Bretton Sciaroni, Influential American in Cambodia, Dies at 69

He angered many in Cambodia when he drew up a government “white paper” that justified the coup by Mr. Hun Sen in 1997, arguing that his seizure of full leadership from his co-prime minister, Norodom Ranariddh, had in fact been carried out to prevent a coup.

Mr. Sciaroni was born in Los Angeles in September 1951, the son of a doctor and a homemaker, and grew up in Fresno, Calif.

He received a master’s degree in international affairs from Georgetown University a law degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. He worked for conservative policy associations before joining the Reagan administration, where he worked on arms control and commerce before moving to the Intelligence Oversight Board.

In Cambodia, according to a friend, he lived by an unchanging routine: arriving at and leaving his office early, then visiting a circuit of bars, where he regularly tipped the waitresses two dollars each, a considerable sum for working Cambodians.

He called himself a devout Roman Catholic but said his regular bedside reading was not the Bible but “A Confederacy of Dunces,” a picaresque novel by John Kennedy Toole, which he opened at random before falling asleep.

In addition to his brother Brian, he is survived by his wife, Bui Thi Hoa My; their daughter, Patricia; and another brother, Matthew.

“Brett was terrific, personally and professionally,” recalled Luke Hunt, a Phnom Penh-based foreign correspondent and columnist for The Diplomat, an online current affairs magazine. “He ranked among the handful of foreigners who genuinely knew Cambodia and the powers that made it work.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/26/world/asia/bretton-sciaroni-dead.html