The 1973 Bombing Campaign in Cambodia
Memorandum for the Historian of the State Department from Emory C. Swank, U.S. Ambassador to the Khmer Republic, 1970–73, and Thomas O. Enders, Deputy Chief of Mission, Phnom Penh, 1970–74, and dated October 10, 1979.
(Following this memorandum are Tab A: State Department Instruction 015050, January 26, 1973; Tab B: Letter from William N. Harben, Chief of the Political Section, Phnom Penh, 1972–1973; and Tab C: Letter from John W. Vogt, General USAF, Ret., Commander of the US Seventh Air Force and of the United States Support Activities Group, 1973.)
The 1973 Bombing Campaign in Cambodia
IN a book published earlier this year (Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1979) William Shawcross makes assertions and inferences which misrepresent the conduct and consequences of the 1973 bombing campaign in Cambodia and the roles each of us played in it. Although they are by no means the only errors of fact and interpretation contained in Mr. Shawcross’s book, these are of particular importance historically, because they appear to be the main basis for his conclusions concerning the “destruction of Cambodia.”
According to Mr. Shawcross,
— Embassy Phnom Penh “approved and controlled” the bombing;
— It was instructed to do so by Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Kissinger without the knowledge of the Secretary of State;
— Bombing was “indiscriminate” because out-of-date maps were used rather than photography;
— Control of bombing was shifted to the Cambodian armed forces after a Congressional sub-committee investigation in April 1973;
— The bombing resulted in massive civilian casualties.
None of these statements is correct.
1. Assertion: That from early February 1973 on, Embassy Phnom Penh was no longer to be merely “a conduit, passing Cambodian requests for bombing strikes on to the Seventh Air Force,” but “was to be actively involved in the entire bombing process, selecting, examining, approving and controlling the bombing.”1 Mr. Shawcross cites no source for this statement.
Clarification: The Embassy did not approve or control air strikes; only Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) and its successor command — the United States Support Activities Group (USSAG) — had that authority. The role of the Embassy was to receive FANK requests for air support, validate them “consistent with means and time available” and forward them to MACV for decision. The operative part of the Embassy’s instructions, as sent to Swank in State Department cable 15050, dated January 26, 1973 and classified Secret/NODIS, reads:
“At the time when the FANK [Forces Armées Nationales Khmeres] suspend offensive military operation all U.S. TACAIR and B-52 strikes in Cambodia will cease. RECCE, airlift, medevac and other U.S. air operations that are not ordnance delivery associated are permitted.
“U.S. TACAIR and B-52 forces will be prepared to strike designated targets in Cambodia in order to assist FANK forces when the situation so dictates. To this end a simple, rapid request-validation-execute procedure will be set up between US Ambassador Cambodia and MACV. In essence, US Ambassador will be responsible for receiving requests for air support from GKR [Government of the Khmer Republic] and validating requests consistent with his means and time available. The Ambassador will pass the requests to MACV who has the authority to validate and direct air strikes by US TACAIR or B-52’s as the situation dictates. All air strikes executed under this guidance are to counter specific hostile acts against GKR/FANK. Escort of Mekong convoys is authorized.”2
As explained to Swank on February 8, 1973, by then Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Kissinger, the purpose of these arrangements was to back up the unilateral U.S. statement on Cambodia made at the last session of the Paris Peace Talks on January 23, 1973. The U.S. had been unsuccessful in engaging the Khmer Rouge in the talks either directly or indirectly. In the absence of any agreement, the U.S. offered to suspend hostilities in Cambodia, if reciprocated. If the Khmer Rouge attacked, government forces and the Seventh Air Force would respond. The role of the Embassy, Dr. Kissinger told Swank, was to make sure the response to any such attacks was no more than required to back up the unilateral statement.
In implementing this instruction, the Embassy, according to the report prepared for Senator Stuart Symington of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Staff Members James G. Lowenstein and Richard M. Moose, performed three functions, none of which included the approval or control of air strikes:3
“A. As a communications relay point
We were shown the radio-telephone relay system, known as ‘Area Control’ located in the Air Attache’s Office in the Embassy which is manned by an augmented staff of U.S. military personnel temporarily assigned to the Defense Attache’s Office. It provides a communications link between the Cambodian General Staff, Seventh Air Force, the Airborne Battlefield Command and Control Center plane and the U.S. Forward Air Control planes.
“B. As an on-the-spot coordinator of forward air control planes and strike aircraft
U.S. Forward Air Control planes which are assigned daily to the control of the Air Attache and which regularly refuel at Phnom Penh airport are shifted by Area Control from place to place in response to requests from the Cambodian General Staff or in response to tactical emergencies; and
“C. As a screener of Cambodian or Seventh Air Force requests for strikes except in eastern Cambodia
A panel of Embassy officers, both civilian and military, validates each request for B-52 and F-111 strikes, and the Defense Attache screens tactical air requests.
