Norodom Sihanouk

And he weaved an amazing tale for sure.

His mother supposedly been the head housekeeper at the chief estate of Cambodia, Prince Sihanouk.

It was a neutral country at the time.

Communists were pouring down and used Cambodia as base camps, kind of like the Taliban used Pakistan as base camps to attack us in Afghanistan.

Uh, at the time, it was taken over by the French in the 19th century.

And the King of Cambodia at the time of the French withdrawal in 1954 was Norodom Sihanouk, and he then stood down from the monarchy and became, uh, the chief of state instead.

But it was still a kingdom.

His father, briefly, until his death, served as king.

And, uh, Norodom Sihanouk was now a prince, but chief of state of Cambodia in the late '50s and early '60s and through the-- until his overthrow in 1970.

Now, Cambodia was independent in the late '50s and early '60s, and it was a neutral kingdom.

It was, uh, fairly small, about five to six million people by the mid-'60s.

So it was the right play.

Lon Nol was not the right man to be installed after the removal of Sihanouk.

But beggars can't be choosers.

You work with the mentioned material you have, including the leadership element.

Then later, when Pol Pot was sort of insinuated into the role in Western narratives, and everybody had forgotten about, uh, everybody had forgotten about, um, Ing Sari, this diplomat was still holding him out as this boogeyman, replete with this lurid, histrionic narrative of, of him being no different than a serial killer.

It goes to show you what a lazy script there is for these Anglo-American government types.

But moving on, the, the true depth of Pol Pot, Saloth Sar's, uh, secrecy, really the only intelligence record of him at all came from Sihanouk's secret police.

He'd been identified in a dossier along with dozens of other communist intellectuals, identifying him as a former school teacher.

Of course, having those powers does not automatically mean using them successfully, but it means that the tools exist.

For much of the following decade, Cambodia enjoyed relative political stability under Prince Norodom Sihanouk, although the regional conflicts surrounding the Vietnam War increasingly placed pressure on the country.

By 1970, that stability had collapsed.

General Lon Nol came to power following a coup in March and Cambodia descended further into civil war.

According to UN records, 4,267,192 people voted, representing 89.56% of registered voters.

Those elections were a major milestone, although they did not immediately eliminate Cambodia's political divisions or security problems.

A new constitution was promulgated in September and the monarchy was restored under King Norodom Sihanouk.

The formal political transition was moving forward, but the monetary transition had already taken on a life of its own.

Before Sihanouk made the long journey to cross jungles and mountains into Cambodia, kissing a big handful of soil as he was guided down the Ho Chi Minh Trail and handed off to the representatives of the Khmer Rouge, he made it clear how much he was yearning to get back.

More than anyone else, he just wanted to be home.

After a few speeches, numerous photo shoots, and visits to Angkor Wat and Phnom Kulen, items off of the top shelf of national pride, also priceless in terms of propaganda, everything a politician or the nominal head of an insurgency could ask for, well, then Sihanouk was nudged back the way he came by the real leaders of the Khmer Rouge.

Okay, show's over.

See you later.

It's January now, and you have to get back to work, now.

And this was almost literal.

You could imagine placards bearing Sihanouk's name, even his image, being put in the trash, or even that lovely house he and his wife, Monique, had been staying in on Phnom Kulen dismantled and the wood used elsewhere.

He received two responses that were noteworthy.

One was from the Cambodian chief of state, Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia.

The other from Chairman Mao Zedong of China.

We were told that Chairman Mao's statement was the first political statement he had issued in ten years.

The Chinese had an ongoing campaign in support of African Americans and our struggle.

We were able to expand our network of international friends while we were there.

We met Cambodian chief of state, Sihanouk, and other leaders when we attended diplomatic functions.

Rob and I used to laugh about the fact that we had to leave America to be recognized as Americans.

Co-prime minister

... with Sihanouk's son, and he kicked out Sihanouk's son and killed several hundred of Sihanouk's supporters.

So [laughs] the methods, maybe not on the same scale, are not so foreign to him.

Uh, most people think now you, there is a fairly, that he can govern, and, uh, probably the civil war will end.