The Americans, Elizabeth Becker and Richard Dudman, were the first nonsocialist journalists to visit Democratic Kampuchea. They arrived in Phnom Penh in mid-December accompanied by a radical academic, Malcolm Caldwell, from the University of London. Dudman and Becker had lived in Cambodia and reported on the war in the early 1970s. Caldwell had been an active supporter of Democratic Kampuchea since its foundation and had spoken and written widely in its defense. Dudman and Becker were selected because Khmer officials saw the value of being covered by nonsocialist media and hoped for evenhanded treatment (which they received). The officials also took it for granted that the journalists were employed by the omnipotent CIA and prepared surveillance reports on them during their visits. Caldwell, on the other hand, was a “friend.” The main effect of this was that he was granted an individual audience with Pol Pot, while Becker and Dudman were granted one together.35

The two reporters had submitted questions to Pol Pot in advance, and the prime minister’s consolidated reply (which struck Dudman as a “filibuster ... so that he would not have to answer our questions ... which were rather pointed”) answered some of the issues they had raised. The audience took place in the government guest house, formerly the Residence Supérieure, in the northern part of the city. Dudman and Becker were driven there in a large Mercedes. Both of them recalled that Pol Pot, wearing a silvery Chinese-style suit, sat in an armchair on a slightly raised platform. Thiounn Prasith, who had been their guide on tours of the countryside, was also on the dais, with Ieng Sary and another translator; these three men remained standing.36

Becker found Pol Pot “elegant, with a pleasing face, not handsome but attractive.... Physically, he had a strong, comfortable appearance.... His gestures and manner were polished, not crude.” Dudman thought that Pol Pot was “rather slight physically, not stocky like most Cambodians.” Dudman also found the situation overly controlled and was “not especially impressed” by Pol Pot, although, like Becker, he noticed his elegant, manicured, “almost spidery” hands. Both reporters were exasperated when Pol Pot said nothing about human rights abuses, Sihanouk, or the identities of his colleagues—the questions begging for answers in the United States. Instead, after an exchange of pleasantries and some juice served in hollowed-out oranges (“There were flies everywhere,” Dudman recalled), Pol Pot embarked on an hour-long monologue that traced the history of Vietnamese aggression and Cambodian righteousness. He said nothing of his domestic programs, the purges, or Vietnamese military successes. He failed to mention the party. He insisted that Vietnam was without international support and that its government was near collapse. He never raised his voice: “At the most,” wrote Becker, “he nodded his head slightly or flicked his dainty wrist for emphasis.” He spoke of the “Warsaw Pact” as threatening Cambodia and mused that this might provoke a counterattack from the anti-Soviet North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Perhaps he was spinning fantasies until the interview was over. Perhaps he hoped the journalists were in a position to obtain American military support for Cambodia. In view of the warm treatment the United States gave Romania’s pro-Chinese, anti-Soviet dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu (who had recently visited Phnom Penh), Pol Pot’s reading of possibilities was less farfetched than it appeared.