The degree and nature of the Embassy’s involvement varies depending on the location of air activity and on whether strategic or tactical air is involved. The Embassy has relatively little to do with air activity in the eastern third of Cambodia where there is no Cambodian Government presence. (This area is designated for air operations purposes as ‘Freedom Deal.’) Its role in both strategic and tactical air operations is much greater in the remainder of Cambodia where Cambodian Government forces are engaged with an enemy which is now composed almost entirely of Khmer Communist insurgents and North Vietnamese.”
The first two functions — communications with and coordination of the U.S. Forward Air Controllers operating in light planes over Cambodia, who validated and authorized TACAIR strikes — were performed by the Embassy only pending construction of a Direct Air Support Center (DASC) in FANK headquarters. When the DASC was completed in late April, they were transferred from the Embassy to it.
The third function — screening of B-52 and F-111 bombing requests — was exercised by the Embassy throughout the bombing campaign. These steps were involved:4
“The Embassy validates all B-52 and F-111 strikes outside the ‘Freedom Deal’ area. When the Cambodian General Staff submits a request, it does so on a form which contains information regarding the nature of the target, its justification, and a certification that friendly forces, villages, hamlets, houses, monuments, temples, pagodas or holy places are not within certain specified distances of the target area.
“The Embassy Air Attache’s Office then plots the target and the bombing ‘box,’ the area in which the bombs will fall, on a one-to-fifty thousand map which is supposed to show the exact location of all permanent houses and buildings. The Air Attache told us that the maps being used by the Embassy were several years old and that the Embassy did not have current photography on proposed target areas which would permit the identification of new or relocated villages.
“The original Cambodian request and the map are then considered by an Embassy bombing panel which meets daily. The panel is chaired by the Deputy Chief of Mission. Its other members are the Defense Attache who is an Army Colonel, the Chief of the Military Equipment Delivery team who is an Army Brigadier General, the Counselor for Political-Military Affairs and the Embassy intelligence chief.
“The panel discusses the target in terms of consistency with the Rules of Engagement, the probable utility of the target, air safety and political factors. The final decision rests, according to the rules of the panel, with the Deputy Chief of Mission. According to him, decisions are, as a practical matter, made unanimously and approximately 40 percent of the requests are turned down. The Ambassador does not sit on the panel but is informed of decisions as they are made, and, according to the rules of the panel, before any particularly sensitive decision. [Note: Swank joined the panel in May 1973; Enders remained a member.] The panel then sends its recommendation to Seventh Air Force through Embassy communications facilities in the form of a message from the Ambassador to the Seventh Air Force Commander. Targets are again reviewed at Seventh Air Force for consistency with the Rules of Engagement. The Embassy is then informed by message from Seventh Air Force of targets scheduled for attack, and, subsequently, of the results. The Embassy then relays this information to Cambodian General Staff Headquarters.”
2. Assertion: That instructions for making the Embassy into “the command post for the new aerial war in Cambodia” were given in Bangkok to Swank directly by Dr. Kissinger on February 8, 1973. “Although the general instructions were laid out in a cable from the State Department,” Secretary of State Rogers “was not told how fully his subordinates in Phnom Penh were now involved in the bombing.”5 No source is cited by Mr. Shawcross.
Clarification: We cannot say for certain that Secretary Rogers knew of the instruction to the Embassy cited above, which laid out succinctly what the Embassy was to do. According to the file copy, two of his senior associates were involved in its preparation (Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Marshall Green as drafter, and Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs U. Alexis Johnson as authorized, and two copies were distributed to the Secretary. The cable is dated January 23, 1973, two weeks before Dr. Kissinger met with Swank in Bangkok.
3. Assertion: That the bombing was not done “carefully”6 by the Embassy and was “indiscriminate,”7 because recent photography was not available and targets were plotted on large-scale, out-of-date maps that did not “show the location of new settlements in the massive forced migrations that the Khmer Rouge were now imposing on the areas they controlled.”8 Mr. Shawcross cites as the source for his comment on maps and photography the Lowenstein and Moose report.9
Clarification: All B-52 strikes were subject to detailed Rules of Engagement and executed on the basis of pre-strike photography. As noted above the Embassy never had a substantive role in tactical air operations.
Rules of Engagement prohibited use of B-52 ordnance closer than one kilometer to friendly forces, villages, hamlets, houses, monuments, temples, pagodas or holy places.10
General John W. Vogt, who as commander of the United States Support Activities Group and the Seventh Air Force had responsibility for the bombing, states:11
“The choice of targets was made by my headquarters, the United States Support Activities Group in Thailand. The personnel in the headquarters were skilled professionals from all of the Services (Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force). Many of them had been with me in Vietnam when I conducted the Linebacker operation of 1972. By 1973 we had developed targeting techniques based heavily on reconnaissance and employing sophisticated sensors such as infra-red (IR) and precision radar (SLAR). We had up-to-the-minute photography on all areas of Cambodia in which the bombing was conducted. LORAN coordinates were obtained on all B-52 targets and were completely independent of map accuracy. We bombed in all cases with B-52S by reference to this sensor or photographic information. In all cases the targets were covered by reconnaissances both pre-strike and post-strike. On a number of occasions we turned down FANK requests for targets because our recon showed risks to civilian population we were unwilling to take.”
