It was a masterly performance. Pol Pot’s tearful regrets, while probably convincing to his listeners, were insufficient to make him leave politics or to ask any of his former associates in Democratic Kampuchea to resign. Perhaps he was genuinely sorry that so many people had died when he had commanded the state; nonetheless, his faith in the cause to which these lives had been sacrificed (even when it was “too far to the left”) was unshaken. That his naïveté, idealism, or incompetence had permitted so many deaths did not unnerve him, although he begged the question why someone so easily deceived, and by so many, should remain in power. Moreover, his chagrin at being told “things that were not true” is difficult to square with his own tactical handling of the truth on issues as elementary as his own life story. Finally, for someone formed on the Vietnamese frontier in 1953-1954 and trained by the Vietnamese in the 1960s, his identification of the “major problem” as stemming from “cadre formed by the Vietnamese” is almost a Freudian slip.

This talk, like so many others by Pol Pot, seems to have accomplished its purpose: to serve communism, to secure and deepen his listeners’ loyalty to him, and to anchor their devotion to his cause. The source added that Pol Pot “seemed very nice. He ... treated me like an equal.” Once again, in a succession of role models stretching back through Tou Samouth, Thiounn Mumm, and Khvan Siphan, Pol Pot had displayed a common touch so rare among Cambodia’s authority figures as to be singled out for praise by those who listened to him.

Dropping Out of Sight, 1981—1986

From 1981 until the end of 1986 no speeches or writing can be traced with certainty to Pol Pot. We have only two photographs of him from this period and no anecdotes. Except for a stretch in the hospital in China in 1985—when rumors circulated in Bangkok and elsewhere that he was terminally ill—we know that he remained for most of the time in heavily guarded camps. His work involved transforming what remained of Democratic Kampuchea’s army into a guerrilla force before building up larger, more heavily armed units when political warfare had proved successful. Until 1985 he had overall command of the armed forces. In August of that year, however, his “retirement” was announced to coincide with his sixtieth birthday. He became the director of the Higher Institute of National Defense—about which nothing is known—and held this position until he “resigned” in 1989. He probably remained secretary of the Communist party, such as it was, until 1997, and he certainly continued to play an advisory role to the Red Khmer’s politico-military apparatus, but he was always concealed from view. Throughout the 1980s he mystified and frightened his opponents because his invisibility echoed that of many magically endowed Cambodian heroes in traditional literature. Like his guerrilla armies, he could appear (and disappear) at the times and places he chose.