Impeachment Hearings. House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974. Cambodia Bombing Article of Impeachment. Henry Smith III
Impeachment Hearings. House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974. Cambodia Bombing Article of Impeachment. Henry Smith III
Impeachment Hearings. House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974. Cambodia Bombing Article of Impeachment. Henry Smith III (R - New York).
Impeachment Hearings. House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974. Cambodia Bombing Article of Impeachment. Henry Smith III
Peter Rodino (D New Jersey). The gentleman from New York, Mr. Smith, is recognized for 3 minutes and 45 seconds. Henry Smith III (R New York). Mr. Chairman, the other night when we started this debate I said that as far as I was concerned I did not think that clear and convincing proof of the President's direct involvement in all of the that had been made against him had been brought forth this committee in the months of our efforts and the mountains of evidence that we have looked at. But I was bothered in one area and that was this area of the bombing in Cambodia in which the proof seemed to be clear and convincing to me that the President directly ordered bombing in Cambodia and that it be concealed generally from the American people and generally from the Congress. And it does bother me. And I congratulate the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Conyers, for bringing this article forward. Now, I am going to vote against the article because there are too many aspects of the situation which are still not clear, and perhaps will not be clear for years. I think perhaps this committee should have gone into this matter more deeply than we did. I think we should have pursued perhaps more vigorously the quest for information. But we have heard about the President's duty to inform the Congress about military moves. This was a move. One question is was this militarily justified, and the consensus seems to be, that it was. It did save American lives.
Impeachment Hearings. House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974. Cambodia Bombing Article of Impeachment. Henry Smith III
Did Prince Sihanouk acquiesce in it? Well, the evidence there appears to be that he did. Now, we were told at a briefing of Members of Congress that he, acquiesced in it but he said since I am a neutral, if you tell anybody I will deny it. He was bothered by the fact that North Vietnamese and Vietcong were living on his eastern borders. The price of his neutrality was to let them do it or they were going to take over the country. Now, the evidence indicates that he did acquiesce because I looked at some of these 109 protests made by the permanent member, the permanent Commissioner of Cambodia to the United Nations and they were all about helicopters, all about sky hawks. There isn t one, as I understand, about any B-52 bombings. Ms. Holtzman told us how many B-52 bombings took place after the figures came out.