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Sideshow

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While I've read this book many times over the years, my most recent reading struck me hard. The description of the May 8, 1970 meeting between Henry Kissinger and a number of his friends and personal advisors from Harvard did not seem especially interesting in past years, but jumped off the page this time around. Thomas Schelling told Kissinger that after the invasion of Cambodia the group no longer had faith in Henry or the Nixon administration's ability to conduct foreign policy, and would have nothing further to do with Kissinger. The group pointed out that the invasion could be "used by anyone else in the world as a precedent for invading another country, in order, for example, to clear out terrorists." Another section recounts Arthur Schlesinger Jr. quoting a historian's recollection of the Romans -- "There was no corner of the known world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger or under actual attack. If the interests were not Roman, they were of Rome's allies; and if Rome had no allies, the allies would be invented." Shawcross also notes that in 1964 the US condemned Britain for assaulting a Yemeni town used as a base by insurgents attacking Aden. Another chilling touch is the mention of Lincoln's reaction when he was advised that the President could invade a neighbor if necessary to repel invasion -- Lincoln replied, "Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you give him as much as you propose." Lincoln's famous speech given as a young man in the 1830s in which he remarked that all the armies of Europe could not forcibly take a drink of water from the Ohio River and therefore "... if this great nation is to ever die, it will be from suicide" rings more true than the words of today's politicians proclaiming the right to declare preemptive war.

An excellent summary of the events that overtook Cambodia, "Sideshow" has much more to offer to us today as we try to figure out how we reached this turning point in our history and recall how badly things can go wrong whenever we deviate from the principles upon which our nation was founded.

Shawcross gets into the minds of Kissinger and Nixon so well. His is a book to be read over and over again to see the working of the U.S. Government and how it can destroy a country. He talks about the 25 pound shark at the bottom of a swimming pool full of children -- and we understand how the USA's leaders destroyed a country. It is a lesson to be learned over and over again as we go about destroying other countries. This is one great read - worthy of the time it takes to understand it. A victory for the author over Mr. Kissinger.

This book has managed to live on, which is perhaps unfortunate - historically speaking, it's far more relevant to contemporary geopolitics than it should be.

In any case, SIDESHOW has managed to stand as one of the better books on Cambodia, and America's involvement in Cambodia (Elizabeth Becker's WHEN THE WAR WAS OVER is a must-read as well). One could debate Shawcross' perspectives, but his research is meticulous and has withstood many attacks, and his depiction of the machiavellian darkness that can creep into foreign policy is chilling and ruthless, and - for better of worse - makes for hypnotic reading, all the more frightening as it's drawn straight from history, research, the Freedom of Information act.

Now more than ever, this is essential reading.

-David Alston

In my title sentence, I basically give a summary of Shawcross's contention that Cambodia was destroyed by the United States. I think Shawcross makes good points on why the United States must bear some responsibility in the destruction of this small country. What is lacking is an even review of all the characters in the history (Khymer Rouge, Viet Cong, NVA, ARVN,
and the Thais) of Cambodia. The Vietnamese Communists have as much a stake in why Cambodia turned out as it did. I think Shawcross purposely overlooks this and points the finger at what he percieves as the evil doers of American policy--Kissinger and Nixon.
I think Shawcross does a good job of relating how the USA tried to salvage the intervention in Vietnam at the cost of destroying a small country. I think he proves that point. I also enjoyed his portrayal of all the principal American and Cambodian players in this drama. As I said, a more critical look at the Vietnamese would give this book a more even outlook. After I read this book, I understoon why Presidential Administrations did not involve Kissinger in future policy. Henry comes off as arrogant in the least, evil at the most. For more information on what happened after this time in Cambodia, please read Brother Enemy.

Really bad decisions made by the Nixon administration toward Indochina and the Vietnam War are now fairly obvious. However, we must remember how difficult this type of investigation would have been back when Shawcross did his intensive research back in the late 70s. Here Shawcross builds a very hard-to-dismiss case against Nixon and Henry Kissinger, in terms of how their problematic military and diplomatic strategies at least indirectly led to the hideous destruction of Cambodia (in fact, one of Nixon's documented strategies was to make the Communists think he was a madman, assuming they'd get scared and give up).

