17 Information on this period is drawn from author’s interviews in January 1990 with Chhay Yat, Laeo Chheng Heat, and Major General Pel Nal, who all attended the College Sihanouk with Saloth Sar in the 1940s. See also Stephen Heder’s unpublished interviews with Khieu Samphan’s brother Khieu Seng Kim and with Khvan Siphan (1975). Heder recently analyzed Samphan’s survival in Democratic Kampuchea, suggesting that he was heavily implicated in the Communist purges against intellectuals and other associates of Pol Pot in 1977-1978. See Stephen Heder, Khieu Samphan and Pol Pot (Clayton, Australia, 1991).

18 On Khvan Siphan, see interviews above and Heder’s interviews of 1975. Siphan, originally a primary school teacher, later taught at lycées in Phnom Penh, became a school inspector, and served as a senator under the Khmer Republic. He died during the DK period. I am grateful to Justin Corfield for biographical data and for the information (from an anonymous source) that Saloth Sar played violin in the school orchestra.

19 On Sar’s friendship with Lon Non, see author’s interview with Chhay Yat. On Lon Non in 1975, see interviews with Chhay Yat and Pel Nal. Other students at the school during this time who later became prominent include Um Sim, the Khmer Republic’s last ambassador to the United States, and Phung Ton, the rector of the Faculty of Law in Phnom Penh.

20 For details, see Chandler, Tragedy, Chapter 2.

21 See Cambodge, July 28, 1948. Many of those who sat with him at the examinations—e. g., Khieu Samphan, Kol Siphuong, and Sien An—proceeded to the lycée. In his interview with Yugoslavian journalists in 1978, Pol Pot said that his failure to get into a lycée led him toward a technical education. See FBIS, Daily Reports, April 22, 1978.

22 On Ieng Sary’s early life, see author’s interviews with Thach Ren (November 1986) and Pung Peng Cheng (April 1987).

23 On Prince Yuthevong, see author’s interviews with Thonn Ouk, Son Sann, Chheam Van, and the late Sim Var.

24 On the constitution, author’s interviews with Thonn Ouk (November 1986) and the late Sim Var (May 1988). Both men took part in the negotiations. On Ieng Sary’s early career, see interviews with Keng Vannsak and Brigadier Thach Ren (a distant cousin) (November 1986), Sisowath Arayavady (June 1989), and Pung Peng Cheng (May 1988).

25 On this period in the history of Cambodian radicalism, see Kiernan, HPP, pp. 58ff.; and Chandler, Tragedy, Chapter 1.

26 According to Chheam Van, prime minister in 1948—1949, many of those selected for scholarships were of ”mediocre“ academic ability but enjoyed connections with the party (author’s interview, November 1987). The Democrats were also involved in arranging Ieng Sary’s scholarship in 1950, after he had led a series of anti-French, pro-Democrat demonstrations followed by a strike at the Lycée Sisowath. Of the twenty students who sailed to France with Sar, about half pursued technical studies. Steve Heder’s interview with Mey Mann, March 1997.