THE BADASS WOMEN IN HISTORY SERIES
Leslie Cockburn: The New American Killing Fields
Women journalists who defied the odds to get the truth. The audacity and tenacity of Leslie Cockburn, Part 3.
It was 1989, and Leslie Cockburn found herself in an ancient fishing village in Ardmore Ireland. Her husband Andrew’s mother had just passed. Her house, Rock House, built on the cliffs in the late 1700s, overlooked Ardmore Bay, where the Celtic Sea met the Atlantic.
Leslie had gotten word of the death of her colleague and friend, David Blundy, who was killed in El Salvador. He was a British journalist who loved living life on the edge. Much like Leslie, you could always count on David to be in the danger zone. He had stepped out into the middle of a deserted street when he was shot by a sniper.
Leslie had just recovered and decompressed from her very successful stint in Columbia and had gotten word of a new strain of malaria sweeping through the war-torn jungles of Columbia.
After having three Frontline projects on the shelf, Leslie was given free reign and the choice of any project she wished. ABC flew her out to New York to pitch the idea to Ottawa-born news anchor Peter Jennings and convince him to come along. She would only get Jennings for only one week, so she would have to do all the prep work and pre-shoots for six weeks in Cambodia, Thailand, China, and Vietnam.
It was a punishing and grueling week with Jennings and the film crew. By then, her personal film crew were hardened, seasoned veterans who had traveled around the world with her from Haiti, Columbia, and Bangkok to Timbuktu.
Leslie’s main task was to pave the way for Jennings and her film crew in order to get to the front lines. She convinced Cambodian Minister of Defense, General Teh Banh, to be their personal escort who also seemed eager to share the successes and results of their glorious triumphs.
They were under constant surveillance of the Khmer Rouge Intelligence, Thai Intelligence, as well as the US Defense Intelligence Agency. Small world.
How bad did things have to get in US foreign relations that we were actually doing business with the Asian equivalent of the Nazis? Pol Pot’s Cambodian death machine of the Khmer Rouge was responsible for the death and mutilation of all intellectuals and educated people such as doctors, nurses, teachers, professors… basically, anyone who knew how to read. He even sanctioned the death of anyone wearing glasses just because it made them look like intellectuals.
At the end of his reign of terror, of torture, bludgeoning, starving, and working to death nearly two million Cambodians, he was allowed to live in Southern Thailand at a retreat where he gave lectures in tactics as well as ideology and his personal philosophy.
The Vietnamese army of the newly Unified Vietnam had invaded Cambodia toppling Pol Pot’s government in 1978, forcing him to retreat to the Cambodian border where he was allowed to live and act with impunity until his death in 1998.
In their attempt to take back power in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge helped themselves to US armaments and supplies conveniently left unguarded in warehouses on Thai soil. It seems that factions in Washington never forgot about the withdrawal from Saigon and were more than happy to funnel American made weapons manufactured in Singapore to the Khmer Rouge as long as they killed Vietnamese.
The Rouge would make their base of operations within the UN refugee camps where they would recruit at gunpoint and used the refugees as message couriers and weapons mules. They were forced to travel back and forth across territory where over half a million land mines littered the terrain. Soon, UN hospitals were overflowing with Thai-Cambodian amputees suffering from cerebral malaria. Polio also was beginning to sweep through the camps. In a sick twist of fate, the Khmer Rouge was America’s ally against the Vietnamese government.
This was an explosive story waiting to leap to the headlines of every major newspaper in America. Leslie just needed to get someone in charge on the record.
By the time they reached the frontlines, both sides were engaged in a deadlock skirmish in a village of Svay Chek, which was considered the most important accomplishment in the decade-long war.
The camera crew wasted no time in rushing into the fray right at the blazing artillery in order to get close up shots of the jumping guns as they launched shells at the advancing army.
George, their soundman, ended up tangled in the cables attached to one of the guerrilla tanks. The tank driver panicked and took off dragging poor George behind the tank, who screamed in vain to get the driver to stop, who seemed deafened by the roar of the tank. Eventually, one of the soldiers ran up to the turret to get the driver to stop. Crises averted.
They later met with General Pann Thay and General Sam Suk Sakhorn of the KPNLF (Khmer People’s National Liberation Front). They were colloquially known as Task Force 80, also known as the Non-Communist resistance. It almost reminds you of a Monty Python sketch.
It was time for Peter Jennings to shine as he conducted the interviews with the generals and other persons of interest. He was probably the most famous newsman in the United States at the time. During the interviews, you almost got the impression that, through his air of cool authority, Pete Jennings was their superior demanding a status report who was entitled to answers. He even got the two generals to admit that there was coordination between the guerrillas and KPNLF through the covert aid of the United States!
The US Embassy used a manufactured front group called the Cambodian Working Group as a go-between for monthly status reports and requests for weapons and ammunition.
Once the Embassy got word of Jenning’s presence in Cambodia, everyone clammed up and went into panic mode. Everyone from top officials all the way down to janitor were placed under a gag order.
Even with all of that, the news crew was able to confirm that the CIA was also involved in weapons transports and operations. There were quite a few unnamed operatives that had fought alongside of the Khmer Rouge.
The Frontline News expose ended up being showered with awards and was the catalyst for Congressional hearings and investigations that ended the operations. Even Peter Jennings was convinced that he and Leslie could put in a bid for the Nobel Peace Prize and win.
Thanks for reading🌺
Further Reading:
Parts 1 and 2:
Looking for Trouble: One Woman, Six Wars, and a Revolution by Leslie Cockburn, 1998.
Leslie Cockburn List of Works on Biblio
Leslie Cockburn biography on Wikipedia
Leslie Cockburn’s Instagram (older, campaign) account.
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