Mr. Shawcross appears to have been misled by the fact that the Embassy did not have available to it such photography. But it did not have to, since any FANK target the Embassy validated was re-validated or rejected by USSAG on the basis of photography. Messrs. Lowenstein and Moose did visit USSAG headquarters in April 1973. It is not known whether they were told of use of photography in USSAG target validation. In any case, they do not mention it in their report, and that omission appears to be the basis for Mr. Shawcross’s charges. General Vogt is categorical on the question: “The B-52S bombed without the need for maps at all.”12
4. Assertion: That “after the Moose and Lowenstein investigation in April [1973], control of the bombing was shifted to FANK.”13 Mr. Shawcross gives no source.
Clarification: At no point did FANK control B-52, F-111 or U.S. TACAIR strikes; only USSAG did.14
The only change in the arrangements made after April 1973 was the establishment of a direct communications link with FANK headquarters (DASC), by-passing the Embassy on TACAIR (see Point 1 above). Processing of B-52 and F-111 strikes was not involved. Throughout the war, control of U.S. TACAIR was in the hands of U.S. Forward Air Controllers, not the FANK.
5. Inference: That the bombing resulted in massive civilian casualties. Mr. Shawcross does not make an explicit statement to this effect, but he implies it in the map/photography misinterpretation cited above and in the three (and three only) pieces of evidence he cites on civilian casualties. First he quotes Embassy political officer William Harben as saying “I began to get reports of wholesale carnage. One night a mass of peasants from a village near Saang went out on a funeral procession. They walked straight into a ‘box.’ Hundreds were slaughtered.’ “15 Second, he cites the bombing of Neak Luong on August 7, 1973 (the town was held at that time by Khmer Republic forces) due to bombardier error, and writes: “The accident inevitably raised the question of how often such errors occurred in parts of the country where reporters could never penetrate.”16 Finally Cambodian generals “took a casual view of the risks to civilians.” “As one air attache, Mark Berent, recalls, ‘They never plotted anything. We could have given the coordinates of the palace and they would have said yes.’ “17
Clarification: There is no evidence of massive civilian casualties. Two major B-52 accidents are known, one at Sa’ang and the other at Neak Luong; both were reported by the Embassy as well as cited by Mr. Shawcross. The former could not have been prevented (the target, in conformance to the Rules of Engagement, was well away from an inhabited area); the latter was Seventh Air Force responsibility. No doubt there were other civilian casualties, although on a smaller scale.
Mr. Harben, who is often portrayed in Sideshow as a bitter critic of U.S. (and Embassy) policy, makes these comments on casualties:18
“In retrospect I think it likely that accidents involving TACAIR, particularly Khmer Air Force, may have been confused with B-52’s in the retelling during the heightened public awareness of the latter. . . . In the case of the Sa’ang tragedy, . . . it is clear that the rules of engagement were respected . . . (as regards my statement that) ‘I began to get reports of wholesale carnage . . .’ [Mr. Shawcross] garbled it slightly: In referring to the Sa’ang raid, I used the expression used by my informant on that raid: ‘c’était un veritable carnage.’ Shawcross seems to have written this down in such a way as to give the impression that such a description applied to all the raids about which I had heard. The context was simply a narration of events.”
Mr. Harben concludes:
“So civilian casualties were unavoidable, but far fewer, I am sure, than Shawcross and others claim. Had they been so great, the reports I received would not have been so vague. It is curious also that, although thousands of Khmers who were living in enemy-held areas at that time have fled to Thailand, and some have even gone to Europe, Shawcross seems to have made no effort to question them, although he made the effect of bombing upon them a major theme of his book. He did not even speak to So Satto, ex-chief of the Khmer Air Force, as I suggested. Nor did he contact In Tam, who was speaking to dozens of peasants every day recently arrived from the other side — and to enemy emissaries discussing defection.”
General Vogt makes this comment about the possibility of other offset bombing errors like that at Neak Luong:19
“Every accident my headquarters was aware of was made known immediately, the worst being the off-set bombing error by B-52S against Neak Luong. To set the record straight, B-52S employed this off-set technique on only a handful of missions. The beacons were there primarily for F-111 use. The latter used them successfully throughout 1973 without a single incident. Their equipment, of course, was much better as they were much later generation airplanes. After Neak Luong the B-52S stopped using this practice . . . Virtually all of the B-52 bombing was precisely controlled by Seventh Air Force control systems. They were led in by F-4 LORAN-equipped pathfinders. These lead planes had a demonstrated accuracy by photo-recon confirmation of less than 400 feet miss distance.”
