Operation Freedom Deal was a military campaign led by the United States Seventh Air Force, taking place in Cambodia between 19 May 1970 and 15 August 1973. Part of the larger Vietnam War and the Cambodian Civil War, the goal of the operation was to provide air support and interdiction in the region. Launched by President Richard Nixon as a follow-up to the earlier ground invasion during the Cambodian Campaign, the initial targets of the operation were the base areas and border sanctuaries of the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong (VC).
An aerial view of bomb craters in Cambodia
The Cambodian Civil War was a civil war in Cambodia fought between the forces of the Communist Party of Kampuchea against the government forces of the Kingdom of Cambodia and, after October 1970, the Khmer Republic, which had succeeded the kingdom.
U.S. tanks entering Snuol in Cambodia in 1970.
Meeting in Beijing: Mao Zedong (left), Prince Sihanouk (center), and Liu Shaoqi (right)
Areas under government control, August 1970
A memorial to the civil war in Siem Reap, Cambodia, with a rusted wreck of a Soviet-built T-54 main battle tank used during the war. Large numbers of T-54s were used by Cambodia during and after the bloody fighting of the conflict between 1970 and 1975, with many such wrecks (in various states of abandonment and disrepair) scattered all over the country today.
