9] Kissinger always pretends that the Khmer Rouge were a tool of Hanoi, and in his
Memoirs he spins out an absurd theory that the weakening of Zhou and the ascendancy of
the Gang of Four was caused by Kissinger's own inability to keep bombing Cambodia. In
reality, Beijing was backing its own allies, the Khmer Rouge, as is obvious from the
account that Kissinger himself provides of his meeting with Bush's friend Qiao in
October, 1973. [fn 10]
Starting in the second half of 1974, George Bush was heavily engaged on this Sino-
Cambodian front, particularly in his contacts with his main negotiating partner, Qiao.
Bush had the advantage that secret diplomacy carried on with the Red Chinese regime
during those days was subject to very little public scrutiny. The summaries of Bush's
dealings with the Red Chinese now await the liberation of the files of the Foreign
Ministry in Beijing or of the State Department in Washington, whichever comes first.
Bush's involvement on the Cambodian question has been established by later interviews
with Prince Sihanouk's chef de cabinet, Pung Peng Cheng, as well as with French and US
officials knowledgeable about Bush's activities in Beijing during that time. What we have
here is admittedly the tip of the iceberg, the merest hints of the monstrous iniquity yet to
be unearthed. [fn 11]
The Khmer Rouge launched a dry-season offensive against Phnom Penh in early 1974,
which fells short of its goal. They tried again the following year with a dry season
offensive launched on January 1, 1975. Soon supplies to Phnom Penh were cut off, both
on the land and along the Mekong River. Units of Lon Nol's forces fought the battle of
the Phnom Penh perimeter through March. On April 1, 1975, President Lon Nol resigned
and fled the country under the pressure of the US Embassy, who wanted him out as
quickly as possible as part of the program to appease Beijing. [fn 12]
When Lon Nol had left the country, Kissinger became concerned that the open conquest
of Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge communist guerillas would create public relations
and political problems for the shakey Ford regime in the United States. Kissinger
accordingly became interested in having Prince Sihanouk, the titular head of the
insurgent coalition of which the Khmer Rouge were the leading part, travel from Beijing
to Phnom Penh so that the new government in Cambodia could be portrayed more as a
neutralist-nationalist, and less as a frankly communist, regime. This turns out to be the
episode of the Cambodian tragedy in which George Bush's personal involvement is most
readily demonstrated.
Prince Sihanouk had repeatedly sought direct contacts with Kissinger. At the end of
March, 1975 he tried again to open a channel to Washington, this time with the help of
the French Embassy in Beijing. Sihanouk's chef de cabinet Pung Peng Chen requested a
meeting with John Holdridge, Bush's deputy chief of station. This meeting was held at
the French Embassy. Pung told Holdridge that Prince Sihanouk had a favor to ask of
President Ford:
"in [ Sihanouk's ] old home in Phnom Penh were copies of the films of Cambodia he had made in
the sixties when he had been an enthusiastic cineaste. They constituted a unique cultural record of
a Cambodia that was gone forever: would the Americans please rescue them? Kissinger ordered