74 SOCIAL SCIENTIST in Indo-Ghina) was one of the outstanding leaders of the French resistance. Opposed to 'Uncle Ho' and his comrades were the rulers of Vichy France who, as the prince relates in his book, ceded Cambodia—and myself—to the Japanese in December 1941. If the French fired a few shots in their own defence, they certainly fired none in defence of the Royal Palace. During the first years of their occupation, the Japanese retained the French administration, ruling through it. I had little contact with the invaders. On 9 March 1945 however, the Japanese suddenly took over complete power. One of their first acts was to inform me that Cambodia, as from that date, was independent. This was another surprise, almost as great as the one four years previously, when I was informed that I had been chosen King. (p 146) The so-called 'independence5 however, was a trick played on the king and the people of Cambodia by the Japanese. They wanted Sihanouk's administration to be their own tool in this part of the world just as Petain's Vichy regime was in relation to the Nazis in Europe. This realization soon came to the princely ruler: the 'price' of the newly-won independence, he learnt, was "that I should place Cambodia at Japan's side in the war, and start mobilizing the country's human and material resources to this end." (pp 146-47) It was at this point that Sihanouk started fighting and gathering experience in the fight, against imperialism. He was not prepared to do the bidding of the occupying power. Taking them at their word he explained to the Japanese that he must have the documents establishing de jure independence before he placed Cambodia among the allies of Japan. This produced an endless series of exchanges between Phnom Penh and Tokyo. I was thus able to keep Cambodia out of the war, and to later use the status of 'independence5 as a bargaining counter with the French. During those five months of notes exchanged with the local Japanese Commander and Tokyo—which went on until the Japanese surrender—I was under constant pressure from Son Ngoc Thanh, who had been brought in by the Japanese from Tokyo shortly after the 9 March coup and imposed on me as the Prime Minister, and whose bidding I was supposed to accept on all matters of state. (p 147) Such skilful manoeuvring with the Japanese and the French enabled the king (which Sihanouk then was) both to keep Cambodia out of the war till the Japanese surrender, and subsequently, to wrest de jure independence from the French. After the Japanese surrender, and the reestablishment of French administration, the new rulers of France tried to play on the anti-Communism of this scion of the royal family to make him collaborate with the colonial administration. This phase of the story is frankly toid by the author in the following words: "In those days, due to the