Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen Before the Killing Fields D:\projects\i b tauris\cambodia\vp files\Before the Killing Fields.vp 25 September 2007 19:09:03 Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen Leslie Fielding read History at Cambridge (where he is now an Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel College) and Persian at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. He joined the Foreign Service in 1956 working initially in Tehran and (briefly) Singapore, before being put in charge of the British Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, from 1964 to 1966. His subsequent diplomatic career took him to Paris, Brussels (in the European Commission) and Tokyo. He has also been a Visiting Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sussex. He has contributed to two volumes of short stories, Travellers’ Tales and More Travellers’ Tales. He was knighted in 1988 and is married to the medievalist, Sally Harvey. D:\projects\i b tauris\cambodia\vp files\Before the Killing Fields.vp 25 September 2007 19:09:03 Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen Before the Killing Fields Witness to Cambodia and the Vietnam War Leslie Fielding D:\projects\i b tauris\cambodia\vp files\Before the Killing Fields.vp 25 September 2007 19:09:04 Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen Published in 2008 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com In the United States of America and Canada, distributed by Palgrave Macmillan a division of St Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 Copyright © Leslie Fielding, 2008 The right of Leslie Fielding to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN 978 1 84511 493 0 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Typeset in Garamond by Stilman Davis Printed and bound in the Czech Republic by FINIDR, s.r.o. D:\projects\i b tauris\cambodia\vp files\Before the Killing Fields.vp 25 September 2007 19:09:04 Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen Contents List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgements viii Foreword ix Introduction xii Figures in Relief – Four Cambodian Cameos I Mob at the Chancery Gates xvii II The Number One Twister xxv III Chez Madame Chhum xxix IV Friendly Fire xxxi The Prelude 1 One-Way Ticket to ‘Phnompers’ 3 The Place and the People 2 Travellers to an Antique Land 15 3 Cambodia in the Sixties – The Quest for Security 35 Re-Organising the Embassy 4 Starting Again, From Scratch 51 5 Labour and Leisure, New-Style 67 6 Learning to be an ‘Ambassador’ 81 Taking Diplomatic Action 7 The Tribes are Restless 95 D:\projects\i b tauris\cambodia\vp files\Before the Killing Fields.vp 25 September 2007 19:09:04 Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen vi Before the Killing Fields 8 The Approach to Geneva – Chou En-lai’s Road Block 101 9 Patrick Gordon Walker and the Peace Process – The Scene on the Street 107 10 The Coming of the Viet Cong 119 11 The Paper Chase 129 12 Bilateral Relations – The Diplomacy of Small Things 137 Other Kids on the Block 13 Cheshire Cat Chinese 149 14 Feudal French 161 15 Ugly Americans 175 16 Bonzer Australians 183 Goodbye to All That 17 Feelings in Retrospect 191 18 The Prince in Perspective 201 19 The ‘Crocodile Princess’ in Remembrance 215 Cambodian Coda 20 The Crash 223 21 Epilogue on Indo-China 231 Confidential Annex – Not the Secret Service 241 Chronology 247 Select Bibliography 251 Index 257 D:\projects\i b tauris\cambodia\vp files\Before the Killing Fields.vp 25 September 2007 19:09:04 Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen List of Illustrations Map: Cambodia and Vietnam in 1964 xvi The British Vice Consul’s private car, after the Embassy’s Chancery had been attacked by a state-directed mob in Phnom Penh (1964) xxiv H.R.H. The Princess Bopha Devi, Prima Ballerina of the Royal Cambodian Ballet, whom the author instructed in ‘The Twist’ xxviii Border Incident: a snapshot taken in a tight spot at a Cambo- dian village close to the frontier, after being mistakenly strafed from the air by forces from Saigon xxxiii H.R.H. Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Head of State of Cambodia, on an informal excursion to the provinces with the Diplomatic Corps 47 Sunday lunch on board the Maison Flottante, the Embassy’s motor boat for water-skiing, with its captain 91 A picnic for the visiting Daily Mirror journalist, and members of the Embassy staff, at the distant jungle temple of Sambor Prei Kuk 92 Goodbye, Cambodian neutrality: political cartoon, showing President Ho Chi Minh destroying Prince Sihanouk’s last hope 128 After ‘In Coventry’ restrictions are raised, young Cambodians relax during a dance at the Residence 145 Presentation of credentials to the Head of State, in the Throne Room, by the new British Ambassador, immediately before the author’s departure from Cambodia 146 At the Cambodian frontier with Thailand: the author teasing General Lon Nol, Head of Cambodian Armed Forces (and instigator of the subsequent coup d’état) 240 D:\projects\i b tauris\cambodia\vp files\Before the Killing Fields.vp 25 September 2007 19:09:05 Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen Acknowledgements The author is grateful to the Travellers Club, Pall Mall, London and to their publisher for permission to reproduce ‘The Number One Twister’ (p. xxv) and ‘The Crocodile Princess’ (p. 215) from Travellers’ Tales (Castlereagh Press, 1999). On page 128 the cartoon is from a now long- defunct, monthly publication in Phnom Penh, produced by people I must presume long dead, called Réalités Cambodgiennes, dated 29 July 1966. Unfortunately I found the name of the cartoonist indecipherable, and he is unknown to me. God rest their souls. D:\projects\i b tauris\cambodia\vp files\Before the Killing Fields.vp 25 September 2007 19:09:05 Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen Foreword The Rt. Hon The Lord Patten of Barnes This is a wonderfully entertaining read and hugely germane to many of our present preoccupations in International Relations. As geopoli- tics focuses increasingly on Asia, it is instructive to be reminded of how we got to where we are today. Leslie Fielding provides us in addition with useful insights into managing the Transatlantic Rela- tionship, and is engagingly frank about the gap between European aspirations to play a role on the world stage and what happened in the past on the ground. Those of us who worry about humanitarian interventions in dire and dangerous circumstances will also find much here to illuminate our discussions. These days, diplomats’ memoirs (latterly, Meyer and Bremer) are like falling leaves – as numerous as those of ex-politicians. And fully as self-justificatory. The refreshing thing about Leslie Fielding’s book is that it is as much a Mea Culpa as an Apologia. The author takes us back to Indo-China in the 1960s and 1970s – to America’s disastrous engagement in Vietnam, and the ill-starred British efforts to get Cambodia counted out. In the event, Cambo- dian neutrality collapsed; the country went to war on the American side, got smashed up and ended in the grip – for four insane, geno- cidal years – of the monster Pol Pot. The latter was aided and abetted by that other monster, Mao Tse-tung. A quarter of the population were exterminated. Thirty years on, Cambodia has bounced back. Times are still hard. But law and order prevail, and Western tourism, particularly to the magnificent temple complexes, is growing exponentially. Thinking about Cambodia is, however, more than a matter of what jungle paths may still be planted with landmines and which hotel is the best value at Angkor Wat. D:\projects\i b tauris\cambodia\vp files\Before the Killing Fields.vp 25 September 2007 19:09:05 Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen Foreword xi from London. Fielding is, in my judgement, a touch too hard on the US (although aspects of his ‘Ugly Americans’ chapter undeniably ring a bell). The fact is, as he acknowledges, the assassination of President Kennedy and the health problems of Macmillan removed from the scene two remarkable Statesmen, who were prepared to listen to each other, and might have worked out another way forward. The real damage was done when Kennedy’s successor, President Johnson, decided to commit US combat troops in Vietnam. However that may be, the British government, once convinced in 1963 that a Geneva Conference could well be convened to guarantee Cambodian independence, neutrality and territorial integrity, should have pressed ahead, despite US reservations. The irony was that, two years later, the US, looking for a way out of Vietnam, changed its mind on Cambodia and aligned itself with the UK. But the opportunity had passed. Ho Chi Minh had military victory over the Americans well in his sights and his sponsor, Mao Tse-tung, preferred conflict to conciliation.