Snookie's Snub

Last week everyone seemed willing to talk about Cambodian neutrality--everyone, that is, except Cambodia's Prince Norodom ("Snookie") Sihanouk and his Red Chinese mentors. In Washington, Lyndon Johnson applauded the idea of a Cambodian conference. In London, Prime Minister Harold Wilson heartily concurred. And in Paris, where Charles de Gaulle was playing host to Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, both France and Russia gave their consent. To all and sundry it seemed an ideal backdoor to negotiations over Viet Nam, and it was precisely that which bugged the Snook.

Six Tons Empty. Sihanouk, who had called for the conference in the first place in order to guarantee his borders against "encroachments" by Thailand and South Viet Nam, now viewed the talks as a bit of international skulduggery in which his country would be used as "bait" for a fishing expedition by the big fellows. He wasn't biting. The sudden shift came as no surprise, since Snookie had just returned from Indonesia, where he ran into Red Chinese Premier Chou Enlai. Peking itself has no desire to enter into negotiations over Viet Nam at the moment, as Chou himself made crystal clear last week. "Obviously the purpose of a Cambodian conference is not really to ensure neutrality and territorial integrity for Cambodia," sneered Chou, "but to induce the Vietnamese to quit. His Royal Highness Prince Sihanouk has seen through the trick."

It was just another example of Sihanouk's ability to shift with the winds of international politics. Though Cambodia's chubby "god-king" is hardly the picture of a slender reed of bamboo, he is highly pliable nonetheless. So, apparently, is his nation's rickety economy, which seems perpetually bent out of shape. Teachers, civil servants and even the 30,000-man army frequently go without pay. Air conditioners in most of the capital's sticky offices are turned on only when important visitors arrive. Roadways are falling apart, but when Sihanouk recently ordered a load limit of eight tons on the vital Pnompenh-Battambang Highway, he had to rescind the decree. Shell Oil, which supplies Battambang with all its oil and gasoline, pointed out that its tank trucks weigh six tons empty, and without them the town would soon be unable to operate its electric plants, trucks and cars.

Shoeless Reverence. One reason for Cambodia's penury is the Prince's giveaways--some of them perfectly worthwhile if only his treasury could support them. Recently Sihanouk took to the radio in a rage over the sad state of Cambodian education (national literacy rate: 30%). Snookie demanded the immediate establishment of five new universities, including an Institute of Oceanography (despite the fact that Cambodia has only a tiny fishing fleet and a piddling navy). The Education Ministry dutifully drew up plans and asked for 385 million riels ($11 million). Sihanouk snapped back that the project should cost no more than 2,000,000 riels. Fifty-seven thousand dollars for five universities? With typical second thought, he kicked in a kindly 1,000,000 riels as a "princely gift"--lifted straight from the vaults of the Bank of Cambodia.

Another pet project is the Norodom Sihanouk Museum, a converted colonial residence in the center of the capital, which boasts marble floors, two brand-new, porcelain-tiled bathrooms, and the ivory-inlaid bed in which Snookie was born. Peasants troop through in shoeless reverence to view the robes their Prince donned when he received an honorary doctorate in Indonesia, the army uniform he wore back in 1954 as a leader of Cambodian insurgents, and a certificate issued by French colonial authorities stating that Snookie indeed graduated from grade school. Also on hand: the revolver, holster and flight suit of an American pilot shot down over Cambodia last October.

Onerous Duties. Such extravagances have used up most of Cambodia's foreign exchange, driven living costs to an alltime high, and even scared away a Chinese team of economists invited from Peking to sort out Snookie's tangled accounts. Pnompenh--once a pleasant, easygoing capital--has become increasingly rundown. This fact recently led Snookie to broadcast a wild tirade of threats that he would personally fire everyone in the capital, from street sweepers to policemen, if the city did not shape up. Typically, no one was fired and Pnompenh remains as threadbare as ever. As government corruption accelerates, justice declines: a young government clerk received a stiff sentence for stealing 25-c-, while rumors indicate that one of Sihanouk's pals took a $125,000 bribe for a government contract and got away without punishment. All of this has set sentiment smoldering among Cambodia's tiny class of professional people and intellectuals.

At 42, Snookie's health also seems less robust than it was--though not as fragile as one of his recent radio speeches let on. "I have already reached an age at which one can no longer have personal ambition," Snookie sighed. "The exhaustion that cannot be relieved, since I am unable to submit myself completely to the advice of my doctors, condemns me, medically speaking, to a life that will be somewhat short." If the coldblooded, penny-pinching Chinese Communists ever take over Cambodia, Snookie's prophecy just might come true.

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