Cambodia in 1969 was neutral in name only. The Geneva Conference on Indochina in 195?4 had declared it to be a nonaligned nation and the official designation was still in effect.
However, Cambodia’s Prince Norodom Sihanouk, believing Hanoi would win the Vietnam War, had broken off relations with the United States in 1965. He permitted the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong to use staging bases in Cambodia for operations in South Vietnam.
The Cambodian border with South Vietnam ran for 706 miles from the central highlands to the Mekong Delta. Along that stretch were at least 15 sanctuary bases, one of them in the “Parrot’s Beak,” which hooked into Vietnam only 33 miles from Saigon.
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