In 1967, Jackie Kennedy was asked by President Lyndon B. Johnson for a favor: would she go to Cambodia and personally persuade Prince Sihanouk to permit the US to drop bombs on the Ho Chi Minh Trail’s Cambodian sections?
Bilateral relations between the US and Cambodia had been severed since 1965, with Prince Sihanouk, then Chief of State, having stated his conditions for reestablishing ties (via Australian and French interlocutors) as: 1. Recognition for Cambodia’s boundaries, 2. Compensation for lives lost, and 3. An end to bombings and incursions in the country. Oh, the irony.
Jackie was the perfect- and perhaps only- operative who might have succeeded in this mission. She was not a professional diplomat, but a friend-of-a-friend; when JFK met Sihanouk at the Carlyle in 1961, they genuinely got along.
Jackie’s almost-Frenchness matched that of Sihanouk and Monique, and JFK’s mode of entertaining- formally and with every European luxury and conceit- suited their taste and comfort level. Self-made men and those born into privilege and prestige are essentially different, and the two couples clicked in a way that Lyndon and Ladybird themselves didn’t and couldn’t.
While Sihanouk and Monique wouldn’t deal with many of the political personages they encountered beyond immediate affairs of state, they didn’t consider Jackie socially beneath them or uncomfortably foreign, and– her days as First Lady years past– didn’t perceive her as having ulterior motives. Her initial gesture was to write Sihanouk a letter asking him to arrange a trip to see Angkor, as it was one of her childhood dreams.
Glamorous, mannered, cultured, warm at times, and rather expert at flattery, Jackie was also (perhaps most importantly) ever so slightly pathetic at that moment. Iconically widowed at just 34, she was reinventing herself out of necessity, traveling extensively, visiting old friends, and deciding how to move on.
Much was made of her traveling to Cambodia with Lord Harlech, whose wife had just passed away two months prior. She had invited him as he was not only an unassailable British diplomat and SEA expert, but a former personal friend of JFK’s; at the time, he was annoyed enough by press speculation to issue a statement: “Mrs. Kennedy and I have been close friends for 13 years but there is no truth to the story of a romance between us. I deny it flatly.” Yet, an intimate relationship did ensue, he proposed, and she turned him down- all in Cambodia.
For Sihanouk and Monique, showing America’s fabulous, charming, same-age dowager duchess a wonderful time in their neck of the woods was a pleasure, not an obligation. They were delighted to show off Angkor Wat and drink great French wine at Hotel Le Royal, wearing Valentino and Norman Hartnell, seeing it as something easy they could do to please the pro-American, Lon Nol followers.
At a press conference in Phnom Penh prior to her arrival, Sihanouk said:
“We gladly welcome Her Excellency, Kennedy, only because she is a remarkable woman, and we used to admire the beloved former President, who was assassinated. It has been written that we used to be happy with the death of J.F. Kennedy, which is really wrong (…)
Question: "Would Your Majesty feel aggrieved if one day Her Excellency Kennedy remarried?"
Answer: "Our policy is not to interfere in the affairs of other countries. Therefore, it is not at all polite for us to be interested in the private life of her excellency Kennedy. We would like to wish her nothing but happiness.”
We all now know that Sihanouk made the wrong decision, one that countless other fears and factors should have kept him from making. He had good insight on potential negative outcomes, including from Australia, whose embassy had been handling backroom negotiations and consular affairs for the US.
Yet, I think not near enough blame gets put on Jackie; it’s not even common knowledge that she personally made the big ask.
Prince Sihanouk denied being influenced by her at all, exclaiming during a press conference broadcasted by Radio Phnom Penh (quoted by the New York Times, 11 Jan. 1968):
“They wanted to give [this] visit significance! They wanted Jackie to be able to re-establish diplomatic relations between Cambodia and the United States without the United States having to fulfill the conditions set by Cambodia! They wanted Jackie to obtain the repatriation of all prisoners, civilian and military, currently imprisoned by the National Liberation Front! They wanted Jackie to obtain I don’t know what!”
It’s possible that’s entirely true, and he was only pressured into cooperating due to other inexorable factors. Yet, I believe a magpie like Sihanouk would have been much more likely to flatly say no to anyone else, or at least set much stricter conditions. I genuinely believe he thought Jackie was his friend who wanted the best for him; in his welcome speech, he had written that were JFK still President (rather than LBJ), there wouldn’t even be a war in Vietnam. Lord Harlech emphasized to Jackie how problematic this was, and she asked SIhanouk to retract it last minute– which he did.
