16 Debré, Cambodge, p. 82.

17 Kiernan, HPP, p. 121; Marie-A. Martin, Le mal cambodgien (Paris, 1989), p. 105; and interviews with Keng Vannsak (May 1988) and Thiounn Mumm (February 1990). In 1997, Mey Mann told Steve Heder: ”This was the first time that anyone in Paris had learned anything concrete“ about the Issarak. ”We were all operating in the dark. Our only source of information was through that Vietnamese delegation.“ Those who attended the conference included Hou Youn, Thiounn Prasith, Thiounn Mumm, and five others. The flag was resurrected in 1979 by the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK). In 1989 the lower half of the flag became blue (just as the ”NLF“ [National Liberation Front] flag in southern Vietnam was a North Vietnamese flag with its lower half blue). The five-towered yellow motif, perhaps a Khmerization of Vietnam’s five-pointed star, remained the same. Debré, Cambodge, p. 84, reported that students returning from Berlin were even more action oriented than they had been before. According to Thiounn Mumm, ”Saloth Sar did not go because he had been to Yugoslavia“ (interview with Steve Heder, April 1980).

18 For a helpful chronology of events affecting the French Communist party in the early 1950s, see Dessanti, Les Staliniens, pp. 250-267. See also Philippe Robrieux, Histoire du PCF, 4 vols. (Paris, 1985-1990); and Irwin Wall, French Communism in the Era of Stalin (Westport, Conn., 1964), Chapter 5. On p. 119, Wall referred to 1949-1953 in the CPF as ”years of blunder and vacillation.“ ”Springtime“ quotation from author’s interview with Jacques Verges (October 1987). Restaurant information from author’s interview with Pierre Brocheux (May 1987).

19 From author’s interview with Thiounn Mumm.

20 Khmer Peace Committee, Khmer Armed Resistance, p. 7, refers to the assassin as a ”Khmer patriot.“

21 See Chandler, Tragedy, pp. 57—61; and Kiernan, HPP, pp. 98ff.

22 Individuals radicalized by these events included Hu Nim and Vorn Vet in Cambodia (Kiernan, HPP, p. 118). Thonn Ouk, a prominent Democrat then in Paris, noted the radicalizing effect Sihanouk’s coup had on Cambodian students there (author’s interview, October 1987).

23 A French translation of the essay appears as an annex to Serge Thion and Ben Kiernan, Khmers rouges! (Paris, 1981), pp. 357—361. Keng Vannsak identified ”Original Khmer“ as Saloth Sar in conversations with Ben Kiernan. Khmer daom has overtones of ethnic authenticity and racial purity (author’s interview with Khing Hoc Dy, October 1991), but this does not seem to be its overriding meaning. See Marie-A. Martin, Khmer doeum (Paris, 1997), a book about the Pear or Porr; and R. Baradat,”Le Samre ou Pear: Population primitive de l‘ouest du Cambodge,“ Bulletin de l’Ecole française d‘Extrême Orient 4 (1941). I am grateful to Vannsak for a copy of the original Khmer version. See also Serge Thion, ”The Cambodian Idea of Revolution,“ in Chandler and Kiernan, eds., Revolution and Its Aftermath in Kampuchea, pp. 16-17.