S3 Ep9: 1973 Part One: The Return of the King

In early 1973, Norodom Sihanouk travelled down the Ho Chi Minh trail and back onto Cambodian soil for the first time since the coup. China Pictorial published a special issue of photographs to prove it. In the background of several of them stand men the prince had been told not to name.

Time Period Covered: January to August 1973

How much did Sihanouk know about the Khmer Rouge he was selling to the world? Why did the Paris Peace Accords bring peace to Vietnam but not Cambodia? What happened when the prince returned to Cambodian soil for the first time since the coup?

In this episode, Lachlan begins a three-part exploration of one of the most important and brutal years of the Cambodian Civil War -- through the eyes of its top billing star, Prince Norodom Sihanouk. Deposed, exiled, and installed in Beijing, the prince has become the face of a resistance movement that privately despises him -- and 1973 sees him wheeled out like never before.

Three primary sources track the prince across these six months. His propaganda memoir, My War with the CIA, written with the infamous Wilfred Burchett, sells a rosy vision of the National Front's future Cambodia to a western audience -- one with no mention of the communists actually running the show. A special issue of China Pictorial documents his secret journey down the Ho Chi Minh trail and back into the liberated zones -- where the real power stands quietly in the background of the photographs. And a remarkable interview with the legendary Oriana Fallaci, in which the script falls away, and the prince says things you would not expect a man in his position to ever admit.

Meanwhile, the ceasefire that was supposed to follow the Paris Peace Accords is dead on arrival in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge refuse to stop a war they are winning, and the American bombing builds toward its final crescendo.

Sources:

Norodom Sihanouk & Wilfred Burchett -My War with the CIA

China Pictorial 1973 -Samdech Sihanouk's Inspection Tour of the Cambodian Liberated Zone

Oriana Fallaci -Interview with Sihanouk, New York Times 1973

Norodom Sihanouk -Prisoner of the Khmer Rouge

Philip Short -Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare

Milton Osbourne - Sihanouk

David Chandler -Tragedy of Cambodian History

Ben Kiernan -How Pol Pot Came to Power

New York Times Book Review -James C. Thomson Jr., "Prince of Peace" 1973