I wonder . . . did Jackie think she was doing the right thing? Did she just feel she owed LBJ a favor? To this day almost 60 years hence children in the countryside are exploding, at least partially due to Sihanouk’s acquiescence. There’s of course no guarantee the US wouldn’t have dropped bombs had he said no; asking for forgiveness rather than permission . . . then not even asking for forgiveness . . . then eventually making a perverse show of forgiving its victims– has been the trajectory of US diplomacy over the ensuing half century.
That’s why it is so curious to me that Jackie’s visit is so blithely commemorated at the present-day Raffles in Phnom Penh. I suppose her image as a timeless style icon so outweighs any awareness of her role in Cambodia’s sordid past that too few people find it distasteful. I do, but I ordered the Jacqueline Kennedy 1967 menu anyway; such is the sway of Jackie.
Was it worth it? No.
First, as usual, the nonfood items:
The atmosphere on Saturday night was dead, though not in a way I much minded . . . perhaps even in a way I appreciate as a frumpy solo female traveler. There are few tables in the formal dining room (fewer than 10, if memory serves), and at any given time half were empty. The crowd was the standard bourgeois hotel crowd: a group of European boomers on holiday; an American couple on honeymoon; a local big boss with his family of about a dozen, including several young children; another solo diner giving strong digital nomad passport bro vibes, wearing AirPods rather than listening to the live pianist; and a semi-formally dressed Chinese couple a few years older than me, seated on either side of the double doors of the private dining room, neither eating nor drinking– whom I soon realized (as teen girls in designer clothes flitted in and out in pairs) were parents hosting a birthday or similar celebration for their daughter, who clearly attends some expensive local international school. Thinking back on sweet sixteens at the Plaza or Pierre almost 30 years ago, I chuckled out loud remembering how none of my friends’ parents were so careful, if they were physically present at all.
The decor is meh. Formal but meh. The bar and lobby are far more picturesque, though I’d skip the mannequin sentinels.
The best drink, by far, was the Femme Fatale cocktail served before dinner. Anywhere else (though I doubt it’s served anywhere except retro-themed speakeasies featuring favorite cocktails of Golden Era film stars– this was Marlene Dietrich’s), a Femme Fatale is gin, Cointreau and lemon juice. At Raffles, it’s crème de fraise de bois, cognac, and champagne (though I suspect they substitute cheaper sparkling wine these days), supposedly a recipe whipped up just for Jackie. What a morbid joke; they could never have guessed how on the nose the name would become.
In 1967, the trendiest drink in SEA was the Singapore Sling (an early example of successful heritage branding at Raffles), a resurrection from the 1900s or 1910s: strong, sweet, fruity, and bright pink.
Along the same lines, the femme fatale was introduced as a drink as red as Jackie’s lips . . . except Jackie never wore a red lip (usually a pearlescent pink), and she wore opaque peach on that particular evening, and the drink served today is about the color of apple juice . . . so, who knows?
The wine pairing was $48 and not right for me. I blame myself entirely, because the selections are clearly stated on the menu, I just didn’t bother to look them up. First up was an $18/bottle Venetian pinot grigio, then a $26/bottle of Australian chardonnay. Then an $18/bottle Loire valley sauvignon blanc. Then a $35/bottle Graves “house red” cab/merlot mix. None of these were terrible, but they certainly weren’t great, and they were all cheaper and worse than anything I’d serve at home.
Whatever the tariffs, I’m a bit surprised Raffles would serve such mediocre wine– and can’t imagine Jackie was served anything but the best wine– so I was disappointed. I’d rather pay triple for pairings matching the varietal, terroir, and quality of what she was served; even more for exact vineyard matches and equivalent vintages. That’s what I was expecting, failing to note the price.
At least they were generous with what they have; they let me have a second glass gratis from the giant dame-jeanne of Laubade armagnac xo paired with dessert. It was blended not vintage, and I forgot to take a picture, so I don’t know if it goes for $55 or $95, but either way it was by far the most expensive thing they served, and at least by that point I was sloshed. Maybe I shouldn’t complain, 7 glasses of liquor in an upscale hotel setting doubtless represents value for many people. I think all of these were high quality for the price, just cheaper than I’m used to– chosen well considering local market constraints perhaps. Rather than wobbling out, I’d have preferred only 2 or 3 glasses of better stuff.
