Miss Harris "Secret Cambodia Bombings-Vietnam War"

Molly Lorenz
Miss Harris
United States History II
5/27/08
Operation Menu: Breakfast at Base Area 353
All government operations need names, especially secret ones. The secret ones need the most untraceable names when it comes down to meanings. Named after the meeting at the Pentagon from which it was devised, the mission Breakfast had five followers: Lunch, Snack, Dinner, Supper, and Dessert. During the course of this 14 month period between March 18th, 1959 and May 28th, 1960, a total of 108,823 tons of ordnance was dropped and in mission Breakfast alone, 2,400 bombs. The cause for all of this was rather like a domino effect in that Cambodia’s neighbor China was heavily Communist, convincing the prince Sihanouk that Communism was inevitable. Although Cambodia was still remaining “neutral”, Sihanouk allowed the People’s Republic of China PAVN and NLF Base Areas in Cambodia and to use a port for delivering military material. Cambodia’s neutrality was promised in the Geneva Convention merely five years prior, and while the United States was not keen on violating that neutrality, Lyndon B. Johnson authorized reconnaissance operations nevertheless. The original hope outcome for this mission was change Sihanouk’s mind by obtaining intelligence on the Base Areas (Project Vesuvius).
Both Nixon and Kissinger knew that the bombings of neutral Cambodia would not be supported by the people of the United States or Congress, and thus, they both went through great lengths to not let anybody who didn’t need to know about it know. In addition, the bombing would be sure to provoke more anti-war protests on college campuses, something that was only negative in the eyes of the government. Because of these things, Nixon and Kissinger devised a dual reporting system - one communication line was normal, ordering typical B-52 missions that would occur near Cambodia in South Vietnam, the other communication line was ordering classified missions between commanders. When the United States finally found out the whole truth about this, it was not until Clinton’s presidency, and while the population knew some things about it, they were shocked to find out it had happened an entire five years before they thought it had.