Finally, since at no time did FANK control B-52 strikes (or for that matter F-111 or TACAIR strikes), Mr. Shawcross’s third and last piece of evidence — an air attache’s comment on FANK’s own concern for civilians — does not apply.
It is worth noting that all B-52 strikes were photographed afterwards, as well as before. Not only was there available to General Vogt immediate evidence of any accident, but such evidence is preserved in Air Force archives. Seventh Air Force post-strike photography on Cambodia could be examined by a photo-reconnaissance specialist to confirm the conclusions on casualties reported here.
[signed] Emory C. Swank 10/10/79 U.S. Ambassador to the Khmer Republic, 1970–73
[signed] Thomas O. Enders 10/10/79 Deputy Chief of Mission Phnom Penh, 1970–74
Tab A
IMMEDIATE |
PHNOM PENH |
PRIORITY |
SAIGON, BANGKOK PRIORITY, VIENTIANE PRIORITY, FRANCE PRIORITY |
STATE 015050
260022Z JAN 73
FOR AMBASSADOR SWANK
SUBJECT: |
USAF ACTIVITIES IN CAMBODIA FOLLOWING A CEASEFIRE IN VIETNAM |
REF: PHNOM PENH 634
1. USAF activities in Cambodia will be related to Lon Nol’s proposed announcement of unilateral suspension by FANK of offensive military actions while reserving the right of self-defense. Thus, we propose from the time Lon Nol takes this action that USAF will stand down TACAIR and B-52 strikes. If a FANK unit is in trouble due to enemy action, we can react locally to provide appropriate air support clearly commensurate with the defensive requirements of the units under attack. You may inform Lon Nol that USAF activities in Cambodia will be related to his proposed declaration but that US air support will be provided, as necessary, in accordance with the JCS instructions below:
2. Chief JCS has just sent CINCPAC, info COMUSMACV, following guidance:
3. Quote: At the time when the FANK suspend offensive military operation all US TACAIR and B-52 strikes in Cambodia will cease. RECCE, airlift, MEDEVAC and other U.S. air operations that are not ordnance delivery associated are permitted.
4. Quote: U.S. TACAIR and B-52 forces will be prepared to strike designated targets in Cambodia in order to assist FANK forces when the situation so dictates. To this end a simple, rapid request-validation-execute procedure will be set up between U.S. Ambassador Cambodia and MACV. In essence, US Ambassador will be responsible for receiving requests for air support from GKR and validating requests consistent with his means and time available. The Ambassador will pass the requests to MACV who has the authority to validate and direct air strikes by US TACAIR or B-52’s as the situation dictates. All air strikes executed under this guidance are to counter specific hostile acts against GKR/FANK. Escort of Mekong convoys is authorized. Unquote
5. MACV requested to set up procedures as outlined above as soon as possible and to inform Chief JCS of details agreed upon.
ROGERS
Tab B
Ambassador Thomas O. Enders
June 22, 1979
American Embassy
Ottawa, Canada
Dear Tom:
Recently I had an opportunity to read the Shawcross book. Your questions assume that I knew much more than I did. I knew hardly more than any literate Cambodian about the bombing — nothing, for example, of the rules of engagement, or the fact that there was an Embassy targeting committee which you chaired.
(i) Is the account of the bombing campaign given in Mr. Shawcross’ book on pages 270–272 accurate?
Answer: I know too little, even now, to assess his accuracy. The assertion that only maps of 1:50,000 were used is absurd on the face of it, but beyond that I cannot comment.
(ii) What accidents causing civilian casualties did you learn of?
Answer: As the B-52 raids began to hit near Phnom Penh foreign journalists told me they had heard of many civilian casualties. One quoted a woman refugee who said her husband had been killed “with blood coming from his eyes and ears” in what sounded from her description like a B-52 attack. Another was said to have been near Kompong Speu, and still another mentioned by a Khmer Red Cross official to a journalist. Then In Tam summoned me and said that many civilians had been killed by “B-52’s” near Skoun. You checked and said it must have been Tacair. In retrospect I think it likely that accidents involving Tacair, particularly Khmer Air Force, may have been confused with B-52’s in the retelling during the heightened public awareness of the latter. Perhaps some of the reports mentioned above applied to the same raid. About this time an airgram from one of our border posts in Vietnam quoted Cambodian refugees as saying that hundreds of peasants conscripted for work in enemy camps had been killed by B-52’s. I had this in mind when I told Shawcross that most civilian casualties were certainly due to the Communists drafting peasants for use as porters and laborers in legitimate target areas. He chose to omit this comment. Another incident was reported to me by a Democratic Party official who was a mathematics professor at the university. He said his uncle, mayor of Sa’ang, near Phnom Penh, had sent word that some hundreds of peasants had walked into a B-52 box while on a nocturnal procession some kilometers from that village to bury or burn a deceased favorite bonze. They did not go by day fearing that such a column would invite Tacair attack, he said. I reported it to you, and a few days later it was mentioned in the Khmer press.
