The Negotiatiors

 CHAPTER 22

The Negotiatiors

FOR FOURTEEN months after the bombing ended in August 1973, Kissinger made no effort to end the war in Cambodia. A State Department summary of negotiating efforts, produced in March 1975 in an effort to persuade Congress to increase military aid, stated that "a number of major efforts toward negotiation were made in 1973, efforts which were thwarted by the forced bombing halt in August of that year. In October, 1974, we broached the idea of an international conference on Cambodia. . . . We received no substantive answer to these overtures. . . ."

The summary suggested that after Nixon's resignation Cambodia did once more become a concern. It listed six attempts made between October 1974 and February 1975 to try to find a solution to the war. To show the exact nature of these efforts it is useful to consider in some detail one of the more significant attempts that were made. This is how the summary described it: "In December, 1974, and early January, 1975, we concurred in an initiative to open a dialogue with Sihanouk in Peking. Sihanouk at first agreed to see an emissary, but later refused." The initiative was taken by the French.

In September 1974 a summit meeting was arranged between Giscard d’Estaing, who had succeeded Georges Pompidou to the French presidency in May, and Gerald Ford, who had just replaced Richard Nixon. It was to take place in December on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, and its principal purpose was for the two leaders to become acquainted and to discuss oil, energy and gold prices. Giscard, anxious to act the statesman, also began to consider what other topics he could raise.

After Giscard’s elevation to the presidency, the Secretary of the Elysée, Claude Pierre-Brossolette, had shown him the file of messages from Etienne Manac’h in Peking, messages that dealt with Chinese policy and settlement in Cambodia. Now Giscard cabled his ambassador to ask if there was still, at this late stage, any chance of France playing a useful role. Manac’h’s optimism was guarded. He still believed that Chou En-lai wished to see Sihanouk leading Cambodia again. But it was clear to him, as it was to other diplomats, that Chinese policy had changed in the spring of 1974. Manac’h was convinced that this was because of Kissinger’s apparent lack of interest in either Sihanouk or negotiations.

In early April 1974 Khieu Samphan, vice-president of Sihanouk’s Government of National Union and commander in chief of the Cambodian People’s National Liberation Army, had come to Peking. To Sihanouk’s intense discomfiture he was welcomed almost with the honors due to a head of state. At a formal banquet given in his honor he attacked all “such vicious maneuvers as sham cease-fire, sham talks and sham peace,” and he ruled out all compromise. He presented Chou En-lai with a grenade launcher; the Chinese Premier aimed it at the ceiling. It was a critical moment which symbolized an important shift in Chinese policy away from a political solution toward a military end to the Cambodian crisis. In talks with the Chinese government the Khmer Rouge commander requested a major commitment of military supplies from Peking; that request was granted. It was with the help of these new weapons that the Khmer Rouge were able to keep the fighting through the 1974 wet season at a higher level than ever before and then to launch the offensive that won them the war.

From Peking Khieu Samphan embarked on a long tour of African, Middle Eastern and East European countries sympathetic to the insurgent government. (It was now that Dean suggested to Kissinger that the United States contact him.) His message everywhere was the same: there could be no negotiations with Lon Nol. President Ceaucescu of Rumania attempted to act as mediator but Khieu Samphan was adamant: the GRUNK would fight on till total victory.

Manac’h knew that stated American policy—that the two sides should negotiate together—was quite impossible. As Sihanouk had recently told The New York Times, “It is like putting a tiger and a dog in the same cage. Things will be settled only when one animal eats the other. And that is how it will be in Cambodia. We are the tiger, and Lon Nol and his people are the running dogs.” At the same time, Manac’h was certain that unless a peace was negotiated an eventual Khmer Rouge victory on the battlefield was inevitable. He was aware of the rigor with which it enforced its policies and believed, from the perspective of a Western social democrat, that the prospect of its power was unattractive. He was convinced that, for all his failings, Sihanouk remained the best hope of the Cambodian people, and he realized that if the Khmer Rouge arrived first in Phnom Penh they would not agree to share power with him. It was essential to try to arrange Sihanouk’s arrival in the city before the Communists. That, thought Manac’h, could be achieved only in one way. The United States must accept and arrange the departure of Lon Nol and his clique from the capital and then massive demonstrations must be organized there for Sihanouk’s return. (That part of the plan would have been simple.) The Prince would fly home from Peking to assume control of a broad center-left coalition which integrated into his GRUNK all prominent Phnom Penh politicians not completely beholden to the other side. That was plausible; dozens of political figures in Phnom Penh, including Lon Nol’s commander in chief and Prince Sirik Matak, had already sent him word that they would welcome his return. Even Lon Nol’s ambassador to Washington, Um Sim, had been asking Senator Mansfield to try to find out from the Prince on what conditions he would come home.

