100. Letter From Prime Minister Sihanouk to President Eisenhower1
Mr. President: I have not forgotten the cordiality of the welcome which you were so kind as to extend to me during my stay in your country last fall and it is because I believe I shall find comprehension and sympathy in you that I write you today to explain to you the gravity of the situation Cambodia.
My country, Mr. President, is a friend of long standing of the great American democracy. Like the US it detests oppression in all its forms and it can only voice its approval of the desire to which you gave expression in your last message on the State of the Union for a world “community of strong nations, stable and independent, where the ideas of liberty of justice and human dignity can thrive”.
Cambodia is not, as some have at times attempted to make me appear to say, boldly falsifying my thoughts, an enemy of SEATO, of which the US is one of the principal animating forces. We understand perfectly that our Asiatic neighbors make such agreements among themselves and great friendly powers to better defend themselves against Communist subversion. The fact that we do not belong to SEATO does not entitle us to criticize the organization as such. I add that we have full sympathy for the national regimes of other countries and that, although neutral (for special reasons), we do not proselytize [Page 283] for neutrality. Neither, in the final analysis, does Communism have any attraction for us, which up to the present has not succeeded in taking root in our ancient nation, monarchist, socialist, and nationalist.
However, our small, pacific country whose Army numbers scarcely 30 thousand men and whose Air Force and Navy are purely symbolic, is the object of grave threats of aggression on the part of neighbors both larger and more powerful. Rebel troops and brigands are concentrated on our frontiers on the west and on the east and are supplied with modern arms, a small party of these troops has already penetrated into our western provinces.
A very large sum of money has been given to the Commander of one of our military regions, that he may declare himself autonomously, whose arms are delivered to him by foreign planes, and we have had no other recourse than to send the Royal Forces to enforce respect for our national integrity. We have discovered in our capital and in our provinces the existence of a vast network of subversion fed by our neighbors with the aim of forming a puppet government ready to align itself to their policy and to give its consent to various concessions. These facts, Mr. President, are certainly not known to you. Because of their extreme gravity and because of the fact that they threaten our national government, twice approved by the people in free elections, I dare to solicit the speedy intervention of the friendly government of the US of America with our Thai and South Vietnamese neighbors, so that they will return to a policy of good-will and loyal neighborliness toward us. I know, Mr. President, that the Government of the US considers our neighbors as sovereign states into whose affairs it does not wish to inject itself. I wish to point out, however, that the strength of those countries is derived from the assistance which they obtain from the US which makes available to them, in addition to its moral support, large credits and important armaments for the purpose of defending their independence against Communist subversion.
The US is in my opinion twice entitled to make its voice heard. First of all, as a firm supporter of the United Nations (whose seat is on its territory) and whose constant doctrine is respect for the sovereignty and the integrity of its member states. Next, in order to see to it that the credits and arms which it turns over to nations in order to protect themselves from the Red menace are not unrightly used to support territorial and political ambitions or policies against non-Communist neighbors.
The Ambassador of the United States of America in Cambodia did not believe—and rightly—that he was interfering in our affairs when he pointed out to us that his country would not permit us to use arms which we had obtained from it against our neighbors. I ask you to have your representatives to our neighbors take the same position.
[Page 284]I am ready to go to great lengths to reassure the latter, and American opinion as well, to whom it has often been said that Cambodia lives under a “dictatorship” and does not approve the policy of neutrality which I am supposed to “impose” upon it.
I am ready to resign with all my government, to dissolve our National Assembly, and to call the people to new elections, in which all the parties in opposition to the Sangkum Reastr Niyum, over which I preside, will be able to participate freely—even those of MM Sam Sary and Son Ngoc Thanh.
I suggest that these elections be held under the control of the United Nations and that among the observers named by this organization be included the Thais and, although South Vietnam is not yet a member of the UN, also the South Vietnamese.
I think that in this way no one will be able any longer to have doubt about the will of our people. I commit myself, moreover, to withdraw from politics if views hostile to the Sangkum Reastr Niyum and to neutrality should obtain the majority. I think that American opinion, and you primarily, will recognize the fairness of this democratic proposition.
The very great confidence I have in you, Mr. President, the respect which I have for your eminent qualities as a statesman and an unquestioned leader of the free world, make me hope that you will be willing to attach special importance to the anguished appeal which I address to you in my country’s name.
I am certain that you will not permit a small country, friendly to yours, friendly to all the larger democratic nations, to be the object of an aggression encouraged by your allies and that you will know, with all the firmness which everyone admires in you, how to cause the very grave threat which weighs on us to recede.
Only the intervention of the United States of America can save the free Khmer democracy from an unjust and unmerited subversion, entirely artificial and mounted from without, as elections organized under the most severe international control would clearly demonstrate.
If, although I can not imagine it, this intervention should not lead to satisfactory results, I ask you to give us at least the means to defend ourselves by ourselves, without having to solicit them from other nations.
America, in whose wisdom and friendship I want to believe, can not let us be erased, by its silence, from the map of free nations nor let us slip into an anarchy from which the [garble] would be the only ones to profit.
[Page 285]I ask you, Mr. President, to excuse this plea, which may be too impassioned, which I have presented to you in the name of my people. I have faith in your sense of justice, you who have evoked “the shining prospect of seeing man build a world where all will be able to live in dignity.”
I beg you to accept, Mr. President, the assurances of my highest consideration.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 751H.00/2–2359. Confidential; Niact. Transmitted to the Department of State in telegram 1088, which noted that Son Sann requested transmission of the letter by cable and that a “reply be given with least possible delay.” Telegram 1088, which is the source text, was repeated priority to Saigon and Bangkok, niact to CINCPAC, and to Vientiane.↩
- Telegram 1088 bears this typed signature.↩
- In telegram 1090 from Phnom Penh, February 23, Strom asked for a very prompt reply, if only an interim one, to avoid the possibility of Sihanouk turning elsewhere before hearing from the United States. (Ibid.; included in the microfiche supplement)↩