During the earlier years of the war, Cambodia was a relatively tranquil nation that was trying to remain neutral. But the country was being used as a hideout by North Vietnamese soldiers, leading to bombing by the Americans. Here Shawcross shows how Nixon and Kissinger made use of political trickery and overhyped threats to keep the bombing going to an extent that was far more destructive than necessary. As a bonus, this book also documents the wire-tapping paranoia and unconstitutional shenanigans in the Nixon White House. Shawcross is especially tough on Kissinger, finding that he disregarded the integrity and safety of Cambodia (which he had only ever visited for four hours), in favor of short-term political advantages and unyielding ideology. The relentless bombing destabilized Cambodian society, leading indirectly to the hideous genocide and societal destruction enacted by the Khmer Rouge a few years later. It is difficult to argue with Shawcross' heavily researched conclusions, and the hellish wholesale collapse of Cambodia (of a type never before seen in modern history) becomes all the more poignant as a result.

Be sure to get an edition of this book from 1986 or after, in which Shawcross adds materials from the political firefight that the book ignited. Kissinger was obviously upset and went to great lengths, through articles written by his lackey Peter Rodman, to try and disprove Shawcross' assertions. If your copy of this book contains these articles, you'll be quite bemused by Rodman's evasive, dissembling, and downright condescending rebuttal attempts, which are easily shot down by Shawcross. This war of words in itself proves that Kissinger had, and always will have, a lot to answer for. [~doomsdayer520~]

This book is about the war in Cambodia that occurred during, and which was largely caused by, America's intervention in Vietnam. Hence the title "Sideshow," although as the book makes clear this was no minor conflict but rapidly turned into a large scale conflagration. This book should be read all those who saw the movie "The Killing Fields" as it fleshes out the US role in the development of that tragedy. Shawcross does this by documenting the actions of the CIA and the US military under the direction of the Nixon administration in setting the stage for that calamity by first overthrowing Prince Sihanouk and then intervening in Cambodia on a massive scale first through land invasion in April 1970 and continuing with a massive bombing campaign which did not cease even after Congress expressly prohibited it, but went on secretly on a wide scale. This policy created a chain reaction of events that propelled the Khmer Rouge from the margins of society to center stage as millions were disclocated from the land and agricultural production collapsed. Nixon's role in these events was the subject of one of the impeachment articles against him that was not passed by the House Judiciary Committee in 1974 although it received over a dozen votes in its favor.

... The world is diminished by the experience." William Shawcross concludes his excellent book with the previous succinct summation of his 400 plus page indictment of the policies and actions of Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon in regards to Cambodia. Of particular interest is the 50 or so pages of additions at the end, regarding Kissinger's reaction to the book - there is no real rebuttal, or listing of factual errors, it is all classic Kissinger dissembling. Sadly, the book remains achingly relevant today: one of the prime reasons stated for the invasion was to "save the lives of American troops," the same rationale President Obama just used in refusing to release photos of prisoner abuse at Gitmo.

In January, 1994 I walked through S-21, the Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh. Aside from the caretakers, I was the only one there. The exhibits are mainly the haunting pictures of the torture victims. The nightmare of the Cambodian auto-genocide, in which a third of the population died within four years, was finally ended by the Vietnamese invasion in 1979. The agonizing question is why, in two countries with similar experiences in fighting a long war under the bombs, did this happen in Cambodia and not Vietnam. Shawcross gives some of the most likely reasons we'll ever have: "That summer's war provides a lasting image of peasant boys and girls, clad in black, moving slowly through the mud, half-crazed with terror, as fighter bombers tore down at them by day, and night after night whole seas of 750-pound bombs smashed all around (p 298). Even more telling, Shawcross latter says: "All wars are designed to arouse anger, and almost all soldiers are taught to hate and to dehumanize their enemy. Veterans of the combat zone are often possessed of a mad rage to destroy, and to avenge their fallen comrades. It does not always happen, however, that victorious armies have endured such punishment as was inflicted upon the Khmer Rouge. Nor does it always happen that such an immature and tiny force comes to power after its country's social order has been obliterated... then giving power to a little group of zealots sustained by Manichean fear." I remember some who thought of Cambodia, pre-war, as an idyllic paradise, with the priorities in the right place. The author wisely quoted a more cautionary note by quoting a French archaeologist, Bernard-Philippe Groslier: "beneath a carefree surface there slumber savage forces and disconcerting cruelties which may blaze up in outbreaks of passionate brutality."

