Blue Skies in Camelot: An Alternate 60's and Beyond
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Chapter 38
Chapter 38: All Along the Watchtower - The Prelude to the Cambodian Civil War
Above: Pol Pot, leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Kampuchea; and Prince Norodom Sihanouk, former sovereign of Cambodia and current head of state. By the spring of l968, the situation in the country was deteriorating rapidly.
Scholars often attempt to define historical periods in the same way they do words, or scientific principles. Conflicts, like any other story, must have a clearly declared beginning, end, and duration in order to be logged, analyzed, and discussed. They should have clear causes, effects, elements, and so on. If a war cannot fit within these parameters, then it is an enigma, and should thus be simplified. Unfortunately for students of history, the conflict that would ultimately become the Cambodian Civil War was not what anyone could consider a “neat war”. A practical conflict over control of a country’s future as much as it was about ideology, the war could arguably trace its roots to the nationwide elections of 1966, which created a social environment ripe for communist insurgency throughout the rural countryside.
Through manipulation and intimidation, the conservative ruling party managed to win 75% of the seats in the National Assembly, and chose Lon Nol, a noted authoritarian as its Prime Minister. This, when coupled with clashes of interest between the ruling elites in Phnom Penh put Prince Sihanouk in something of a political pickle. To maintain the balance against the rising power of the conservatives, he named leaders of the various left leaning groups he had been previously oppressing as members of a “counter-government” that was meant to monitor and criticize Lon Nol’s government. Nol seemed to the Prince a threat to his own power, a perception that would ultimately come to haunt Sihanouk when the situation soured.
One of the chief priorities of Nol’s government was to repair the ailing Cambodian economy by ending the illegal practice of selling rice and other produce to communist insurgents throughout the countryside. Believing that local police, where they existed, were failing spectacularly to enforce this edict, Lon Nol dispatched soldiers to major rice-growing areas and ordered the harvests thereof to be forcibly collected at gunpoint, if necessary. In return for their cooperation, the peasants would be paid a low, flat rate, the same the government paid other sources of the rice. This sum was only a minor fraction of what the communists had been offering to increase their stockpiles. This practice resulted in widespread unrest, particularly in the rice-rich region of Battambang Province. Battambang had earned a deserved reputation for the presence of large, often abusive landowners, great disparity in wealth and income, and where the communists had begun to spread their ideology through speakers and pamphlet distribution.
On March 11th, 1967, with Prince Sihanouk out of the country in France, the town of Samlaut, in Battambang erupted into open rebellion, as enraged peasants and communist instigators attacked a tax collection brigade, tasked with bringing in that day’s crop. Though the first attack had largely been unsuccessful in disrupting tax collection, it would inspire similar raids over the next several days. Images of peasants being shot dead by soldiers for defending the fruit of their own labor did little to help de escalate the situation. Within a week, insurrection had spread all throughout Battambang Province, likely encouraged by local chapters of the Communist party. Lon Nol, acting in the Prince’s absence, but with his express approval, responded by declaring martial law over the Province. In the violent repression which ensued, hundreds of peasants would be brutally murdered by the Nol government. Entire villages were laid waste to and burnt if some within them were suspected of communist sympathies. Following the Prince’s return to the country in March, he adopted the more right-wing sensibilities of his Prime Minister, and called for the arrests of Hou Youn, Hu Nim, and Khieu Samphan; the leaders of the “counter government” the Prince himself had set up before his departure. Luckily for these men, they were tipped off about the potential for their imprisonment, and managed to escape to the jungles in the northeast of the country. In the aftermath of this “first battle” of what would become the Cambodian Civil War, Lon Nol was ordered to step down as Prime Minister, new leftists were added by the Prince to balance the conservatives, and the immediate crisis seemed to have been averted. Unfortunately for the Prince however, the Battambang Uprising had two enduring after effects: his name would be forever synonymous with brutal oppression by the peasantry; and second, millions were driven into the hardline division of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, called the “Khmer Rouge”. The Rogues leader, the Maoist Pol Pot, could not have been happier with the preceding course of events. Between the new recruits and promises of support from the People’s Republic of China and Fidel Castro in Cuba as well, he could tell that 1968 was going to be a big year for his movement.