Finally, the food. I don’t expect value for food at Raffles– that would be absurd– but I actually kind of think I got it? I really enjoyed only perhaps half of what I ate, but would have happily paid $88 for just those dishes. I did experience an irrational bit of buyer’s remorse; it was only in considering the other dishes that I questioned if it was worth $88.
I did expect decent cooking, but also that a French menu, made with Cambodian ingredients, served in 1967, would be a bit wacky by today’s standards– and it was.
First, the amuse bouche was some sort of seared paté, good but not memorable in any way.
4 types of bread with herbed butter followed and were consumed alongside the courses; they differed somewhat in look but not so much in taste.
The gourmet salad with duck gizzards was fine, tasty, competent, healthy.
The poultry cream soup was a no, and really had that vintage vibe- like a bucket of cream and flour with no salt or pepper, no bouillon, and the tiniest, fewest cubes of chicken or duck or carrot or whatever imaginable.
The duck foie gras mille-feuille I loved, because I’m a rich bitch– perhaps not in the sense of possessing vast wealth, but definitely in the sense of possessing a preference for buttery, savory, high fat foods! This was so filling it could have been a meal itself; the mille-feuille, salad and a glass of white is about what I’d normally order for dinner. I imagine Jackie took one and a half bites and started aggressively initiating conversation rather than risk her figure for it.
My second fave, the mushroom stuffed tenderloin, was next, and came out surprisingly rare- dare I say blue?
I should have expected no less from a French trained kitchen, and it was delicious.
The French toast with fruit and basil ice cream was bland, and the mignardises were great- little candied fruits and nuts and a couple tiny chocolates, not too much or heavy, perfect to nibble with brandy.
Wandering around the back halls for a bit before calling a tuktuk, I thought about the renovations. I rather dislike the excessively cheap and standardized decor in Raffles hotels, and I don’t understand why they ripped out the original antique caustic tile floors and wooden shutters– total overkill. The “look of luxury” will date in 10 or 20 years; restoring to the original never dates.
today
2012
There are various vitrines showcasing pricey souvenirs available in the shop- think $2000 Pailin gem-set belts and handbags, not $8 fake silver betel boxes– and, opposite them, a little homage to Jackie.
Framed press photos of her toasting with Prince Sihanouk and hiking around Angkor Wat, and a pair of her iconic big brown bubble sunglasses (on which I regretfully couldn’t find any branding due to how they’re folded over the picture frame) beg the questions: Did she leave them somewhere by accident? Give them to someone? Were they purchased at an auction in the 90s or something? They’re clearly not the ones she’s wearing at Angkor, but could still be hers . . . or maybe not?
One color photo shows the state gifts she was presented with, though obviously she was not really in a position to receive such things, and another vitrine features the supposed very cocktail glass she drank from, with a faint old lipstick print.
Legend has it one of the waiters saved it as a trophy and hid it away in the cellar somewhere, and it was only discovered years later, but . . . what are the odds it really sat untouched through the civil war, the Khmer Rouge, the Vietnamese occupation, the years the hotel was abandoned? If it really is Jackie’s glass, I almost think it wasn’t a worker who saved Jackie’s glass, but Sihanouk himself; he rode out most of those years under house arrest in his own palace, and personally oversaw the hotel’s 1997 renovation and reopening as a Raffles property. Jackie died in 1994, so she was never able to condone or condemn the marketing; I hate to think no one ever saved a glass at all, and this is a totally unnecessary ploy to profit off her– we’d buy the drink custom created for her without the existence of an old lip print on a glass.
Also in the case is a horrid piece of polyester she would never have worn that’s close to the same color as one of the gowns she wore, and an equally bad faux pearl bracelet and necklace, which again definitely were not hers, and some souvenir Angkor trays and trinket boxes nothing like the fine, pure, artisanal Khmer silver she was given. Though this presentation seems antithetical, I suppose it’s less weird than an otherwise empty vitrine housing a dirty old liqueur glass.
I don’t regret the meal, though I’m sure there are a thousand Michelin 1 star lunches in Europe that are 10x better at the same price. I did learn what I should have already known– Raffles is best for imports, mixed drinks and steak. The best parts of the meal, by far, were the foie-gras, tenderloin and cocktail. I’m a sucker for punishment, so I’ll probably be writing another ‘huh, mid’ review about their Royal Khmer tasting menu before I finally resign myself to gueridon service and gin slings, but . . . you know, hope springs eternal.
