American Pullout from a City Under Siege

The excruciatingly slow and steady strangulation of Phnom-Penh approached a climax last week. Intensifying their already viselike grip on the capital, the Khmer Rouge insurgents pushed their way to within two to four miles of the city's northwest and east boundaries--a distance that allows deadly accuracy to the U.S.-made 105-mm. howitzers the rebels have captured from government forces in the provinces. U.S. intelligence experts saw no hope for the defense of Phnom-Penh and predicted its final collapse, possibly within days.

In his televised address to Congress last Thursday, President Ford did not even mention his previous request for an additional $222 million in emergency aid to Cambodia. The President merely promised, in a later statement, to do "whatever possible to support an independent, peaceful, neutral and unified Cambodia." At the same time, advised that there was no alternative, Ford, "with a heavy heart," ordered Americans to be helicoptered out of Phnom-Penh by a U.S. naval force that had been on station in the Gulf of Siam for more than a month against such an eventuality.

Flawless Operation. The exercise, called "Operation Eagle Pull," went off flawlessly. All together 276 people, including Americans, Cambodians and nationals of other countries, were lifted out aboard CH-53 helicopters from carriers Okinawa and Hancock. The choppers were protected by a 20-plane force of U.S. fighters and the staging area was secured by more than 300 Marines in combat gear. Several Khmer Rouge rockets landed near by during the evacuation.

U.S. Ambassador John Gunther Dean, climbing aboard one of the 36 helicopters used to ferry the evacuees out, carried in his arms the American flag that had flown over his embassy in Phnom-Penh until the previous sun set. Among the Cambodians who left was Acting President Saukam Khoy, along with his family. Premier Long Boret, in a radio broadcast shortly afterward, said that the flight demonstrated Saukam Khoy's lack of leadership. The premier added that a provisional high committee had been set up to run the country and the Acting President was no longer recognized. Actually, control of what was left of the government passed over to the army, as ministers still in Phnom-Penh prepared to surrender to the advancing Khmer Rouge.

TIME'S Steven Heder, who has lived in Cambodia for the past 17 months, was among those who left with Operation Eagle Pull. From the Okinawa, he filed this report:

"The night before the evacuation it was pretty clear that the next day would be it. The American embassy spread word to newsmen who would go to gather at the Phnom Hotel, Phnom-Penh's journalistic watering hole, at 7 a.m. The night was relatively calm. No Cambodians could have guessed that the U.S. was about to abandon them.

"Toward dawn I made my final tour of the front. I checked on the defenses of Pochentong airport. There had been some heavy fighting during the night, but there was nothing to indicate that the Khmer Rouge had made any significant breakthrough that would drastically change the military situation. Everywhere I went, soldiers were preparing as usual for another day of war. They brushed their teeth and cleaned their guns as on any other morning of the past five years.

"At the American embassy, however, it was not business as usual. The embassy gates were shut. Behind them stood Marines wearing civilian clothes and toting M-16s at the ready. The atmosphere was tense. By 8, evacuees began to arrive. Everybody was issued a little tag on which was printed his name and evacuation priority. Most people tied their tags to shirt buttons. A few minutes before the evacuation was to begin, Saukam Khoy arrived with his family. He, too, wore a little tag.

"At 9 o'clock, nervous embassy officials gave the signal to move. Everybody was hustled out of the rear of the embassy and into waiting trucks. The trucks sped off to the soccer field, behind a block of apartments on the bank of the Mekong River, a quarter of a mile away. The Marines secured the field, and any Cambodian who was brave enough to come close was chased away with a snarl and a wave of an M16.

Hottest Firefight. "Within minutes the first of the big CH-53 helicopters swung in. It touched down, and a group of waiting evacuees rushed toward it, only to have it take off again. Apparently, the helicopter's pilot wanted another chopper full of Marines to land and disgorge additional security before setting down. Three helicopters swooped down. Out of the first came a group of Marines who stormed out as if they were landing in the middle of the hottest firefight in the Indochina war. Later, aboard the Okinawa, a sailor explained: 'The Marines were really psyched up because they were told to be ready for anything.'

"Everybody who had arrived at the embassy at the specified time got out. The helicopters took off in waves for the carrier, the roar of the helicopter blades made any conversation impossible for the 70 minutes it took to get there from Phnom-Penh. Aboard ship, the evacuees were assigned bunks; in a classic military screwup, many found that more than one person had been assigned to a berth. But that was eventually worked out, and the rest of the trip to Sattahip, Thailand, was serene."

At week's end, as the American presence faded out to sea, the situation in Cambodia was a confusing one. The war was all but over. Nonetheless there was little progress toward arranging a negotiated peace settlement, partly because there was no real government leadership in Phnom-Penh to contact the Khmer Rouge. Before the evacuation, Deputy Premier Pan Sothy was asked who had been making the difficult decisions since the departure of President Lon Nol for Bali two weeks earlier. Pan Sothy paused, shrugged, then finally said: "That's a good question."

Peace negotiations depended to some degree on how and when the battle for Phnom-Penh would be resolved. Last week the insurgents gained nearly total control of the North Dike, a seven-mile dirt embankment that formed the northern defense line of the government forces. From there the Khmer Rouge fought southward to the village of Samrong Teav within two miles of Pochentong Airport, the capital's last supply link to the outside world. Unless government troops retake Samrong Teav, which seems unlikely, the Khmer Rouge are in position not only to close the airport by artillery fire but also to move on to the capital. East of the capital, the insurgents overran troops at Arey Khsat, a government outpost on the Mekong River two miles from the center of Phnom-Penh. To the south, attacks along the Bassac River forced government retreat to within nine miles of the capital.

As the prospect of a total military victory for the Khmer Rouge became all but inevitable, the need for government leaders capable of talking with the insurgents, if only to negotiate surrender, became correspondingly more urgent. Last week there were reports that Premier Long Boret had spoken with rebel leaders in Bangkok before returning to Phnom-Penh. The Khmer Rouge, however, have repeatedly said that they would never negotiate with anyone associated with Lon Nol's right-wing Social Republican Party. Long Boret, moreover, is one of the seven "political criminals" that the insurgents have already condemned to death in absentia.

Before the evacuation, there had been some political maneuvering in Phnom-Penh to make way for a new government headed by leaders with whom the Khmer Rouge might deal. Until the military took over, the most likely replacement for Long Boret seemed to be Chau Sau, head of Cambodia's leftist Democratic Party and a former minister under exiled Prince Sihanouk. Neither Chau Sau nor any members of his party had been part of the government since the 1970 overthrow of Sihanouk.

Grim View. Chau Sau took a grim but realistic view: "There are only two possibilities left open to Cambodia. First, just letting the Communists come in, and second, attempting to get the Communists to agree to some kind of peace negotiations with an all-Democratic government." His hopes for a negotiated settlement rested on his awareness that "the Communists can win the war militarily, but they could still lose the peace" if they inherit a capital made uninhabitable and ungovernable by the ravages of a brutal siege.

Chau Sau told TIME'S Heder that he had had no contact with the Khmer Rouge, but attempts to reach members of Sihanouk's government in exile through friends in Europe were reportedly already under way. Although there is no such thing as a graceful ending to five years of fratricidal bloodshed, it may still be possible to make the inevitable transfer of power in Phnom-Penh without subjecting its civilians to the ultimate tragedy of an all-out military assault.

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