A Very Special Tourist

In the three days that Jacqueline Kennedy spent strolling through the ruins of the 600 temples at Angkor, the noblest remnants of Asia's past, she could almost be the private citizen she wished to be: the ordinary tourist looking, touching and marveling. It was a brief respite, however, on her tour of Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk's Khmer Kingdom (see color opposite). Flying from Pnompenh to the port city of Sihanoukville last week to dedicate a street named for John F. Kennedy, Jackie soon had to cope with her host's propensity for using her presence as a publicity platform to the world.

On a flag-festooned platform at the head of Avenue J. F. Kennedy, the Prince praised the late President without saying, as he had intended to, that if J.F.K. had lived the U.S. would not be involved in the war in Viet Nam on today's scale. Jackie had seen an advance copy of the speech and persuaded Sihanouk to leave the offensive paragraph out. In her reply, she said that "President Kennedy would have wished to visit Cambodia. He would have been attracted by the vitality of the Khmer people." Then she and the Prince rode down the avenue in a Lincoln convertible to Sihanouk's villa on the beach at the end of the street, where she and her party of four-- Britain's Lord Harlech, New York Lawyer Michael Forrestal, Washington Journalist Charles Bartlett and his wife--joined Sihanouk's wife and daughter in a sumptuous lunch.

Apologetic Points. Next day it was back to Pnompenh for an audience with the Prince's mother, Queen Sisowath Kossomak. It took place in the Royal Throne Room, a fairy-tale chamber of nine-tiered parasols that shield a great gold throne beneath ceilings depicting ancient Asian tales incongruously set against French classical landscapes. After an exchange of gifts, Jackie was escorted outside under a purple parasol to feed the royal elephants, whose grasping trunks she approached gingerly.

As she left Cambodia for Thailand, Jackie was visibly tired, as well she might be. Sihanouk was not only a demanding tour guide but also a difficult--and at times embarrassing--host. While Jackie was in Angkor, he had called a press conference to lecture the captive visiting newsmen on his pet peeve: references to "tiny" Cambodia in the foreign press. He said that "America did not come to Asia to help yellow people; it came to exploit Asia as a neocolonialist power." Later, he took time out from escorting Jackie to receive the new Czech Ambassador to Cambodia and condemn "the criminal American aggression against Viet Nam that menaces our country"--while his Foreign Affairs Ministry issued one of its frequent denunciations of America's "barbarous bombings" of civilians. Once he took Jackie's limousine past a display of a shot-down American plane, having justified himself in advance with an apology to newsmen: "Please excuse me. You Americans have killed many people." And everywhere he blithely referred to his love for President Kennedy, although it was his official government radio that, not long after the assassination, thanked "divine protection" for causing the "complete destruction of Cambodia's enemies."

A Little Walk. By contrast, Jackie's three days in Thailand were quiet and reasonably private, partly because, afflicted with a touch of the malaise that tourists frequently experience in Asia, she canceled several public appearances. She did manage some serious shopping, buying a 15th century bronze hand of Buddha, two gilt wooden hands (17th century), three porcelain cosmetic jars from the ruined ancient capital of Ayutthaya, and three solid silver bracelets made by Thailand's Meo hill tribesmen.

The high point of her Thai sojourn, an occasion that brought together two of the world's best-dressed women, was a royal dinner for 180 given by King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit. Jackie wore a long white evening gown elaborately stitched in gold, the beautiful queen a traditional gown of Thai embroidered silk in yellow with a matching sabai, or stole. After dinner, the King and Queen suggested that they take a little walk. Knowing that Jackie particularly wanted to see the temple of the Emerald Buddha, the King had ordered the whole palace and temple grounds illuminated. Lights shone on the golden spires and the gilded heads of the king cobras, on the fierce 25-ft.-high demons who guard the temple, on the white monkey king warrior and the life-size golden statue of Manohra, half human and half bird. Entranced by her walk, Jackie called the temple "the most beautiful thing I have ever seen." Then she flew off for a brief stopover in Rome before returning to the U.S.

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