Textbook Exodus

Few G.I.s who have left South Viet Nam have ever looked forward to returning to it. Yet last week, as thousands of U.S. troopers began pulling out of Cambodia in time for President Nixon's June 30 withdrawal deadline, "the Nam" looked almost like home. "Viet Nam is an R.-and-R. spot compared with Cambodia," said Specialist Fourth Class Oren Berry, 20. "We had contact almost every day over there." Added Specialist Fourth Class Ranee Lee: "I feel safer back in Viet Nam."

The exodus, under the command of Lieut. General Michael S. Davison, was proceeding in textbook style. The remaining 12,000 U.S. fighting men in Cambodia were exiting in about equal numbers by helicopter, armored vehicle and foot. They were under strict orders to evacuate all their equipment in order to prevent the Communists from using any of it if and when they try to reoccupy the gutted sanctuaries in eastern Cambodia. Davison ordered the emplacement of numerous fire-support bases just inside South Viet Nam to shield the last men coming out with an umbrella of artillery shells.

Within Range. Cambodia, meanwhile, continued to stagger under the weight of its own battle with the Communists. Phnom-Penh, once the most carefree capital in Southeast Asia, was filled with grim and eerie rumors (see box). Throughout the countryside, the fighting was somewhat less intense than usual. Scattered clashes were reported at several strategic points within 35 miles of Phnom-Penh. Cambodian soldiers found a 122-mm. Communist rocket in a town retaken from Communist soldiers only 14 miles north of Phnom-Penh, the closest to the capital that such long-range weapons have been discovered. At week's end some 8,000 civilians and more than a battalion of Cambodian troops were evacuated from two towns in the northeast. Communist forces have controlled most of the area for weeks, and the exodus apparently conceded the urban strongholds as well as the countryside to them.

The government of Premier Lon Nol, under increasing pressure from the harder-lining elements in the National Assembly to strengthen the war effort, declared national mobilization. A decree ordered every Cambodian man and woman between the ages of 18 and 60 to aid the national defense and made all property subject to confiscation. It will probably be many months before Cambodia's swollen army of some 120,000 men--only half of whom have even been issued weapons --can absorb new recruits. Moreover, the nation needs its citizens for productive labor almost as desperately as it needs them for fighting. Since the war spread to the interior, Cambodia's exports, chiefly rubber and rice, have trickled down to almost zero.

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