QandO

August 13, 2004

The "Cambodia Man" weighs in
Posted by Dale Franks

Andrew Antippas served as a Foreign Service officer in the U.S. Embassy in Saigon as the "Cambodia Man" until 1970, then went to the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He writes in the Washington Times that if John Kerry had ever had a firefight with the Cambodians, as he has claimed, the Cambodians would've had a cow, and it would've provoked an international incident. The Cambodians, evidently, were extremely touchy about their borders at the time.

The bottom line of all this is that in the 15 years of active American military involvement in Vietnam and Cambodia, between 1961 and 1975, there was ongoing attention and scrutiny paid to the border because of the political sensitivities over the neutrality of the Cambodians. While things may have happened that no one ever found out about in Saigon, the Cambodians yelled bloody murder to the world press and the ICC whenever they found Americans trespassing.

Neutrality, unlike virginity, does not disappear at the first violation, but the Cambos sure acted like it did.

Of course, later on, when the commies started threatening Phnom Penh, the Cambodians became a lot friendlier to the idea of US help. Unfortunately, when the crunch came, we abandoned them just as quickly as we did our South Vietnamese allies.

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