The Battambang Uprising, while a tremendous boon to the Communists’ cause, had been totally unplanned. Though the peasants had made a great show of force and unity in the face of “bourgeois tyranny”, it was quickly stamped out when the military was sent in. Throughout the rest of 1967, the Khmer Rouge tried, and ultimately failed, to organize a more serious revolt against the government. Most of the party’s support in the south of the country, amongst urban laborers and the like, had been stamped out by crackdowns orchestrated by the Prince. This left the majority of the communists’ support in the rural land, highlands, and untamed jungles of the northern part of the country. Encountering the local Khmer Loeu, indigenous peoples who did not support either the lowland Khmer or the Prince’s government, Pol Pot and his guerillas took this time to rest, regroup, and better equip themselves for the “big year” their leader felt was sure to come. The training of new units was slow going, but with continued shipments of aid, weapons, food, and other critical supplies, as well as better drill instructors from Havana, Hanoi, and Beijing, the communists slowly hardened their ragtag bands into a formidable fighting force. Pol Pot rested his hopes for a Marxist uprising on establishing a significant power base in the north of Cambodia, then slowly but surely marching south, adding new soldiers and support for his cause as he went “liberating” villages one at a time. Eventually, the proletariat masses slaving away under the yolk of the corrupt prince in Phnom Penh and elsewhere would awaken to their suffering, rise up, and demand that their chains be broken, and join with he and his soldiers in their glorious cause. It wasn’t a bad plan, but it did have its flaws.
For starters, the government under Lon Nol had just completed a deal with the United States and their Secretary of State, Robert McNamara. Relations between the Prince’s government and the US had been normalized, robbing Beijing and Havana of a potential ally. In exchange, McNamara promised to ensure that aid shipments, both of cash, and military hardware would be increased in the weeks and months to come. Though Pol Pot was correct in believing that the American President, Kennedy would be reluctant to get involved in a land war, he also knew that he would now be forced to exercise caution in how he planned attacks on government forces in the south. Should Kennedy’s hand be forced, the communists of the Khmer Rouge could expect a lethal dose of explosive in their diet, courtesy of the prodigious American air force.
This reality led the communists to plan smarter, and smaller than they initially had considered. They would target the easy pickings first: isolated outposts, supply lines to bigger bases and forts, all the while spreading their message through recruiters and propaganda. The overwhelming bulk of the revolutionary army would be kept in the northern jungle canopies, protected from CIA spy planes and, should they come, the dreaded B-52s. Beneath the jungle floor, the guerrillas learned well from their Vietcong instructors the art of digging defensive tunnels. From the safety of his wooded fortress, Pol Pot conducted an efficient, often brutal campaign of sabotage, subterfuge, and sedition throughout the country. The time for seizing territory would come, secondary objectives could and should be achieved first. To this end, the first major offensive of the Cambodian Civil War began on January 17th, 1968, as the communists began to push out of the jungle to the east. Distraught by the presence of Cuban ordinance and Chinese military instructors, Prince Sihanouk wrote desperately to his recently minted allies in Washington, begging for help.
Secretary of Defense Robert Kennedy, following his brother’s instructions to the letter, went to the State Department and Secretary Robert McNamara to produce America’s response. Knowing that the President would accept nothing less than an exhaustive attempt to settle the disputes in Cambodia via diplomacy before any military action would be considered, McNamara and Bobby Kennedy agreed that a comprehensive examination of the situation was necessary. Like most of the proxy fields of the cold war, Cambodia was a bit of a mess for the United States. The Prince’s government was an unreliable friend at best. Were it not for Cambodia’s strategic position relative to ally South Vietnam, the Americans would probably have been justified in leaving the Prince’s chickens to roost altogether. What the President wanted in Cambodia was an end to Pol Pot’s communist movement. The last thing the fickle, paranoid Prince needed was a revolutionary movement cooking in the north of his country and making him anxious. Ruling out the airstrikes that Bobby had requested and been denied by the President, McNamara saw only one other way to achieve his boss’ objective: starve them out.