About this time also the only remaining Khmer newspaper which had not been banned — the Army organ — published an editorial condemning the B-52 bombing and saying that it would be more appropriate for us to bomb North Vietnam, and not our Cambodian ally. I believe this editorial mentioned some civilian casualties or implied that there had been some.
About this time I met Liz Trotta, a rather bold NBC television reporter, with whom one day I watched Tacair bombing a retreating enemy unit on the east bank of the Mekong from the Chrui Changwar peninsula. Refugees with sampans loaded with bedding, furniture, bicycles, and even farm animals were streaming toward us from the far bank, fleeing either the bombing or the enemy or both.
Liz insisted on going to the other side when a Khmer soldier told us it was safe for about a kilometer back of the riverbank, and I accompanied her and her TV crew. We followed Khmer troops of the rearguard in their leisurely pursuit southward, and stopped to question some peasants through a French-speaking schoolteacher. Miss Trotta, having heard the uproar about civilian casualties, asked them if they could cite specific instances of civilian deaths. After some palaver they cited three in that area from all bombings: a farmer who had gone too close in order to rescue his strayed cattle, a bonze, and another villager. Miss Trotta thought this rather a small and unavoidable toll, and did not bother to report it. When she asked the peasants if they opposed the bombing, they said they did not mind as long as it was not on their village. Liz was so surprised that she thought the teacher was giving us a bit of government propaganda, but when I questioned him he quite freely said he had no use for Lon Nol or any of the other politicians either.
(iii) Were they caused by B-52 or Tacair strikes?
Answer: I have no other information other than that given above.
(iv) If B-52, were the rules of engagement respected (i.e. no strikes closer than one kilometer to inhabited areas)?
Answer: It was not until I received this question that I knew what the rules of engagement were. In any case I did not seek or obtain enough detail on the raids to determine this. In the case of the Sa’ang tragedy, however, it is clear that the rules of engagement were respected.
(v) Were these accidents caused or made more likely by use of maps several years old, or by lack of care by the Embassy or the Seventh Air Force?
Answer: I do not think the accidents were due to old maps or lack of care. I believe they were due to factors I will explain in answer to your question (vii) below. You refer only to B-52 attacks, but I feel that in order to be complete I should say what I knew of the rules of engagement in Tacair strikes, about which I knew more, since they were more easily observed.
Conversations in the staff meetings convinced me that we were exercising great care to avoid civilian casualties in Tacair bombing, and I assumed that the same care was exercised with respect to B-52 raids. On one occasion Gen. Cleland complained that the enemy were so confident that we would not bomb villages that they had set up their guns in villages on the banks of the Mekong to shoot at our convoys. I recall that I suggested that smoke bombs be dropped upwind of these positions to blind them. He replied that that had been considered by the “High Command” and rejected as impractical since it would obstruct navigation. Although that might be true only for certain azimuths I did not pursue it, but on the way down the stairs I met the Naval Attache coming up. I told him that “someone” had suggested smoke bombs. He said it was a good idea — it ought to be tried. I then said that “someone” had objected that it would blind the navigators. He scoffed at that and pointed out that they had brought a convoy up in the middle of a moonless night a few nights earlier. I mentioned to Shawcross that the enemy put guns in villages confident that they would not be attacked, but he chose to omit this also.
Rules of engagement were mentioned on one other occasion in my presence. A Jesuit priest, a speechwriter in the White House, arrived and was shunted to me. He was quite interested in the bombing, and I asked one of the Assistant Air Attaches over for a drink, since I could not enlighten him. The priest questioned him quite closely as to whether the rules of engagement were being observed, and even pretended to be a “firebreather” — claiming that there are no neutrals in total war — in order to provoke the Ass’t Air Attache into admitting some departure from the rules. The latter insisted, however, that deliberate violations were rare and minor. He would go no further than to say that a pilot receiving fire from a cluster of huts slightly over the maximum attackable size might stretch a point. The priest asked what the size of the cluster was, and the Ass’t Air Attache declined to give it to him, saying that it was information which could be of great use to the enemy.
(vi) Is the quotation attributed to you accurate? If so, to whom did you make it, when, and in what context?
