Office of the Historian

257. Telegram From the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State1

Moscow, December 5, 1968, 1325Z.

6734. Subj: Cambodian Ambassador Raises Reestablishment of Relations.

1.
Cambodian Ambassador approached me at Cambodian Embassy dinner and said he thought it was high time U.S. and Cambodia reestablished [Page 561] relations. He said only obstacle was our failure to find formula for statement recognizing their frontiers. He cited number of other governments that he found way to do this. He asked whether I thought advent of new President would provide opportunity for reexamination of our policy on this issue.
2.
I told him I thought new administration would naturally review all our foreign policies. However I understand problem for us was that we did not wish to take position one way or other on frontier question as to do so would cause difficulties for us with Thais with whom we had friendly relations.
3.
Ambassador said that although there was some abuse of Cambodian territory by North Vietnamese this was minor in extent and against wishes of Cambodian Government which not strong enough to prevent these incidents. When I said I had observed that Cambodian Government usually made loud outcry at every alleged U.S. or South Vietnamese violation of their territory but said little about North Vietnamese violations he said any other course would be dangerous for Cambodia and that he hoped we understood this.
4.
Ambassador was most cordial. He related (please protect) with obvious amusement the following incident to illustrate Prince Sihanoukʼs frankness and impetuosity. When Khrushchev was dismissed press attributed this to his ill health. The Prince immediately sent a long telegram direct to Khrushchev, expressing his high regard and wishing him a quick recovery of health and return to power. Ambassador also said he was still holding large number of presents the Prince had intended to give Soviet leaders at time of his abortive visit here. He said Soviets had repeatedly tried to rearrange visit from Prince but he would not agree.
Thompson
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL CAMB–US. Confidential; Exdis. Repeated to Bangkok.↩