Manac'h's proposal was, essentially, that the leader of the Royal Government of National Union should exercise his authority to extend its base. The Khmer Rouge would remain in the government, but they would be somewhat balanced by other figures. Instead of being a powerless figurehead in exile, he would be at home in control of the capital, half the population, the bonzes, the bureaucracy and an army whose morale would have soared. The successor of the kings of Angkor, at the head of a popular front in the real sense of that term, could then unilaterally declare a cease-fire. Manac'h recognized that the Khmer Rouge leaders would be outraged, but he believed they would have to accept the fait accompli. Thousands of their troops would undoubtedly defect, were they ordered to continue to fight, their indoctrination against Sihanouk notwithstanding.

It was an attractive scheme, but Manac'h realized that enormous difficulties were implicit in it. It demanded that the United States reverse a policy of four and a half years, and it required the cooperation of the Chinese. Peking had already made a public commitment to Khieu Samphan; and Sihanouk's principal champion, Chou En-lai, was now in the hospital much of the time, suffering from the cancer that would soon kill him. Nonetheless, on the basis of his conversations with such officials as Foreign Minister Chiao Kuan-hua, Manac'h understood that Peking was still prepared to consider such an "initiative."

(The scheme was further complicated by the nature of French relations with Cambodia. The French had attempted to have the best of both worlds since 1970. In order to protect substantial commercial interests in Cambodia they recognized Lon Nol—but reduced their mission in Phnom Penh below ambassadorial level—and at the same time attempted to remain on friendly terms with Sihanouk. Any move toward the exiled government now reflected not only Manac'h's personal desire to end the war but also the French government's wish to be associated with the winning side.)

On October 31 Giscard made his first approach—a telegram of greetings to Sihanouk, who was then in Algiers. The French ambassador, Jean Marie Soutou, told the Prince that Giscard was anxious to help end the war. Sihanouk adamantly attacked the American demand that he negotiate with Lon Nol. French officials later confided that he had said, “The Americans lack realism. I had a white handkerchief. The Americans have soaked it in blue ink. Absurd! The handkerchief turned red. Now they want to dye it white again. Well it’s not possible.” But, he said, the integration of Lon Nol’s Phnom Penh opponents into GRUNK which Manac’h proposed, might work.

On November 20 Manac’h saw Foreign Minister Chiao Kuan-hua once more and asked if Chinese policy remained as Chou En-lai had outlined it to Pompidou. He was told that it did, but that it might not do so for much longer. The Chinese attitude at this stage was equivocal. So long as Hanoi’s blockade of arms supplies denied the Khmer Rouge their full military potential, Peking appeared willing to connive at a settlement that would result in a government of which it could be certain, a government controlled by Sihanouk. But if and when a Khmer Rouge battlefield victory became imminent, the Sihanouk card could no longer be played, and Peking would have to accept a Khmer Communist government, with all the risks of alignment toward Moscow that that, in theory, posed.

(The ambiguity of Chinese policy was displayed in a long article published by Hsinhua, the Chinese news agency, on November 24. It was an analysis of the Phnom Penh economy and made no attack on political personalities in the city except to refer to the “phantom government of [Prime Minister] Long Boret." As for negotiations, it said simply, "The Cambodian people have rejected completely the proposal of negotiations concocted by the Lon Nol clique with the support of the U.S. It is determined to pursue the struggle till final victory." Significantly, the article did not denounce the kind of negotiations the French had proposed. Similar equivocation was demonstrated in the treatment now accorded to Ieng Sary, the Khmer Rouge's main representative in Peking. On November 24, Ieng Sary visited Chou En-lai in the hospital. He was then given a banquet at which he denounced all talk of negotiations. But his host Li Hsien-yen made no mention of negotiations.