Answer: There are several, but I assume you mean that in which I said “I began to get reports of wholesale carnage . . .” etc. This was said to Shawcross in my house in 1977, I believe. I think he garbled it slightly. In referring to the Sa’ang raid, I used the expression used by my informant on that raid: “c’était un veritable carnage”. Shawcross seems to have written this down in such a way as to give the impression that such a description applied to all the raids about which I had heard. The context was simply a narration of events. Shawcross is inaccurate in a number of other quotations: When I said that Lon Nol, when Washington was distracted elsewhere, resumed his dictatorship with the usual army backing, Shawcross insérted in brackets “United States” in front of “army”, although I meant Khmer Army. If I had meant United States Army I would have used the word “acquiescence”, although some might think that Gen. Cleland’s threats of terminating U.S. aid made to officers who were discussing a coup against Lon Nol might amount to more than that. Shawcross also says that my proposals were rejected “contemptuously”. I did not use such a word and did not feel that you or Coby were ever contemptuous toward me. The General was another matter. Shawcross also states that officers in the Political Section “like Bill Harben” were unhappy over your allegedly more vigorous prosecution of the “Nixon Doctrine”. I am not sure what he means by that. I do not recall such sentiments in my section. If anything, I found your more vigorous approach a refreshing change.
(vii) Did you cut out a B-52 box, apply it to Central Cambodia, and conclude that nowhere could bombing be carried out without civilian casualties? Is that your view now?
Answer: I did. I did not attend the Air Attache’s briefings, but journalists told me that the Embassy claimed that there were no civilian casualties, and jeered at the idea. Convinced, for reasons given below, that it was impossible to conduct such bombing without inflicting some civilian casualties, I felt the Embassy might once again be creating a “credibility gap”. On the spur of the moment I decided to demonstrate to myself how easily hostile outsiders might make us appear to be cruel and foolish. I tried to orient the B-52 “box”, cut to scale, on my office map and covered a village in Central Cambodia in all positions.
I felt I should apprise someone of this, but had clashed with Gen. Cleland whenever I reported Khmer Army corruption. He had even insisted I burn a memo of Carney’s on front-line bribes for delivery of US munitions, though I felt it might even be a violation of federal law for the Political Section to conceal such information which had come to its attention. So I shunned the military and wrote a memorandum to Paul Gardner, since the title of his “Political Military” Section seemed to indicate some responsibility.
But it was not just this exercise with the map which convinced me that some civilian casualties were unavoidable. Most of my career had been spent on international Communist matters, and I thought that if a public scandal about civilian casualties would hurt our war effort, they would see to it that we did kill civilians, despite our caution. Furthermore I had knocked about rural Java a good deal in the early 60’s, and had encountered mysterious religious processions at night far out in the countryside. While climbing mountains I had come upon small villages hidden under palms not shown on my maps. They were so remote from the national life that they did not know what money was, and dropped it on the ground when I paid them for coconuts. Such villages would have been wiped out in any “carpet bombing” of “uninhabited” areas. In war the problem is worse. People whose draft animals have been commandeered or whose rice has been confiscated go foraging in the jungle for food. They hide in unusual places at night to avoid enemy conscription. Often they are fleeing by night to the safety of the government lines. Some of our reports from the other side spoke of the Communists marching villagers to bases at night to harangue them with political speeches. No air force can know where such people are at any given moment.
So civilian casualties were unavoidable, but far fewer, I am sure, than Shawcross and the others claim. Had they been so great, the reports I received would not have been so vague. It is curious also that, although thousands of Khmers who were living in enemy-held areas at that time have now fled to Thailand, and some have even gone to Europe, Shawcross seems to have made no effort to question them, although he made the effect of bombing upon them a major theme of this book. He did not even speak to So Satto, ex-chief of the Khmer Air Force, as I suggested. Nor did he contact In Tam, who was speaking to dozens of peasants every day recently arrived from the other side — and to enemy emissaries discussing defection. (Actually I suspect that Shawcross’ French is too poor to have done a complete job).
Shawcross quotes me as “appalled” at the time. I was not appalled by the casualties to civilians, which I think were minor and unavoidable, but by the fact that they were in vain in the absence of vigorous measures to stamp out Khmer Army corruption, build an efficient fighting force, ensure the coming to power of the honest and much more capable In Tam, whose popularity as demonstrated in his election victory and his contacts with disaffected enemy held out a prospect of victory. When he described to me his plan of buying off the Khmer Rumdoh piecemeal with FANK ranks and wages, gradually thus reducing the Communists to a minority and isolating them back in the Cardamoms, I thought it workable, but asked him where he would get the money. He replied: “Your own figures, announced in Washington, say that Lon Nol and his officers are stealing the wages of enough men to buy off the whole insurgent army — that is where I intend to get the money.” That would have required strong support from us — and I did not think Congress could raise protests on behalf of embezzlers of US funds and equipment.
The B-52 bombing even made corruption worse. When Cheng Heng pleaded with Lon Nol to act against corrupt officers, Nol told him to calm down, since “the American B-52’s are killing a thousand enemy every day and the war will soon be over.”