This would be far easier said than done of course, and would require the People’s Republic, Cuba, and North Vietnam to cease their shipments of aid to the rebels. The President had been right that “peace had been given a chance and worked” in Vietnam, but this was largely due to the nature of the situation on the ground at the time. McNamara knew that while the Soviets were currently willing to play ball with the United States and stop their backing of Hanoi if it meant closer relations with the west, he harbored no such illusions about Mao, Giap, or that slimy bastard Castro. Ever since the Sino-Soviet split, the Chinese had been positioning themselves as the new leaders of world revolution. Mao’s insistence on ideological purity, not to mention doing whatever it took to save face in the wake of American influence in East Asia, did not mix well with President Kennedy’s own desire for peace in Cambodia. The icing on the cake: the United States and the rest of the west still refused to recognize the People’s Republic as the “true China”, with the Republican government in Taiwan still occupying China’s seat on the UN’s Permanent Security Council. Given the myriad factors working against any deal between the dragon and the eagle, Secretary McNamara was understandably shocked when the order came down from the White House nonetheless: go to Beijing, meet with Mao, and demand that the People’s Republic back off in Cambodia. “Castro will follow Mao’s lead.” The President told McNamara confidently in his phone call with him. “If we can convince the Chinese to join with the Soviets in refusing to back these guerillas, there’s a chance we won’t have to send in the bombers.”
“With all due respect Mr. President,” The Secretary of State adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. “Isn’t this a reversal of policy for us? We’re still officially refusing to recognize Beijing as the rightful government of China and yet we’re going to set up negotiations with them? Will they even admit me to see the Chairman after almost twenty years of near complete radio silence?”
The President chuckled. “Sure they will, Bob. More than anything, they want us to recognize them and give them that seat on the Security Council. The Soviets were their best ticket to power and leverage on the international stage for a long time, and now that ticket isn’t any good. Mao knows that if he gets on our good side, and we stop supporting Taiwan, then Europe, and the rest of the free world will normalize relations shortly thereafter.”
McNamara did everything he could not to gasp. “Sir, surely you’re not suggesting that we open relations with the People’s Republic of China?” The People’s Republic had made the situation in East Asia endlessly more complicated in 1964 with the successful development of their own arsenal of nuclear weapons. The wrong series of moves in the region by any major power could easily escalate into apocalyptic conflict, and though he was now serving as America’s top diplomat, McNamara’s instincts from his time at the Pentagon left him feeling wary of any potential deal with the Chinese. What was more, the headlines reaching the west about the ongoing “Cultural Revolution” horrified everyday Americans and diplomats alike.
President Kennedy sighed on the other end. “Honestly Bob, I am. Our current policy regarding China is nonsensical, now isn’t it?” In the Oval Office, JFK rubbed his right temple “We can go on gallivanting about, supporting Taiwan as much as we like, but what good is it really doing us over there? The communists are still in power in Beijing and have dominion over the mainland. Us ‘refusing to recognize’ their control is about as useful as ‘refusing to recognize' gravity. Not talking to them doesn’t mean that we can pretend they don’t exist, or change the fact that they are, in their imposed isolation, building atom bombs and training Cambodian peasants to kill each other. All I’m saying is that if we bring them to the table, like we did with the Soviets, there can at least be a conversation. Perhaps we can show them a better way, perhaps not. But isn’t it our duty to try? In any case, silence makes for a poor peacemaker. Is that clear?”
McNamara took it all in before responding. “Yes. Thank you, Mr. President.” Within a week, the Secretary of State and a group of the nation’s most gifted diplomats would make an historic flight, landing in Beijing on April 17th, 1968, coincidentally the third birthday of the President’s youngest daughter, Rosemary. The first State Department officials to visit the People’s Republic, these brave Americans carried with them their President’s hopes for a more peaceful, united world; not to mention fears of being attacked by a mob of red guards amidst the ongoing revolution in the streets. Thankfully, they made it to the Forbidden City, McNamara shook hands with Chairman Mao for the cameras and for the next several months, they would go about the monumental task which lay before them: attempting to prevent an all out war in Cambodia.
Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: The Race for the White House Continues
Great update as usual. I fear all will not be well in Indochina ...
Also, what's Colin Powell doing at the moment?
Also, what's Colin Powell doing at the moment?
