Welcome back to WCH Crime. This is the third part of our mini-series on the Columbia Eagle Mutiny.

Where we left off last time, Alan Clyde had successfully hijacked the SS Columbia Eagle, got it to neutral Cambodia, been given asylum and a guarantee by authorities, but their deadly cargo

would be held until the end of the war.

It's the case of the successful two-man mutiny aboard the American munitions ship, Columbia Eagle.

Two crewmen were armed when they took control of the cargo ship.

The hijackers' people went on.

On the 17th of March, the mutineers, along with Captain Swan, were taken off the ship to the

naval base at Rayam, near Sienukville, and from there they were flown to the capital, Phnom Penh.

There, they were taken out to dinner by their Cambodian hosts and put up in an army barracks.

So right then, it looked like Alan Clyde had got everything they hoped for, but unbeknownst to

them at the time, events in Cambodia were unfolding.

The U.S. had been trying to undermine, seen it for many years, because they wanted the

Cambodian government to step up, the against the Camara Rouge as well as the Viet Cong.

And the North Vietnamese people bring in transporting materials down the Houthi Ventral.

So they had been pushing different members of the government providing, I imagine, material support and financial support to line their pockets.

But the CIA was adamantly moving towards trying to get some of those people on their side.

And this was the golden opportunity.

The next day, 18th of March 1970, Al and Clyde were driven to the Foreign Office to meet

with officials and fill in some paperwork about what they'd done to process their asylum claims.

On the way, Al asked to go by the embassies of North Vietnam and the Viacong, which the driver did.

Outside the embassies, there were big crowds shouting and yelling, but from the car they couldn't see what all the commotion was about.

That only became clear later.

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