With regard to the morality of killing any civilians at all, I feel it was justified in the attempt to save them from a much greater slaughter at the hands of the Communists, who in every country have liquidated far more people than may have been accidentally killed in Cambodia. The bombing of German extermination camps is now debated in retrospect. We are criticized for failing to do so. Would Shawcross object to such bombing on the grounds that “hundreds” of non-combatants would have been killed? In the invasion of Normandy we killed many French civilians. In Sicily we even bombed our own troops. In World War II Mr Shawcross’ country devised a policy of deliberately aiming at civilians, and made the author of that policy a peer of the realm, whereas our country is probably the only one in recent decades in which strict rules of engagement were imposed to avoid or reduce civilian deaths.
There will be a next time, and when that time comes I think we should be more attentive to the problem of public relations and history. We might, for example, shower enemy-occupied areas with leaflets announcing our intention in a general way and urging civilians to avoid enemy military concentrations at night, etc. Still there will be civilian casualties, but we will have visible evidence of concern for their safety.
In retrospect I do not envy you the role you were asked to play, which I am sure you exercised as humanely as possible. Our commissions read that we serve “at the pleasure of the president”. If the press or the public regards some of the results of our obedience as unfortunate, then they should devote their attention to the faults of the system which “program” such occurrences, instead of to the pursuit of villains. Any embassy, under the circumstances, would have come up with about the same cast of characters, doing, or not doing, the same things.
Sincerely [signed] Bill W. N. Harben
Tab C
The Honorable Thomas Ostrom Enders
July 8, 1979
Ambassador of the USA
100 Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5T1
Dear Tom,
I delayed this response until I finished reading Shawcross’ book which you kindly sent me. My comments on his charges and answers to your questions follow.
First let me say that his description of the 1973 bombing as “indiscriminate” is completely contrary to fact. As one who led his squadron over the beaches of Normandy in World War II and later operated against targets in support of Allied troops on the Western front, I can assure you I have some basis for judging the nature of bombing activities. I state flatly that the precision, degree of control, validity of targets attacked and professionalism of the crews involved in the 1973 Cambodian campaign were as high or perhaps even higher than all of World War II bombing, the 1965–68 Rolling Thunder campaign, or the Linebacker campaigns in 1972 in North and South Vietnam.
There were some accidents, but surprisingly few considering the weight of effort involved (which as the author points out was far higher than World War II).
Every accident my headquarters was aware of was made known immediately, the worst being the off-set bombing error by B-52S against Neak Luong. To set the record straight, B-52S employed this off-set technique on only a handful of missions. The beacons were there primarily for F-111 use. The latter used them successfully throughout 1973 without a single incident. Their equipment, of course, was much better as they were much later generation airplanes. After Neak Luong the B-52S stopped using this practice so the author’s statement “The accident inevitably raised the question of how often such errors occurred in parts of the country where reporters could never penetrate”, is groundless speculation like so much of his description of the 1973 bombing campaign.
Virtually all of the B-52 bombing was precisely controlled by 7th Air Force control systems. They were led in by F-4 LORAN-equipped pathfinders. These lead planes had a demonstrated accuracy by photo-recon confirmation of less than 400 feet miss distance.
The choice of targets was made by my headquarters, The United States Support Activities Group in Thailand. The personnel in the headquarters were skilled professionals from all of the Services (Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force). Many of them had been with me in Vietnam when I conducted the Linebacker operations of 1972. By 1973 we had developed targeting techniques based heavily on reconnaissance and employing sophisticated sensors such as infra-red (IR) and precision radar (SLAR). We had up-to-the-minute photography on all areas of Cambodia in which the bombing was conducted. LORAN coordinates were obtained on all B-52 targets and were completely independent of map accuracy. We bombed in all cases with B-52S by reference to this sensor or photographic information. In all cases the targets were covered by reconnaisances both pre-strike and post-strike. On a number of occasions we turned down FANK requests for targets because our recon showed risks to civilian population we were unwilling to take.
As you will recall, charges were constantly being made in 1973 that we were hitting Cambodian villages. Except for the very few accidents, in not one single case were we able to substantiate such charges. A prime example occurred in June or July ’73 when the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, Jerry Friedheim, sent me a message including the full text of an East Coast newspaper article which stated B-52S had destroyed or heavily damaged 10 Cambodian villages causing the villagers to flee. The reporter stated he had personally interviewed many of these villagers. He named each village supposedly involved. Friedheim wanted an immediate answer to the charges. I dispatched recon aircraft to each village and took low altitude photography of excellent quality. In no case could we find any evidence of B-52 bomb drops (the pattern of craters is unmistakable). The majority of the villages were relatively untouched by war damage of any kind. A few near the Vietnam border showed some damage from artillery fire or 250 lb. bombs (dropped only by the South Vietnamese Air Force; we did not use them at all). Even in these cases the amount of damage was relatively small and usually was found at the edges of the towns. This hard photographic evidence was immediately dispatched to Washington with a full explanatory text. It was never used by OSD to refute the story because (I was told later) “the whole incident had died down in the Press and they didn’t want to rekindle it”. I am afraid the author’s charges are based largely on such unsubstantiated evidence.
