37 Nuon Chea, ”History.“ After Samouth’s disappearance, Nuon Chea went underground:”I never went anywhere during the day. I never went to eat noodles in a shop. I was never happy like other people. That’s why my children said to me: ’You’re like a rat in a hole.‘“ See also Kiernan, HPP, p. 241; and author’s interview with Tea Sa Bun (September 1990). The confessions of Ruos Mau (Say) (September 1977) and Som Chea (March 1978) both asserted that Samouth was abducted from ”Lon Nol’s house“ in a car. Som Chea added that party members stabbed Samouth to death on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. Serge Thion, ”A propos de Tou Samouth,“ Srok khmer, May 1987, summarized the evidence available up to that point. Cambodian official Ouk Boun Chhoeum told Thion in 1981 that he believed Samouth was betrayed by a fellow Communist who had been working for Sieu Heng and had been arrested, interrogated, and killed ”after 1975.“ Heng was assassinated on Nuon Chea’s orders in April 1975 after Communist forces occupied Battambang (from author’s interview with Ty Sophen, February 1989). An argument against Heng’s complicity would be that cadre brought to Tuol Sleng on trumped-up charges would have been eager to blame their treachery on Sieu Heng, one of the few genuine and well-known deserters from the party. Had Heng handed Samouth over to Lon Nol, it seems likely that others in the Communist network would have been arrested soon after. On balance, evidence points to Samouth being picked up, unrecognized, in a police raid and then killed after a fruitless interrogation.

38 Vorn Vet’s confession (typed version), p. 15. Nuon Chea, in his ”History,“ also blames Samouth’s bodyguards, but his assertion may have been colored by his knowledge of the S-21 confessions.

39 From author’s interview with Sok Chuon (June 1990). Michael Vickery (personal communication) recalled that Saloth Sar was known as a progressive among fellow schoolteachers. Chhim Samauk’s confession mentions secret study sessions in the suburb of Beng Trabek. For an analysis of the interplay between Buddhist and Communist styles of teaching, see François Ponchaud, ”Social Change in the Vortex of Revolution,“ in Jackson, ed., Cambodia, 1975—1978, pp. 172ff. Sok Chuon claimed that at this time Nuon Chea was also well known as a propagandist.

40 From author’s interviews with Oeur Hunly (September 1989) and Sok Pirun (November 1989); and Siet Chhae’s confession. Party members held their own closed sessions. Pun Than’s confession lists those regularly attending such sessions in Phnom Penh in 1958-1959.

41 On the Siem Reap demonstrations, see RC, March 8, 1963. See also Khieu Samphan, Cambodia’s Economic Development, ed. and trans. by Laura Summers (Ithaca, N.Y., 1979), p. 17; and author’s interviews with Ith Sarin (November 1988) and Thel Thong (August 1987). On Lon Nol’s list, see Kiernan, HPP, pp. 202 and 242 (n158). Chou Chet fled Phnom Penh a week earlier, according to his confession.