At the time of writing this, Henry Kissinger, the former United States Secretary of State has just died at the age of 100. Kissinger served as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under two presidents, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
Kissinger will be remembered for many things and most will have a negative opinion of him when talking about his past deeds. But this is not an article about Kissinger and all his past deeds. Today we are going to talk about Richard Nixon’s decision to invade Cambodia, what role Kissinger played and what the lasting effects the invasion had.
In 1969 the Vietnam War had raged on for 14 years. Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford all had to deal with Vietnam in some way and by March 1969 Nixon had ordered the start of his Cambodian Invasion, titled “Operation Menu”.
Although a neutral country in the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese troops would move supplies and weapons through the northern part of the country. There were also what Nixon described as “sanctuaries” for North Vietnamese and Vietcong troops where they would cross the boarder into Vietnam to attack and kill American and South Vietnamese soldiers and then cross back into Cambodia where America and their allies could not pursue. Nixon has also been informed that North Vietnamese troops had been gathering soldiers in Cambodia for a counter offensive and had the US not gone into Cambodia, then the losses to the US and their allies would have been far greater.
The Invasion of Cambodia is also seen as illegal since Nixon did not get the approval of Congress. But Nixon does not see the invasion as an invasion at all. When questioned about whether he had any regrets about going into Cambodia, he said his only regret was that he did not do it sooner and compared it to D-Day, saying that when the allies had landed in Normandy, that was not an invasion of France, but an operation carried out in France to remove the unwanted forces occupying the country. He even stated that King of Cambodia, Norodom Sihanouk had told him that he wanted the US to do something about the North Vietnamese in Eastern Cambodia and said that no Cambodians were in the area.
No ground troops were deployed in this part of the invasion and Henry Kissinger opposed the decision, saying that he thought Nixon was acting to rash. Nonetheless at a meeting at the White House in March 1969, Nixon told Kissinger that the invasion would be happening.
Kissinger as the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor directed the carpet bombing of Cambodia. The problem with carpet bombing is that it has no target and so when that happens, innocent civilians get caught in the crossfire. Nixon had said that no civilians were in Eastern Cambodia but that was a lie. Whether he was lied to or he just lied to the public, it does not matter. Nixon and Kissinger were both seen as war criminals for their part in the Invasion of Cambodia. Anthony Bourdain said that once you had been to Cambodia you would never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands.
A year later in 1970, Nixon ordered ground troops to go into Cambodia and to this day, the american public think Nixon and Kissinger should have answered for their crimes.
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