Still more uncertainty was added by the fact that the United Nations was holding its annual debate on whether Lon Nol's government should be replaced in the General Assembly by Sihanouk's. Since 1970 more countries had recognized the Prince's government, and even the Russians had closed their embassy in Phnom Penh and were now making approaches to the Prince. In 1973 the move to unseat Lon Nol had only just been defeated, by postponing the decision for a year, after vigorous American lobbying. This year American pressure was even more intense, and John Gunther Dean sent Long Boret, one of the most effective Prime Ministers Lon Nol had ever had, on a trip to the Middle East to win Arab support. The efforts were successful, Lon Nol retained the seat by a margin of two votes. The French abstained; Giscard said publicly that “this should not be interpreted as indicating indifference to the sufferings of the Khmer nation.”

On November 25 Manac'h saw Sihanouk. The Prince realized that the French were offering him a last chance to return home in his own right, and with some influence over the country's future. He was clearly anxious about any commitments that Chou En-lai might have made to Ieng Sary, whom he loathed. He agreed that if the United States removed Lon Nol and "his clique" he would be prepared to return to Phnom Penh and allow various politicians there to join a broadened GRUNK. He would establish a government of national unity in which the Khmer Rouge would, of course, be dominant but which would, he hoped, be less radical than an administration in which they had complete control and he had no part. He knew that the Khmer Rouge would resist any such compromise bitterly. He insisted to Manac'h that the proposal must be kept secret.

Manac'h then flew to Paris to brief Giscard. Over a four-hour lunch on November 29 he outlined his proposal, stressing the need for speed and secrecy. Giscard accepted his logic, and on December 2 the Quai d'Orsay informed Washington that the French President wished to discuss Camodia at Martinique. There was no objection. Manac'h returned to peking.

Kissinger had just completed his seventh trip to the Chinese capital; just what he proposed on Cambodia is still disputed. Some American officials claim that he had by now drastically altered his position and was prepared to remove Lon Nol. But Chou En-lai later told Sihanouk—according to the Prince—that Kissinger remained adamant that any negotiation must be between Sihanouk and Lon Nol. On December 6, Chiao Kuan-hua told Manac'h that Kissinger was elated by Lon Nol's success at the U.N.; the Chinese foreign minister thought it barely relevant to the situation in the field. Manac'h was led to understand that Chiao Kuan-hua still supported the French proposals to be made at Martinique.

Manac'h's impressions of Kissinger's attitude coincided with those of John Gunther Dean, who flew to Hawaii for a briefing of American ambassadors in Asia after Kissinger's Peking trip. Dean knew of Manac'h's hopes and had recently written him an encouraging letter about his attempts to start a dialogue with Sihanouk. He believed now more than ever that time was against Lon Nol, particularly since Congress was beginning to impose unprecedented restrictions on aid to Cambodia.

On December 4 the Senate had accepted a foreign-aid bill that placed an absolute ceiling of $377 million in economic and military aid to Cambodia for the year July 1974–July 1975. (In the previous year the United States had provided the country with over $708 million in aid.) The same measure was passed by the House and even though a House-Senate conference subsequently added another $75 million military aid it was a historic and, for the Lon Nol government, fatal vote. The Pentagon's current plans called for military spending of $362.5 million for the year. About half of this had already been spent, and now the Congress had reduced the military budget to $275 million. With such restrictions, it was inevitable that the government would run out of ammunition.

In pushing for a "controlled solution" Dean even had the support of Graham Martin, the United States ambassador to Saigon, who believed, correctly, that Cambodia was draining resources and Congressional patience from Vietnam and wished to see Sihanouk return to Phnom Penh. Nevertheless, Dean still did not detect any sense of urgency on Kissinger's part. Kissinger, says Brent Scowcroft, considered any attempt to remove Lon Nol too risky. Dean returned to Phnom Penh depressed. The New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg, with whom Dean was on good terms, now quoted "an embassy official" as saying he hoped that Washington would put as much effort into peace negotiation.

in the near future rather than continuing the military struggle.” This represented a reversal of French policy on Cambodia; it was just what Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge and the Chinese had always rejected. It was Kissinger’s peace proposal. It virtually destroyed Manac'h's idea before its inception.

