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In early 1975, I returned to Phnom Penh, after more than two years away. I had been assigned once
more to Indochina by NBC.
I was anxious about Cambodia on several counts. It was clear the nation was close to
collapse. My time the previous year in Washington taught me that there was no longer any American sentiment
toward saving Cambodia. Most Americans could not find it on a map. The losses in Vietnam were
hard enough to accept. President Ford sitting clumsily atop a weakened and discredited administration
simply would have no clout. As far as Washington was concerned, it was time to cut and run.
Beyond the impending collapse, the emotional strings drawing me back to Cambodia remained strong.
Sinan had stayed in Phnom Penh. I had not received a letter from her in more than a
year. I heard that she had married another man: a colonel in the United States army, a member of the military
assistance group to Cambodia. Whether she was with him out of love or a desire for safety, I
did not know.
An cloud of confusion had descended on this once beautiful place. Phnom Penh had swelled four
times in size. A million and a half war refugees crowded into the city; many near the city's
sports stadium living only through the handouts of international relief organizations.
I found Khmer friends clutching at straws. Suor, an army doctor I knew, had heated debates with
Vivienne, his part French, part Vietnamese fiancée, who had just flown in from Paris. She seemed
unable to persuade him to leave with her.
"Everything will be alright," Suor insisted. "Yes the city is surrounded by the Khmer Rouge. But
we are all Khmer and if we can only get the Americans out, we can work things out among us. There
will be reconciliation. We are all Khmer."
Sinan and I were inseparable once more. The Colonel had returned to Washington, leaving her an
air ticket, a passport, and money behind. But she had not joined him.
She invented excuses. She wanted to stay until the Khmer New Year on March 18th.She had some custom made jewelry to pick
up. It would not be ready until March 15th.She really didn't love the
Colonel. There were many excuses.
But then there was me. I was an excuse too. I was giving her hope. Things might turn out alright.
The Americans wanted a negotiated end. The hopes I raised of course turned out to be false ones.
I had written a story for the Far Eastern Economic Review. She clung to every word - anything
that might provide encouragement to stay in the city she loved.
The article based on conversations with the American Ambassador John Gunther Dean had presented a
glimmer of hope in a hopeless situation.
In Sinan's eyes, it meant that the Americans, in whom she invested so much faith, would pull the
proverbial rabbit out of the hat and provide for a peaceful transition. Many Khmer's clung to
the naïve assumption that the war would end, the Khmer Rouge would bring Sihanouk back and life
would resume pretty much the way it was in 1970.
I wrote two articles - one unsigned, the other under my byline - perpetrating the false hope of
a "controlled solution" to the war in Cambodia.
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