If it were not for what had happened in the 1970s, the brutal final months of his time in power, and the interviews he gave before his death, it would be tempting to close his biography at this point, with the sight of a frail old man stumbling off into what were to be ten months of closely guarded isolation. The ferocity of his actions in 1996-1997, however, suggests that his conduct in the 1970s, although concealed from view, had been similarly ruthless. Son Sen was not the first of his colleagues he had ordered killed. His capacity for terror, in fact, may have done as much to hold the Red Khmer together as did his genteel charisma and revolutionary zeal. The interviews, in turn, allow us to overhear him sifting through the ashes of his career, still seeking a place in history.

Thayer returned to Anlong Veng in mid-October 1997 and was granted two hours alone with Pol Pot and an interpreter—the first interview that Brother Number One had given anybody since 1979. Thayer’s questions pinpointed the DK era. “As you know,” he said, “most of the world thinks that you’re responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Cambodians who didn’t deserve to suffer.” Pol Pot replied: “I’m going to reply. I’m going to tell you clearly. I would like to tell you that I came to carry out the struggle, not to kill people. Even now, and you can look at me, amIasavage person? My conscience is clear.”

Pol Pot sits and listens as he is denounced as a murderer of his countrymen at a trial in the Cambodian jungle on July 25, 1997, in proceedings that found him guilty and sentenced him to life under house arrest. Copyright 1997 Nate Thayer, and Tom Keller & Associates LLC.

Thayer pressed on, asking Pol Pot to acknowledge that he had “made very serious mistakes” during his time in power. Pol Pot replied deftly, in a schoolmasterish fashion: “There are two sides to it, as I told you. There’s what we did wrong, and what we did right. The mistake is that we did some things against the people ... but the other side, as I told you, is that without our struggle there would be no Cambodia right now.”