In Peking, officials at once demanded that Manac'h tell them why France had abandoned its policy; what did this “betrayal” mean? Sihanouk told Manac'h that the Khmer Rouge leadership now realized what was afoot and that the communiqué had dealt a “truncheon blow” to the initiative. The Quai hurriedly instructed all French ambassadors to state “without hesitation” that France’s policy had not in fact changed and Giscard even made a humiliating retraction on television. “Quite frankly,” he said, “the communiqué imperfectly reflects what I had in mind... negotiations between the parties ... does not seem suited to the situation at present. Other forms of political evolution of a different type and that we ourselves consider desirable should be sought. I told President Ford of our concern in this field and at the same time of our ideas regarding a type of political solution that does not exactly consist of negotiations between parties.”

It was too late. To protect himself Sihanouk issued a public statement denouncing France’s “inadmissible interference” in Cambodia’s affairs, and Manac'h was left with the unenviable task of persuading the meticulous and skeptical Chinese that a genuine mistake had been made. On the French side this was undoubtedly true. The communiqué had been produced in a hurry. That particular sentence had been drafted by Kissinger’s staff and presented by him to Giscard and Sauvanrages. Although Manac'h had proposed that they do so, the French had brought no Asian specialist to Martinique, and neither Giscard nor Sauvanrages knew enough of Cambodian politics to understand the implication of the words.

Despite the fiasco, two French officials, Henri Froment-Meurice and Hubert Argod, flew to Washington to discuss Manac'h’s plan just before Christmas. Here the politics of the Quai intrude slightly upon the story. Froment-Meurice had succeeded Manac'h as head of the Asia Department. He and Manac'h are not similar in either politics or personality. Froment-Meurice has the reputation of being pro-American, but even American officials have expressed wariness of his character. It is said in the Quai that he envied Manac'h’s position and reputation. In any case, the two men had never liked each other. Froment-Meurice had little enthusiasm for Manac'h's current idea, since he thought Vietnam far more important, and he did not press it with vigor at the State Department. Indeed, he scarcely concealed his skepticism.

Kissinger, for his part, did show some interest, but he insisted that Washington could have nothing to do with the idea unless specific conditions were fulfilled and absolute guarantees were obtained from the Chinese. This was understandable enough, particularly in light of China's apparent public endorsement of a military victory. But, much to the surprise of the French, Kissinger was not prepared to solicit help from the U.S. Liaison Office in Peking or to ask for a more detailed report from Manac'h. On the contrary, he insisted that American officials in Peking not even be informed of the discussions, and he refused to accept Manac'h as a reliable witness or negotiator, apparently thinking him too close to Sihanouk. (This was arguable, but had Manac'h not had the Prince's confidence he would never have been able to make his "integration" proposal in the first place, let alone have Sihanouk accept it.) Instead, Kissinger insisted that either Argod or Froment-Meurice fly to Peking to take over the negotiation from Manac'h. Froment-Meurice did not demur.

When Manac'h was told that the Quai was asking the Chinese for a visa he was appalled. Inevitably it would increase both publicity and suspicions, and he doubted that Peking would wish to be seen to cooperate in a venture that could only have been designed to circumvent the Khmer Rouge. He was right. The Chinese simply did not respond to the request.

Soon after Christmas Manac'h cabled the Quai to say that the venture had now been so compromised that it had better be abandoned. A few days later, the Khmer Rouge launched what was to be their final offensive against Phnom Penh. When Manac'h next saw Sihanouk, the Prince was very depressed. He believed that the Khmer Rouge were more suspicious, that his relations with them were, as a result, worse than ever, and that he was no longer seen as a moderate socialist akin to Yugoslavia's must now be dismissed totally. Now only force would prevail. Stalinist Albania, he said, would be the model.