Correspondents' Correspondence Mystery Cable
SAMUELS, GERTRUDE
Correspondents' Correspondence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS. Mystery Cable United Nations-The most fascinating...
...But Ambassador Abdalla Y. Bishara of Kuwait, another supporter of the Prince, disagreed by saying, "I think it is both tragic and comic...
...But no one has asked us to initiate a search...
...He then sat on the sidelines-a mere supporting actor at first in the tense diplomatic drama unfolding at the horseshoe-shaped table with its 15 nation-representatives...
...Ambassador Andrew Young...
...Mystery Cable United Nations-The most fascinating drama to hit New York this month did not open on Broadway but in the blue-and-gold Security Council chamber, where the backdrop is a huge mural meant to symbolize the world's hope of emerging from its dark past of war and slavery...
...the press and public galleries were jammed...
...Yet since it was sponsored by Bangladesh, Bolivia, Gabon, Kuwait, Nigeria, Zambia, and Jamaica, and supported by the U.S., China, Britain, France, Norway, and Portugal, it represented a clear setback for the Soviet Union and its clients and showed their isolation in the Council on this issue...
...Our people here noticed that the usual cabelese preamble which goes on all cables wasn't there: that is, the origin of message (such as Rome, London, etc...
...The initial issue that had to be settled was just who represented war-torn Cambodia (now being called Kampuchea on all sides), Sihanouk, or the conquering Vietnam-sponsored force known as the United National Front for National Salvation...
...The theme was Cambodia, war and slavery...
...It wasn't on the cable...
...The ebullient, roly-poly Prince affectionately embraced his many friends in the vaulted chamber, including U.S...
...On hand to participate was Cambodia's new envoy, Prince Norodom Sihanouk...
...He called the Soviet Union a "plotter" in these events, quoted from a New York Times editorial-"The Vietnamese Army by any other name remains the Vietnamese Army"-and said the Council should reject this "puppet organ...
...He further claimed that the People's Revolutionary Council in Kampuchea had cabled the UN on January 11 requesting permission to have its envoy come to New York "to participate in the work of the Security Council" under Rule37 of the SC's rules of procedure...
...Rome is burning . . . and we are fiddling...
...Afterward, China introduced a strong resolution condemning the aggression and demanding UN sanctions against Vietnam...
...Russia's dour-faced Ambassador Oleg A. Troyanovsky, backed by Czechoslovakia's envoy, argued that "the criminal regime of Pol Pot" had already been overthrown, and that the Prince therefore had no right to be present or heard...
...number of words, date message was filed, and the time...
...The position is a relatively new one for the Soviet Camp, and Kampuchea now hopes to press its cause before the reconvened 151-member General Assembly...
...He] again grossly tramples upon the Charter of the UN in trying to prevent Prince Sihanouk from participating...
...The show was dominated by the two Communist superpowers-China, supporting Sihanouk...
...Moreover, Chen went on in a tone calculated to startle, the cable that purportedly came from the group in the captured capital of Phnom Penh, although typed on RCA cable paper, "is most probably a forgery by the Soviet or Vietnamese representatives in New York...
...They were playing to a packed house: Scores of delegates and workers stood 10-deep on two sides of the floor...
...Could we have a look at the original...
...That resolution also was blocked when the Soviet Union used its 111th veto...
...The Hanoi-backed force inside Kampuchea, he continued, was "a sheer hired tool manufactured by Vietnam" for the purpose of aggression...
...In fact, no one in the United States does...
...We do not operate direct circuits with Phnom Penh...
...Since there is no direct communication with Phnom Penh, he said, "it is surprising indeed that Vietnam or the Soviet Union should have resorted to such despicable means to fool the Security Council...
...Just freed from three years of house arrest for opposing his country's Communist government, he had now arrived as its representative to plead for help against the Vietnamese invaders...
...I phoned Leonard W. Tuft, vice-president in charge of corporate affairs at RCA, and he clarified the matter thus: "It is true, as the Chinese Ambassador said, that we have no facilities in Phnom Penh...
...If someone could tell us just where the message came in, what machine was used, and so on, we could perhaps initiate a search for its origin...
...This does not mean that someone could not have sent a cable through some indirect route...
...So I wondered if the mystery could be cleared up by RCA itself...
...The inflammatory charge was greeted with gasps of amazement in the chamber, leading Ambassador Young to comment dryly, " I would dare say this is as interesting a meeting as we have had in the Council for some time...
...The press chief had no answers for us...
...and the USSR, backing Vietnam's Army as "liberator...
...but the issue was the existence of Cambodia, whose seat of government is now "in one of our mountains...
...But on this particular matter, what we were shown was a telegram on what we call RCA saddle paper-that is, with the name RCA appearing on the side...
...And though insults have been traded across the horseshoe many times before, the less-than-diplomatic duelling between the two principals went beyond the usual performance...
...During an emotional address, the Prince then called the invaders "Hitlerite" and ihe Russians the "imperialist puppet masters...
...The matter of the "forged" cable had been left dangling, Troyanovsky not deigning to reply to the charge...
...At one point, he stared across at the hostile Czechoslovakian delegate to underscore the fact that his country's "present regime gladly allowed Russian tanks in 1968 to crush Czechoslovak patriots...
...We shall never surrender...
...Ambassador Chen Chu, bespectacled and acidly articulate, glared across the table at his opponent and shot back: "Having failed in his despicable attempt to oppose a formal meeting of the Security Council, the Soviet representative again haggles over his preposterous idea of the so-called representation of Kampuchea...
...In the end, the Council voted 13-2 to seat Sihanouk under Rule 37, and hear his side...
...With a Soviet veto certain, a milder resolution was proposed by the seven nonaligned member states, asking only that "all foreign forces withdraw from Kampuchea...
...Gertrude Samuels...
...At a subsequent press briefing, some UN correspondents raised the question of how the cable from the People's Revolutionary Council in Phnom Penh had been received in the UN's cable room...
...He had nothing good to say about the Pol Pot regime that had imprisoned him...
Vol. 62 • January 1979 • No. 3
