"If Cambodia falls, we'll all feel very bad." So said a Pentagon official last week as the Ford Administration pleaded with a reluctant Congress to vote $222 million in extra military aid for the Phnom-Penh government. In defense of their request, White House officials and Cabinet members trotted out several arguments. Most compelling was the warning that without an emergency infusion of ammunition, the government of President Lon Nol is in imminent danger of falling to the Communist-led Khmer Rouge insurgents. "An independent Cambodia cannot survive unless the Congress acts very soon to provide supplemental military and economic assistance," President Ford...
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