CAMBODIA: The Neutral Harvest

Of all Southeast Asia’s neutralists, none has made the art pay better than Cambodia’s unpredictable chief of state, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, 37. Since 1955 Sihanouk has extracted $290 million in aid from the U.S., $22 million from France, $23 million from Red China, and perhaps $12 million from Russia. To keep himself from being compromised, Sihanouk, after each Western gift, generally scampers off to Peking or Moscow for an offsetting Red handout. Last week, in a dazzling display of diplomatic virtuosity, Sihanouk unveiled a second rule of aidmanship: always bite the hand that feeds you.

Down from Moscow. To U.S. diplomats, the snap of Sihanouk’s teeth is a familiar sound. Outraged because the U.S. refuses to share his conviction that Cam bodia is in constant danger of invasion from neighboring Thailand and South Viet Nam, Sihanouk complains that many of the weapons the U.S. has furnished his 28,000-man Cambodian army are “more dangerous for the user than for the enemy.” On one occasion last year, he publicly accused Allen Dulles’ CIA of conspiring to unseat his regime.

All this must have looked heaven-sent to Moscow. Outside the Cambodian capital of Pnompenh a team of Russian engineers, working with 1,500 coolies, two and a half years ago began to build a soo-bed “Soviet-Khmer Friendship Hospital.” matching anything in Moscow itself. Staffed by 18 Russian doctors and medical technicians—Cambodia itself has only a handful of native M.D.s —the new hospital was equipped with ten air-conditioned operating rooms, a cobalt “bomb” for cancer treatment, a hairdressing salon, room telephones, and pale blue potties in the children’s wards.

On to Paris. Last week, with the hospital finally finished, a clutch of Russian dignitaries headed by Soviet Health Minister S. V. Kurashov showed up in Pnompenh for the dedication ceremonies. Plainly aware that only a week earlier Sihanouk had jailed 16 top Cambodian Communists for “working in liaison with foreigners,” Minister Kurashov tried to play it cool. As a Cambodian army band emphasized its neutrality by alternating U.S. jazz with Russian lullabies, Kurashov brought Nikita Khrushchev’s personal assurances that “the Soviet Union never interferes in the internal affairs of other nations. We are your true and trusted friend in your fight against imperialistic intrigues.”

When Kurashov had finished, Sihanouk rose with a bland smile to thank the Rus sians for their generous gift. Then, still smiling, he added pointedly: “Cambodia is prepared to accept aid from any nation. But this does not give the donor the right to meddle in our affairs.” Then, ignoring all the fine new hospital facilities before him, Prince Sihanouk set off for Paris—for medical treatment.