INDOCHINA
"Cambodians are gentle people," Jean de Raymond liked to say. His job as French Commissioner was to bring the picturesque kingdom* of elephants, sapphires, Siamese dancers and golden temple spires into closer friendship with its old master, France. A pleasant, warm, courageous man with a tiny grey mustache, he had spent 22 of his 44 years in Indo-China.
Into this drowsy, gentle kingdom came the Communists. They smuggled arms from Siam across Cambodia to Viet Minh soldiers in Tonkin. Commissioner de Raymond complained to Cambodia's plump, 29-year-old King Norodom Sihanouk, who sits...