A much younger and more morally astute Christopher Hitchens wrote an excellent book entitled "The Trial of Henry Kissinger." But it is Shawcross who has compiled the most damning evidence. Kissinger cynically used journalists (who were often all too accommodating) while behind their backs was contemptuous of them. Cambodia was just one of the many pawns on his chessboard. Shawcross reminds the reader of Kissinger's rationale behind his belief that he had the right to overthrown the democratically elected government of Chile: "I don't see why a country should be allowed to go Communist through the irresponsibility of its own people." (p 304). One of the disappoint revelations that Shawcross makes is that Theodore White, whose "Making of the President" books I have always admired considered the invasion of Cambodia to be one of the two major achievements of Nixon's rule. (p 171).

In the "Plus ca change..." category, on how history continues to repeat, consider that the author documents how it was John McCain's father, the Admiral who was Commander in Chief of Pacific forces would give energetic lectures about the "threats" to the United States that members of the press dubbed him the "Big Red Arrow Man." (p 136). General Abrams hyped, like Rumsfeld would a generation latter, that the Vietnamese communists had a headquarters that was a "reinforced concrete bunker, 29 feet underground, that housed about 5,000 officials and technicians. And recently Condi Rice defended George Bush with exactly the same rationale that Nixon told David Frost in an interview: "Well, when the President does it; that means that it is not illegal." (p 159). The "divine right" of Kings lives on!

Overall, Shawcross has written the sine qua non of books on the Cambodia tragedy. It is hard to be `judicious and balanced" when confronted with these events, but the author does provide the essential, measured account. A vital read, for then, and now.

I was living in Cambodia when I came across this book, following the recommendation of an English friend. I bought the book, opened it... and could no longer put it down! This book came as a complete eye-opener to me, on both how America had conducted its war across Indochina and on Cambodia's history which, for the better and the worse, has been so intimately intermixed with Sihanouk's.

If you are into learning the backside of "official history", then this book's for you. You will no longer look at Kissinger, Nixon or Westmoreland with the same candid, awe-filled, obedient eyes after reading it. Packed with previously unheard-of accounts, reports, testimonies, following a clean, highly intelligent argumentation methodology, Sideshow acts as a real bulldozer on the reader, repeatedly releasing and depicting loads of devastating illustrations of unsound decisions, hidden political actions, secret wars of influences etc. with the consequences that we all know now. It is certainly one of the punchiest, journalism-based historical accounts I have ever read, whatever the subject.

It shed a completely new and dramatic light onto the country I was a guest of then, and forever changed the way I looked at politics, diplomacy and intelligence.

This is a book which describes the destruction of Cambodia. During the Vietnam war the Americans thought that a large portion of the supplies and infantry of the regular units of the North Vietnamese Army were moving into South Vietnam by the use of the Ho Chi Min trail. The trail was a series of roads which rang parallel to South Vietnam though neutral Laos and Cambodia. In reality it seemed that until the events of this book most supplies for the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army were actually shipped by the Soviet Union through Cambodia.

Both Loas and Cambodia were neutral in the conflict and the United States faced a problem in getting them to stop the movement of troops and supplies through their territory.

The United States used the CIA to fund a private army in Laos to fight against the Pathet Lao the indigenous communist movement. In Cambodia a coup was organised to remove the government of Shinouk and to replace it with Lon Nol. Once that was done Lon Nol gave permission for the United States to bomb Cambodian territory and later for the South Vietnamese Army to mount armed raids into Cambodia.

The air raids were immensely heavy and dropped bomb loads which were similar to the entire tonnage of bombs dropped on Germany in the Second World War. The combination of the bombing and the coup led to the collapse of Cambodia's social fabric. Large numbers of peasants moved off the land to escape the bombing and swelled the capital. The American actions strengthened the hand of the local communists the Kyhmer Rouge and they started to win the civil war. This in turn led to more refugees. Towards the end the Lon Nol government was reduced to total dependence on imported food supplies flown in by the United States. I the end the Kyhmer Rouge were victorious and turned out to be one of the most murderous regimes of the century. (Some claim that on a per capita basis they were the most vicious in the 20th Century a good century for murderous regimes)

This book is an expose of what is a serious blot on the foreign policy record of the United States. It was a significant book at the time as a range of the actions carried out against Cambodia were illegal. However unlike some of the other tragedies of the last century the tragedy of Cambodia seems to be fading into the background.

