The President Is Obliged ...


assured us that "we have no hand in it [the Cambodian coup]". But need they have? Even if the Senator were right he would still miss the point. Gen Lon Nol, it would seem, represents a way of thinking which is not altogether uncommon in Asia. Besides, people like him have power. Under various pretexts they have retained it. When, in their view, the civilian leadership takes liberties which they do not like they can always strike. That is what they have done in Cambodia. Gen Lon Nol would have to show considerable statesmanship and astuteness to demonstrate that he is not one of those generals whom we have come to know from Greece to Formosa. But why would he have, in that case, deposed the Prince in the first instance ?