Remembering Cambodia's Enigmatic King

Associated Press Norodom Sihanouk during an intrigue-filled trip to the U.N. in 1979. 

Prince Sihanouk's deep pain for his country was evident in person. So, too, was his sometimes difficult nature.

October 16, 2012,

The Wall Street Journal

By SETH LIPSKY

The death of Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia, who succumbed to cancer Monday at the age of 89, is a moment to reflect on one of the great tragedies of the late 20th century. It would be inaccurate to blame the erstwhile king, even indirectly, for the genocide that was ultimately perpetrated in his country. That blame attaches solely to the communists. I often wonder, though, how things might have gone differently had the mercurial monarch been prepared to gamble on America.

Instead he sought refuge among the very backers of the Khmer Rouge who committed the killings in his country. He was not always in control of his own fate, particularly when he was in the grip of the communists. Loved as he may have been by his subjects, he lost his moral authority and ability to marshal international support. It is a controversial view, no doubt, and I once asked the prince about it over dinner in New York.

It was at the start of the Reagan years. Then an editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal, I'd been invited by Nayan Chanda, then with the Far Eastern Economic Review, to a small dinner with an ambassador of, as I recall it, Singapore. "Please don't be late," Mr. Chanda stressed. At the restaurant in mid-town Manhattan, I was ushered into a private room, where five or 10 newspapermen were palavering over drinks.

The cocktails seemed to go on for more than the usual amount of time, when suddenly a small Asian man in a business suit appeared at the door. Mr. Chanda rushed over and greeted him with a bow. When we were introduced, I leaned toward the guest and said, "Excuse me, I didn't catch your name." Mr. Chanda whispered into my ear, "It's the king of Cambodia."

At dinner it quickly became clear to even the most cynical correspondents that the prince was deeply pained for his devastated country. It also became clear that the prince was assessing the chances that he could make contact with the new administration that Reagan was forming in Washington. It was in that context that I looked at him and asked, "Your Highness, don't you think it would be easier to do if you weren't operating from North Korea?"

It might be that there was an acceptable way to ask about the fact that he was then based part of the time in Pyongyang, but I had failed to find it. My query caused the prince to go into a frenzy of rage and indignation. It took several minutes for him to calm down. When he did it was to pronounce something to the effect that he was a sovereign and could live wherever he wanted.

The encounter gave a glimpse of what America's professional diplomats and spies must have been up against over the decades as they sought a modus vivendi with the Cambodian king—or vice versa. Not that the U.S. side was without its own lapses, starting with the early 1950s, when the king, then about 30 years old, visited Secretary of State John Foster Dulles seeking his support for independence, only to be advised to stick with the French.

Sihanouk's retreat to North Korea came after an astonishing tale, which is told by Mr. Chanda in his book "Brother Enemy" about the war between Vietnam and Cambodia. He relates a visit Sihanouk made to New York in 1979, after the prince was freed by the Cambodian communists in the face of the Vietnamese invasion that toppled the Khmer Rouge regime. While there, the prince was supposed to praise the Cambodian Reds, but he turned on them at the U.N. and then, in an elevator at the Waldorf Astoria, managed to slip to an American Secret Service agent a note saying he wanted to defect.

The agent pocketed the note without reading it. Sihanouk couldn't talk, because his Khmer Rouge handlers, agents of one of the most murderous regimes in history, were crowded in the elevator with him. The one-time king stood there, as Mr. Chanda recalled to me Monday morning, staring at the Secret Service agent and "pleading with his eyes."

When the note was finally read that evening, American security scrambled to get him and his wife, Monique, to Lenox Hill hospital. Elaborate, occasionally comedic, negotiations ensued. In the end, the Carter administration flinched, as did Sihanouk himself and also France. That is how the prince ended up going to back to communist China and North Korea.

In the end, Sihanouk's story has much to teach at a time when America is engaged in a new war and weighing all sorts of potential allies. It suggests there is a virtue in humility and patience—and in avoiding assumptions about a potential partner. It is also a reminder that, for all the charms that some may see in royalty, democracy has the comparative advantage. That is not perfect, either. This we learned all too tragically ourselves when, in 1975, the free Cambodians and free Vietnamese, struggling valiantly against communism, were abandoned by the 94th United States Congress, and the fate of millions was sealed.

Mr. Lipsky, a former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal Asia, is editor of the New York Sun.