75-10-B3
- Main Page \ Reagan Radio Commentaries \ 1975
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Falling Dominoes[edit]
Transcript[edit]However much we want to forget about Indochina, we shouldn't blind ourselves to what happens when another domino falls. I'll be right back. Ordinarily when the Communists take over a country, a curtain of silence falls during its initial stages of power. The reason is simple. The initial stage can get a little messy, even for that tolerant entity we call world opinion. But when the Republic of Cambodia became the first of the recent set of dominoes to fall, the curtain was a little sluggish in getting down. Apparently the newly victorious Khmer Rouge, a gang never noted for its subtlety, fell asleep during some critical lessons on how to consolidate power. Execution orders were sent more or less openly over radio transmitters that could be monitored in Thailand. Foreigners were left behind in Phnom Penh long enough to witness some interesting sights and when the foreigners were expelled, the new government insisted on taking them through the countryside rather than by plane. In the countryside there was more to see. The result was closer than usual look at the gruesome mathematics of Communist conquest. Closer than usual, that is for the outside world. For the victims it's always more or less the same. The radio broadcasts, first reported by Newsweek, transmitted an order for the execution of every officer from the army of the previous government together with their wives. This applied to officers down to the rank of second lieutenant. The wives it was explained were presumed to have been contaminated by their husband's occupation. A French doctor left behind in his embassy reported the execution of two high government officials who had heeded the Communist demand for surrender. He reported seeing 300 people with throats cut in the capital's central market. Even these acts did not compare in brutality to the new government's decision to conduct a total evacuation of the city of two million, herding the entire population to unspecified, quote, "purification centers," unquote, in the rural areas. Everyone left behind in the embassy agreed on the following aspects of this evacuation: people who resisted were shot on the spot, there were no exceptions to the evacuation orders other than the foreigners themselves, the crippled and the sick were pulled out of hospitals, the roads outside the capital were littered with the chief victims of the evacuation, the old, the very young, the sick. One of the foreign survivors described the scene, quote, "No one knew where to go. When they were ordered to leave people were screaming. Some pleaded for help. Mothers ran around looking for their children and children searched for missing parents. At night the city was in darkness except for people with flashlights carrying their belongings and moving in every direction. The truck convoy through the rural areas confirmed that elsewhere the situation was no different. Every other city on the route had been forcibly evacuated. The countryside was filled with people being herded to the centers or wandering aimlessly waiting to die. For once, the curtain of silence was slow and the grim truth is there to be faced for this at least we should not be sorry. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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