US ambassador at the fall of Phnom Penh dies at 93
JOHN Gunther Dean, the US ambassador who famously carried the American flag to a helicopter leav ing Phnom Penh as the capita l fell to t he Khmer Rouge in 1975, has died. He was 93.
His wife and children announced his passing on Thursday in an obituary posted online.
His granddaughter Laura Dean said the exact cause of his death was not immediately known, the Washington Post reported.
Years after his departure from Cambodia, Dean spoke of his sorrow at failing to rescue more Cambodians from the horrors of the ultra-Maoist regime.
“I failed. I tried so hard. I took as many people as I could, hundreds of them, I took t hem out, but I couldn’t ta ke t he whole nation out,” Dean told the Associated Press (AP) in an inter v iew in 2015 from Paris, where he mainly lived af ter ret ir ing.
He also spoke of his shame at the US “walking out” on Cambodia without keeping its promises to the Kingdom in the interview commemorating the 40th anniversary of the fall of Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975.
“We’d accepted responsibility for Cambodia and then walked out without fulfilling our promise. That’s the worst thing a country can do. And I cried because I knew what was going to happen,” Dean said in the interview.
Dean oversaw the evacuation of the US embassy, frantically trying to help Cambodian officials and others who had fought against them flee the encircling Khmer Rouge.
One, Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak, wrote to Dean to ref use his offer of escape.
“I thank you very sincerely . . . for your offer to transport me towards freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion.
“As for you and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection and we can do nothing about it.
“I have only committed the mistake of believing in you, the Americans,” Sirik Matak wrote.
The former deputy prime minister was likely executed by the Khmer Rouge a week after the fall of Phnom Penh.
Dean described the letter to AP as the “greatest accusation ever made by foreig ners. It is wrenching, no? And put yourself in t he role of t he American representative”.
A photograph of him carrying the embassy’s flag in a plastic bag to a departing helicopter became one of the iconic images of the Vietnam War era.
Dean was later ambassador to Denmark, Lebanon and Thailand. His final posting was in India from 1985-89.
“He was a sk i l led diplomat t hat championed strong US-India relations. Rest in peace and you will be forever missed,” the US embassy in India t weeted.
Born in Germany in 1926, his Jewish family moved to the US in 1938 to escape Nazism.
Dean, who spoke English, French, German, and Danish, is survived by his French-born wife Martine and three children.