Present at the Fall

As victorious Khmer Rouge forces closed in on Phnom-Penh last week, 17 or so foreign journalists passed up the last evacuation flight, electing instead to cover the fall of the capital. It was a perilous decision. There were reports that Khmer Rouge troops had vowed to kill any Americans they found; Chau Seng, a Khmer Rouge Politburo member in Paris, offered only an opaque promise that once the city was taken "competent authorities will examine [the journalists'] cases" before deciding their fate.

Among the newsmen believed to be holed up in the French embassy at the end were five Americans:

> New York Times Correspondent Sidney Schanberg, 41, who filed thousands of words on the last hours of the Long Boret government before Times editors lost contact with him late in the week. Schanberg, who won a Polk Award in 1972 for his compelling reports on the India-Pakistan war, dominated the paper's front page daily. "Sidney has been covering the story for the past five years," said Foreign Editor James Greenfield. "He felt that it was important for the coverage to be continued, and that he should be the one to do it."

> ABC News Correspondent Lee Rudakewych and CBS News Stringer Denis Cameron, 44, who stayed behind in a largely futile attempt to organize an airlift of 400 Cambodian orphans. Rudakewych used the erratic Associated Press telex line to Hong Kong to tell his editors that he had malaria but was safe. Cameron cabled CBS: "The situation here is unclear and contradictory. Fresh rumors keep arriving to fuel the worry and apprehension. We return regularly to the hotel to compare rumors and feel some small consolation in our togetherness."

> Richard Boyle, 33, a roving correspondent for Pacific News Service, a San Francisco-based syndicate that claims 145 newspaper and radio subscribers. Boyle used the A.P. line last week to report that he was safe and had no intention of leaving. He added somewhat bleakly: "Survival journalism is getting a lot tougher these days. Keeping my head down."

> Al Rockoff, 26, a freelance photographer with long experience in Southeast Asia. He was quoted as saying before the evacuation that he would stay because he thought that someone who knew Cambodia should be there to photograph its fall. When Khmer Rouge brigades paraded into the city, Rockoff, camera in hand, was seen riding on the hood of a Jeep loaded with soldiers.

At week's end the exact fate of the American newsmen who stayed behind was not yet known.

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