Cambodia: The Micro-Presence

No subcommittee of the Senate has launched an investigation yet, but what about the U.S. presence in Cambodia? There is one, and it is growing. Since last summer, when Washington and Pnompenh resumed diplomatic relations after a four-year hiatus, the official American community has increased to nine, including two wives, and is soon to be augmented by four additional staffers.

Washington’s top man in Cambodia is Career Diplomat Lloyd Rives, 47, whose last station was Burundi. A mere charge d’affaires in a country where even the Viet Cong have a full-fledged “ambassador,” Rives lives in a three-story rented house near the brown Bassac River, within sight of grazing elephants. His bed, one of the few pieces of furniture in the place, was donated by the landlady. Bachelor Rives and his diplomatic staff of two (a secretary and a communications expert) work in a makeshift office in the servants’ quarters, using packing cases as a conference table. It is not unusual for Rives to answer telephone calls himself. The rest of the American diplomatic presence consists of two military men, both colonels and each with two servants, who rush about in rented cars.

Politesse and Patience. An old Indo-China hand who once served in Vientiane and Hanoi during the French days, Rives concedes that “we’re moving very slowly here.” With good reason. Prince Sihanouk broke relations with Washington in 1965, partly because he considered the U.S. presence too big for comfort. It had grown to more than 200 people and an aid budget of $30 million a year. Nowadays, Sihanouk’s chief fear is that a Communist victory in Viet Nam might encourage the 40,000 uninvited North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops who now use Cambodia as a sanctuary to stay on indefinitely. To counterbalance that threat, Sihanouk began warming to Washington a year ago.

Rives’ posture has been cool and correct. Says one of Sihanouk’s French advisers: “America has finally learned to deal with Cambodia with politesse and patience.” Not that there is all that much to do. The entire nonofficial U.S. community in Cambodia consists of three women who are married to Cambodian husbands and Joe Foggy, a Negro fighter who has been coaching Cambodian boxers for several years. One of Rives’ chief tasks has been negotiating a Cambodian claim for $12 million in damages to rubber trees caused by U.S. planes bombing too close to the Cambodian-Vietnamese border.

Rives’ toughest negotiations have not been with Sihanouk, however, but with the State Department. Foggy Bottom had completed its 1969 budget before the decision was made to resume relations with Cambodia. As a result, said an aide, “we’re having a tough time breaking loose the money. We’re on rock bottom.” Well, not exactly. Answering the mission’s call for supplies with characteristic bureaucratic efficiency, State recently dispatched a C-130 with a batch of supplies that included 30 mattresses but no bedsteads.