Now to your specific questions: — In what cases was photography used prior to target adoption? Ans. In the case of B-52 operations it was used in all cases. Tac Air which was under FAC control (forward air controllers) did not require such pre-strike recon but the combat areas were photographed each day for precise location of enemy and friendly positions and was available to the FACs.
— How often was it used? Ans. Answered in the first question.
— Is there evidence that in those where photography was not used accidents occurred or the risk of accidents was significantly greater? Ans. As I indicated above photography on the precise target was not required in the case of Tactical aircraft only. The precise nature of FAC control virtually precluded accidents. I can recall no accidents occurring with TAC air all during 1973.
— Were your photo surveillance assets adequate to your needs or were you constrained? Ans. Fully adequate. I retained within 7th Air Force following the Vietnam settlement RF-4 assets which gave me proportionately far better coverage than I had when we were operating throughout all of S.E. Asia.
— What is your view of the adequacy of available mapping? Could up-to-date maps have been prepared? How long would it have taken? Ans. As I indicated above, we were relying far more on up-to-the-minute photography, LORAN precision coordinates gained from that photography or, in the case of F-111 operations, highly precise off-set radar beacon techniques than on the maps themselves. The B-52S bombed without the need for maps at all. In the case of TAC air good maps are an asset to help the FAC find the target quickly, but from that point on, the pilot’s eyeballs plus the photography available to him fixed the actual target. All FACs had strict orders to avoid villages and did so with remarkable professionalism. So while up-to-date maps would have helped the FACs find the target more quickly they were not a factor in the actual bomb delivery. The Defense Mapping Agency was fully responsive to my mapping needs and sent us the latest available to them. They were constantly updating from our photography. Nevertheless there was a lag in some areas like Cambodia, but I doubt very much the involved process of map making could have been speeded up much more than it was.
A few general comments: I suspect Shawcross had determined his theme before he gathered the evidence and wrote the book. For example, much of what I have said above I told to Shawcross when I discussed the bombing campaign with him in February of 1977. He chose to use none of this information. Even if he didn’t believe what I said an objective presentation would have required that he include it. After all I was the commander running the bombing operations and had access to far more hard data than his hear-say reporters.
There is ample documentary evidence of the 1972 Cambodian air operations. My own oral report to the Air Force Historical Research Center at Air University at Maxwell AFB, Alabama, for example, contains a full statement of the 10 village incident I mentioned above. Unfortunately the report is classified secret but parts of it I am sure could be declassified if the effort were made.
Shawcross does quote my statement to him that the 1973 bombing “saved Phnom Penh by killing 16,000 enemy”. There is an interesting sidelight to this. After the Washington announcement to stop all bombing by August 15, 1973 the enemy launched a series of all-out attacks to capture the city even though they knew the job would be much easier after 15 August. Why? We found out later. Captured intelligence revealed the Khmer Rouge had issued direct orders to their forward commanders to take the city before August 1973 so they could prove to the world that they could humble the U.S. In callous disregard for human life they threw in their troops in repeated attacks and since they were no longer able to use jungle cover, they suffered huge losses to air attack. This should have given us some clue as to how this regime would treat its own people after they seized control. They so decimated their elite forces that after the bombing stopped they took until April 1975 to finally take the city. Had we remained steadfast in support of the Cambodian government and provided air support as needed the country would be in non-communist hands today instead of North Vietnam’s. I am not proud of my country’s bug-out in either Vietnam or Cambodia. After losing more than 50,000 American lives we quit even though we had turned back the Easter offensive in Vietnam. Air power had applied great pressure on Hanoi itself causing them to accept terms which would have kept South Vietnam free if enforced by a meaningful threat of the resumption of that bombing. We turned our backs on our friends when they called on us to back up our promises made in January 1973. Likewise in Cambodia we had broken the back of the Khmer Rouge forces in 1973 and then let them regain their strength to reattack a year and a half later while denying our friends ammunition. The pervasive effects of Watergate had set in.
One final comment: Shawcross has gone to great lengths to disparage the leadership in Cambodia. I knew all the key Cambodian generals through close personal contact. Having worked with the military in South Vietnam and Laos, I think I had a valid basis for comparison. Considering their limited means and experience (because of Sihanouk’s policy of making them no more than a palace guard) they displayed remarkable qualities. They had to go from the role of company commanders to that of division and larger in just a few months. They had the ability to defeat the enemy and would have done so if we had not pulled the rug out from under them.
In Lon Nol, whom I met and talked to on a number of occasions, I found a man truly dedicated to preventing his country from falling to the communists. I hope future historians will present the case of Cambodian leaders’ ability and patriotism in a better light than Shawcross has done.
Please feel free to use any or all of the above as you find necessary to set the record straight. The distortion of the true state of events in Cambodia which has occurred in the liberal press, of which Shawcross is obviously a part, needs to be set straight.
With all best wishes
[signed] John
John W. Vogt, General USAF (Ret.)