Response to '75 ship crisis focused on US prestige
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| FILE - In this May 1975 file photo, the destroyer escort USS Harold E. Holt prepares to tow the United States owned cargo vessel SS Mayaguez on May 1975. When the merchant ship Mayaguez and its American crew were seized by communist forces off the coast of Cambodia in 1975, the Ford administration was determined to craft a muscular response in hope of limiting damage to U.S. prestige, according to newly declassified documents published by the State Department. (AP Photo/ U.S. Navy, File) |
By ROBERT BURNS (AP)
WASHINGTON — When the merchant ship Mayaguez and its American crew were seized by communist forces off the coast of Cambodia in 1975, the Ford administration was determined to craft a muscular response in hope of limiting damage to U.S. prestige, according to newly declassified documents published by the State Department.
U.S. Marines regained control of the ship three days after its seizure, and the 40 civilian members of the crew were safely returned. But three helicopters ferrying Marines to a nearby island defended by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge forces were lost to hostile fire, and 18 U.S. servicemen died. Decades later the U.S. was still recovering their remains.
Washington's initial response illustrated how, just weeks after the fall of Saigon, U.S. leaders were eager to put the Vietnam debacle behind them, erase the U.S. image as a helpless giant, and dissuade provocative action by other U.S. adversaries. A non-military response, such as freezing Cambodian assets, was raised and quickly rejected as ineffectual.
