THE former US first lady, Jackie Kennedy, had always longed to see Angkor Wat, and when her chance came to visit Cambodia in 1967, she called it “a girlhood dream come true.” Life magazine put her week-long trip on its cover, declaring Mrs Kennedy’s ‘radiance’ to be ‘now as famous in Phnom Penh as it is in Paris’. She even found time, Life reported, to admire Prince Sihanouk’s own jazz compositions.

Yet the visit almost didn’t happen. Relations between Cambodia and the US had been severed in 1965 so Mrs Kennedy needed special permission to enter the country. An invitation was duly issued from Prince Sihanouk, but then there was the not insubstantial problem of how she would get there. There were flights from the US to Bangkok but no onward commercial flights into Cambodia. Problem solved: she and her entourage flew into Phnom Penh on a US Air Force C54, the first US aircraft to touch down in Cambodia for two years. Stepping from the plane on 2 November 1967, one of the 20th century’s most stylish women received a rapturous welcome. Cambodia, like everyone else, adored her.

Naturally Mrs Kennedy was hosted in Phnom Penh by the city’s most prestigious hotel: the Hotel Le Royal, now Raffles Hotel Le Royal. And what better way to commemorate her stay than with a champagne cocktail? After all, her enthusiasm for both champagne and cocktails was well known – indeed, she is said to have caused something of a rumpus at the White House when she replaced the traditional pre-dinner punch with European-style cocktails.