he started backpedaling...