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While President Gerald Ford talks of the rainy days to come and Phnom Penh burns under the weight
of communist rockets and shells, congressmen and State Department officials have found a new
pastime. They are playing the Washington Word Game. Any legislator or US official can play once he has
uttered the key words, "controlled solution."
Just what controlled solution means remains unclear, but it sounds fine when one is faced with
as sticky a situation as Cambodia. And even as the President talks of sustaining Lon Nol until
the weather breaks, and the political in-crowd sprinkle conversations with the new catch-phrase,
US Ambassador to Cambodia John Gunther Dean is trying to keep competition going in the land which
inspired him to create the world game.
Dean, in fact, has already tried to spell out what he sees as the idea of the exercise. (REVIEW,Mar. 14):
An "uncontrolled solution" would be the insurgents embarking on a giant bloodletting spree if
Phnom Penh and its inhabitants fell into Khmer Rouge hands without there being any prior negotiations
and, therefore, safeguards against savagery.
A controlled solution would entail a change of leadership on the Phnom Penh side and worthwhile
negotiations.
Under-Secretary of State for Asian Affairs Philip Habib has defined a controlled solution simply
as "any arrangement for a peaceful settlement by some form of negotiations." More specifically,
other officials say, the phrase means an orderly surrender: a surrender allowing Lon Nol and
Phnom Penh's leadership to retreat into exile and an orderly transfer of power to the Khmer Rouge
leaders while sparing low-level officials of the present Phnom Penh bureaucracy. Even members of
Ford's own political party have now called for Lon Nol's replacement by a transitional government.
But nobody is sure how any of this can be accomplished smoothly.
The fear of bloodshed is perhaps most deeply ingrained in the minds of US officials.
These officials are quick to point to photographs of murdered Cambodian Buddhist nuns and predict
that the same fate awaits thousands of Phnom Penh civilians if a controlled settlement cannot be
reached. Nobody is sure just how to effect an orderly transfer of power in Phnom Perth, but
presumably it would involve bringing in the top leaders of the Cambodian insurgency such as
Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Saloth Sar as soon as possible so that
they might exert moderating influences over occupying forces.
President Ford has indicated that the US is not particularly concerned at this stage with the
personalities of a government in Cambodia but merely desires a negotiated settlement. As the
President put it: "The personalities involved will not themselves constitute an obstacle to any
kind of settlement."
Administration officials have tried in the past two weeks to convince Congress that Washington
has been actively pursuing negotiations for some time. The latest attempts are said to have been
with Chau Seng, an emissary of Prince Sihanouk, who has been traveling in Europe. US officials
appear unable to learn, however, if any approaches to Sihanouk are worthwhile, because no one
seems to believe the Prince can exert much influence over the final outcome.
Whatever that outcome, and even if Congress never acts on military aid, a wide body of opinion
appears to continue supporting "humanitarian" assistance for Cambodia. Various members of Congress
are deeply concerned about medical care and food supplies for Cambodian civilians.
(C) 1975 Review Publishing Company Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Less than a month later any notion of a controlled solution was dead. The Americans would remove
General Lon Nol, but any further American commitment would be cut soon after that.
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