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On the Senate floor, Republican Jacob Javits of New York and Democrat Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island urged that the U.S. and other countries establish a huge airlift of food and medicine into Cambodia if Phnom-Penh persists in refusing to allow a "land bridge" for trucks to enter Cambodia from Thailand with supplies. A bipartisan group of 68 House members urged Carter to set up a joint airlift with the Soviet Union. The plan was first suggested by the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh of the University of Notre Dame. Said he: "I'm perfectly willing to ride in the lead truck and get shot in the process rather than sit back and have it on my conscience that I did nothing to stop a second holocaust" Hesburgh also suggested that the U.S. withhold grain sales to the Soviet Union unless the Kremlin collaborates in making 150,000 tons available to the Cambodians immediately. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the Senate majority leader, contacted Soviet Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin in an appeal to Moscow to persuade Phnom-Penh to allow food to be trucked in. At the same time, Kennedy is supporting a move to increase the amount of aid pledged by President Carter from $69 million to $99 million.
In Western Europe, the plight of the Cambodians also sparked wide-scale efforts. For the French, who had ruled Cambodia for 90 years, until 1953, compassion ran high for their former colonial subjects. This week's U.N. conference is the result of an initiative by French Foreign Minister Jean François-Poncet. His earlier appeal for more aid to Cambodia spurred a nationwide "S O S Cambodia" campaign that has raised $2 million from French citizens. Three French medical teams are working in refugee camps in Thailand, while the hospital ship lie de la Lumière, which is now headed for Thailand, has cared for thousands of Cambodian and other Indochinese refugees. Even the French Communist Party has offered to help the starving Cambodians through a "Sanitary and Medical Aid Committee for the Cambodian people."
From Britain, a Hercules plane has been flying 15 tons of supplies a day into Phnom-Penh's airport. The Australians have provided three charter flights and 80 tons of food and medicine. The Japanese government has approved a $4.5 million emergency grant for Cambodian refugees and has recruited a team of medical volunteers to work in the camps. The scores of countries participating in this week's U.N. conference on Cambodia are expected to pledge considerably more assistance. Among them will be the U.S.S.R. Although the Soviets have done nothing to assist Western aid efforts, they are expected to boast of their food shipments to Cambodia, though it is unclear how much of this food is channeled to the occupying Vietnamese forces.