BEGINNING OF THE END

I remember seeing this on the front page of the Bangkok Post, April 12, 1975. I was sixteen years old. I will never, never forget what happened after we abandoned Indochina to the Communists . . . S.L.

U.S. Marines provide cover during Operation Eagle Pull as Americans and Cambodians board Marine helicopters in Phnom Penh during the final U.S. pullout of Cambodia. (AP Photo/File)

Five days after Operation Eagle Pull, the dramatic evacuation of Americans, the U.S.-backed government fell as Communist Khmer Rouge guerrillas stormed into Phnom Penh. Nearly 2 million Cambodians - one in every four - would die from executions, starvation and hideous torture.



Twelve helicopters, bristling with guns and U.S. Marines, breached the morning horizon and began a daring descent toward Cambodia's besieged capital. Residents believed the Americans were rushing in to save them, but at the U.S. Embassy, in a bleeding city about to die, the ambassador wept.

Forty years later, John Gunther Dean recalls one of the most tragic days of his life — April 12, 1975 - the day the United States "abandoned Cambodia and handed it over to the butcher."

"We'd accepted responsibility for Cambodia and then walked out without fulfilling our promise. That's the worst thing a country can do," he says in an interview in Paris. "And I cried because I knew what was going to happen."

Thank you, Peace Movement, for giving us the lowest point in American history, and handing millions over to Communist butchers to be slaughtered.

STORMBRINGER SENDS