spartans_in_darkness

Tep SE6RETN6eMINTNX1
of which was kept from most of Congress and the
American people. Later, in that same year, the
U.S.stepped up the bombing campaign in Laos in
the region of the Plain of Jars, supporting the
Royal Laotian Army's attempt to cut the Ho Chi
Minh Trail. By February 1970, PAVN regular
units reinforced the local Pathet Lao forces and
drove the RLt\ units and their Hmong allies completely
out of the area.
(U) What the American commanders really
wanted was an invasion of eastern Cambodia.
There, near the border region the communists
kept their supply dumps, training centers, and
headquarters for the Vietnamese communist
forces in the south, known as the Central Office
South Vietnam (Truang Wong Cuc Mien Nam)
of COsv'N. The sites were spread in the various
border points with such colorful names as the
Parrot's Beak, the Fishhook, the Angel's Way, and
Dog's Head. However, when this plan was
brought up in a meeting in Saigon in February
1970, the secretary of defense, Melvin Laird, had
refused Abrams' plea for permission to invade
Cambodia.
(U) In the next few months, though, events
took control of the players. Increasing political
pressure was put on Cambodia's leader Prince
Norodom Sihanouk. Sihanouk had long stayed
neutral in the war. But his neutrality was based
on an acquiescence to the simple fact that he
could hardly prevent military action within
Cambodian territory by the belligerents in
Vietnam. So he tolerated the presence of
Vietnamese communist troops and their enclaves
in the eastern border region. At the same time, he
turned a blind eye to the bombing, and muted his
complaints to a whisper.
(TS//SI) However, Sihanouk was riding too
many tigers to ever hope to dismount without a
bloodletting. On 18 March, while away from the
country on an extended vacation, purchasing
clothes and undergoing treatment for his obesity,
he was ousted from the government by General
Lon Nol, who was both defense minister and premier
of Cambodia. For weeks, Lon Nol had been
preparing his move by organizing anticommunist
and anti-Vietnamese demonstrations. The next
day, Lon Nol declared a national emergency and
suspended several articles of the Cambodian constitution.
SIGINT reported that Nol's security
forces clamped down on all activity, while all the
facilities of the DRV and the Provisional
Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam
(PRGSVN) were closed down." He doubled the
size of the Cambodian army and appealed to
Nixon for arms, which
the latter willingly supplied.
(V) Prince Norodorn Sihanouk. center, meeting with Chinese leaders
in Beqing in 1965
(U) For the American
leaders in Washington
and Saigon, the practical
effect of Lon Nol's coup
was to ease the way for
cross-border military operations.
Ten days after
Sihanouk was removed
from power, a few battalions
of ARVN troops
had crossed over into
Cambodia during a military
operation. Washing-
Tap SESRET,','seMINTNX1 Page 359