The Marshal's Backstreet Astrologer

In Cambodia, where virtually everyone has a favorite fortune teller, the advice of astrologers often determines whether armies advance, governments fall or prime ministers take trips. When rebels bombed his presidential palace recently, Marshal Lon Nol was rumored to have fired some of his senior soothsayers. Last week TIME Correspondent Barry Hillenbrand ventured into the back streets of Phnom-Penh to visit a gray-haired old astrologer whose clients include the marshal himself. Hillenbrand's report:

THE astrologer's mind is quick, despite his 72 years, and the irises of his blue-black eyes seem enormous. He sat in an oversized lounge chair beneath a whirling fan, and in his lap he held a black slate. As a little girl brought him tea, he scribbled a row of figures, then another, revising them again and again--all this based on my birthday.

After the complex figuring was completed, he informed me that my worst month was clearly May (April, August and October were good ones). In my 32nd year, he went on, I will marry a 24-year-old woman of non-American origin, and we will have five children. Carefully I turned the conversation to war and politics. Well, he said, the war will lose its intensity in May and June, and the Cambodians will win. At that point, the ground trembled; B-52s were pounding the area around Phnom-Penh.

"What about Lon Nol?" I ventured. In reply, he drew on his slate twelve horizontal bars of equal length and twelve vertical bars, some short and some long. The long vertical bars represented good months and years, the short ones bad months and years. This was Lon Nol's chart, he explained. The marshal had visited him many times, and after the recent bombing of the palace compound, Lon Nol had rushed an aide to the astrologer for a fresh reading.

The marshal has nothing to fear, the astrologer assured me, pointing to the long bars in the chart. Lon Nol has a "good spirit" protecting him, and will rule for five years. The Vietnamese will be out of Cambodia by the end of 1973, and peace will come soon after. The marshal should not leave the country during 1973, but he may travel safely in 1974, especially in June and September, his good months.

Of course, Lon Nol will have some bad luck in the next five years. The bombing of the palace could have proved fatal, but fortunately it occurred on a Saturday (a good day) rather than a Monday (a very bad day). He may still be injured in an accident, though it will not be serious. But in 1977, his worst year, Lon Nol will cease to rule.

In the end it was all quite clear. After talking with the astrologer, I think I understood why the marshal is so calm in the face of the advancing enemy. He has been promised five good years, so why should he negotiate with Prince Sihanouk and the Communists? After all, it's not in the stars.

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