Absolutely! Opening relations with the PRC from "President Peacenik"? The attack ads write themselves
Thank you as always, Your Majesty! Glad you enjoyed it.
Powell served, as IOTL, as a Captain in Vietnam from 1962 - 1963. ITTL, he also served a second tour just before U.S. withdrawal in 1967, during which he earned decorations for valor and service. He's still in the military and rapidly rising through the ranks.
There's an old Vulcan proverb...'Only Kennedy could go to China.'
Great update by the way.
Great update by the way.
There's an old Vulcan proverb...'Only Kennedy could go to China.'
Great update by the way.
Thank you Nerdman!
Really glad you liked it.That is, in my opinion, the beauty of alternate history.
And it only took a quadrillion butterfly flaps at just the right second to pull off!!
Have I mentioned that this is by far one of my favorite TL's running right now? Awesome job, and keep after it!!
Yeah, the Republicans are going to have fun with JFK and the PRC...
Things aren't going to end well in Cambodia. For anyone.
"All Along the Watchtower" was a song originally recorded by Bob Dylan and then recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The song was released by the Jimi Hendrix Experience in September of 1968 in the US and October in the UK. Bob Dylan's version was released in November of 1968, so congrats for continuing the pattern. Hope Jimi Hendrix lives (or maybe he still dies ITTL of different causes)...
Good update...
Things aren't going to end well in Cambodia. For anyone.
"All Along the Watchtower" was a song originally recorded by Bob Dylan and then recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The song was released by the Jimi Hendrix Experience in September of 1968 in the US and October in the UK. Bob Dylan's version was released in November of 1968, so congrats for continuing the pattern. Hope Jimi Hendrix lives (or maybe he still dies ITTL of different causes)...
Good update...
Great update!!! I fear the Year Zero will come regardless of McNamara’s talks with Mao.
And it only took a quadrillion butterfly flaps at just the right second to pull off!!
Have I mentioned that this is by far one of my favorite TL's running right now? Awesome job, and keep after it!!
Thank you so much @phillymoman1975!
That really means a lot and I'm honored that you feel that way. Hope I can keep it up for ya!Thanks Unknown!
Thank you Alpha-King!
McNamara and Mao definitely have their work cut out for them if they're going to prevent this war. Keep in mind that Mao's people aren't going to be particularly happy either with his change in position. Right in the middle of the Cultural Revolution he decides to admit a bunch of capitalists to talk peace? Expect push back, and soon...
Fantastic update! Interesting to see the pot continue to boil. With a smarter enemy, I expect the Prince to be faced with tougher enemies.
And another of Nixon’s achievements taken by JFK! It’ll be especially interesting to see reaction on both sides of the two nations. I expect the Republicans will be vicious in their attacks, especially by Goldwater and Nixon. As for China, with such hypocrisy, I don’t think the Revolution will enjoy seeing this. Perhaps the fanatical students might attack the Chairman in a fit of irony?
And another of Nixon’s achievements taken by JFK! It’ll be especially interesting to see reaction on both sides of the two nations. I expect the Republicans will be vicious in their attacks, especially by Goldwater and Nixon. As for China, with such hypocrisy, I don’t think the Revolution will enjoy seeing this. Perhaps the fanatical students might attack the Chairman in a fit of irony?
Thank you ImperialTheorist!
I'm thrilled to hear you liked the update. Cambodia will slowly circle the drain until things can be settled. If McNamara and Kennedy can get Mao to back off, who knows? And you're definitely right about things in the PRC. Even if Mao is willing to play ball, how will the party feel?
AeroTheZealousOne
Monthly Donor
The operative term is "ping pong". But I'm just messing with you.
Great update, as always!
I see Goldwater winning the nomination in ‘68. Especially with Reagan’s support in California.
Well bye bye Chairman Mao, it hasn’t been a pleasure.
Seriously though, I foresee these negotiations with McNamara and the U.S. going badly for Mao’s reputation.
Seriously though, I foresee these negotiations with McNamara and the U.S. going badly for Mao’s reputation.
Windows95
Banned
I guess it will embolden Deng Xiaoping and his moderates to win and defeat the conservative faction...Thank you ImperialTheorist!
And you're definitely right about things in the PRC. Even if Mao is willing to play ball, how will the party feel?