On Junior Day, 2006, I would recommend SIDESHOW by William Shawcross. It contains information about the twentieth century that could be applied to situations that America faces in the world in 2006. The global superpower naturally thinks that everything will be resolved by the application of hyperpower, as Japan suffered a humiliating defeat at the end of World War II when it discovered that the United States was not just fighting a war against Japan, it would nuke their cities to bring about whatever result it wanted. When American troops openly invaded parts of Cambodia, Congress responded by imposing limits which were still in place on April 30, 1973:

"The justification for bombing Cambodia had been to protect Americans in Vietnam. Since October 1970 the Congress had included in every military appropriation bill a proviso expressly forbidding bombing in Cambodia except for that purpose. By the end of March 1973 there were no American troops left in Indochina. Still the bombing of Cambodia increased. The administration now based its case on Article 20 of the Paris Agreement. Rogers now claimed that American withdrawal from Vietnam did not affect the situation in Cambodia, and that Article 20 legalized the bombing `until such time as a ceasefire could be brought into effect.' " (p. 277).

One of the strange things about the invasion of Cambodia was that Nixon made an announcement on April 30, 1970 which attempted to keep all previous secret activities secret:

Ignoring Menu, Nixon began with the lie that the United States had "scrupulously respected" Cambodia's neutrality for the last five years and had not "moved against" the sanctuaries. This falsehood was repeated by Kissinger in his background briefings to the press. That same evening he told reporters that the Communists had been using Cambodia for five years but, "As long as Sihanouk was in power in Cambodia we had to weigh the benefits in long-range historical terms of Cambodian neutrality as against any temporary military advantages and we made no efforts during the first fifteen months of this administration to move against the sanctuary." The next day he said of Sihanouk's rule, "We had no incentive to change it. We made no effort to change it. We were surprised by the development. One reason why we showed such great restraint against the base areas was in order not to change this situation." (p. 146).

In his announcement of the invasion, Nixon stated that his action was taken "not for the purpose of expanding the war into Cambodia, but for the purpose of ending the war in Vietnam"; he would give aid to Cambodia, but only to enable it "to defend its neutrality and not for the purpose of making it an active belligerent on one side or the other." (p. 146).

Currently Iran has a militia of five million, and if Iran were to officially enter a war in Iraq as a result of bombings by Israel, as urged by Vice President Cheney, to remove Iran's nuclear capabilities, even if a bomb based on plans provided by the CIA wouldn't work, Iran has other ways it could strike back. Being subatomic is very much like Cambodia was in 1970, but we shall soon see what issues are about to be submitted to the UN security council, and if it helps or hurts. A blockade created by Iran so American supplies might have more trouble reaching Kuwait and Iraq; oil exports from the region could end; American dollars could fall; the interest on bonds could rise so high that the U.S. government couldn't balance a budget; and some of the world's banks might then be alarmed.

SIDESHOW by William Shawcross is the only book I have in which I can look up Lon Nil in the index. Lon Nil might well be Cambodia's forgotten man. His brother, Lon Nol, declared himself Chief of State as well as Prime Minister and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces when he dissolved the Assembly in October 1971 and assumed emergency rule. (p. 229). In December 1971, an American psychiatrist in the U.S. Army found "his close associates indicate his mental faculties have deteriorated markedly as a result of his February 1971 stroke" (p. 208). On April 1, 1975, at the urging of his brother Lon Non, Lon Nol took half a million dollars and moved to Hawaii. (pp. 357-358). But for me, the best picture of events in Cambodia is the final page of Chapter 8, The Coup, in March 1970, when Lon Nol overthrew Sihanouk, using the hostility of the urban elite and military officers to Sihanouk to justify a power grab by a former Minister of Defense who "had been the principal scourge of the Vietnamese Communists while privately profiting from the thriving covert business that they brought through Sihanoukville." (p. 113). Sihanouk responded by forming a government recognized by Peking on May 5, 1970, shortly after the American invasion announced by Nixon. Sihanouk had flown from Moscow to China on March 18, 1970, but Lon Nil was still in Cambodia:

Rioting broke out in several provinces; opposition was strongest in the market town of Kompong Cham, Cambodia's second city, fifty miles northeast of Phnom Penh. After Sihanouk's radio broadcast, the town filled with peasants, fishermen and rice farmers from the neighborhood. The townspeople refused the government's orders to remove the Prince's portrait, and they burned down the house of the new governor whom Lon Nol had appointed. Demonstrators gathered in buses and trucks to march on Phnom Penh. They were halted by an army roadblock, and after that . . . About ninety people were killed or wounded. (pp. 126-127).

The most vivid display of anger against Lon Nol occurred, again in Kompong Cham, when peasants seized his brother Lon Nil, killed him and tore his liver from his stomach. The trophy was taken into a Chinese restaurant, where the owner was ordered to cook and slice it. Morsels were handed to everyone in the streets around. (p. 127).