U.S. intelligence activities in Cambodia

This article discusses CIA activities specific to Cambodia. See the main article for a discussion of regional matters.

Cambodia

Cambodia 1954

A National Intelligence Estimate of August 3 projected relatively little Communist activity in Cambodia as Viet Minh withdraw. With outside help, the Cambodians should be able to build a security apparatus.

Cambodia 1967

President Richard Nixon asked Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Henry A. Kissinger to explore two potential CIA actions in Cambodia:

1. Creating covert paramilitary harassing operations directed against North Vietnamese Regular Forces in the sanctuary areas just over the Cambodian border
2. CIA capability for eliminating or reducing the arms traffic through Cambodia to communist forces in South Vietnam.

After discussion in the 303 Committee, which was then the approval group for US covert actions, the committee endorsed the first, although the CIA recommended against it for two reasons. They believed it would take effort away from operations in South Vietnam, and also would have questionable effectiveness but high cost against the large North Vietnamese forces in Cambodia.

As far as the second, CIA has identified a number of Cambodian army officers who are actively involved in supporting communist forces in South Vietnam, but does not now have direct, secure and con­trolled access to any of these officers. They doubt any of the officers involved in the arms traffic would be now susceptible to bribery both because of the profits accruing to them from such operations as well as the personal political risks entailed in a relationship involving the United States. Further, they pointed out that if recent U.S. diplomatic approaches to Cambodia result in the formal resumption of full diplomatic relations, CIA will gain an operating base for improved intelligence collection and covert action. With such a base, they would have a better chance to convince Prince Sihanouk that it is in his best interest to make an honest effort to reduce or halt the arms traffic.

Kissinger recommended continuing to monitor rather than taking action. There is no record on file of a Presidential decision on these matters..

Cambodia 1969

A February 19 memorandum from Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Henry Kissinger to President Richard Nixon proposed an bombing attack by B-52 aircraft against what was believed to be COSVN in Cambodia. In this discussion, specific CIA analysis was not discussed, but Kissinger indicated that he believed the target information to be correct:

On February 18, 1969, Mr. H.A. Kissinger, Secretary of Defense Laird, Deputy Secretary of Defense Packard, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Wheeler, and Colonels Pursley and Haig met in the Secretary of Defense’s conference room and were briefed by a two-officer team from Saigon on the conduct of the proposed ARC LIGHT strike against the reported location of COSVN Headquarters.

Note that no intelligence personnel were present.

At a 11 October 1969 meeting with Nixon, Kissinger, United States Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, Attorney General John Mitchell and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (i.e., no CIA personnel) , several pertinent observations were made.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) Earle Wheeler cited two COSVN Resolutions, with the inference that COSVN existed as an organizational entity. In the subsequent discussion of bombing options, there were no mention of COSVN's physical location.

Cambodia 1970

Prince Norodom Sihanouk claimed in his 1973 book that the CIA engineered his ouster in March 1970.

Weiner's book claims that in April of 1970, CIA analysts did not find evidence of a North Vietnamese COSVN headquarters in Cambodia, but that U.S. President Richard Nixon authorized a ground invasion to locate and destroy a North Vietnamese headquarters in Cambodia should one exist.

Cambodia 1972

Senator Clifford P. Case sponsored a law effective December 1972 cutting off funds for CIA and private military company operations in Cambodia.

Cambodia 1978

In December 1978, three-and-a-half years after the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Indochina, Vietnam invaded Cambodia and dislodged the genocidal regime of Pol Pot. According to socialist U.S. foreign policy critic William Blum, the CIA supplied arms directly to Khmer Rouge forces and also funneled more than $20 million/year of "non-lethal" aid to a coalition which included the Khmer Rouge, without Congressional approval.

According to Blum, the CIA action was in support of a larger U.S. policy in which the State Department continued to recognize the former government as the legitimate representative of Cambodia at the United Nations, and the United States used a variety of means to give indirect support to the Khmer Rouge, in an ongoing effort to thwart the Vietnamese-installed regime of Heng Samrin.