9 On Saloth Sar’s lectures, see Serge Thion (personal communication); and Keo Moni’s confession (December 1976). Keo Moni referred to Sar as a “representative of the Party Center.” On party names, see Kiernan, HPP, p. 220. On Cambodians in Vietnam, see U.S. Embassy Phnom Penh, Airgram A-165, November 11, 1965; and the confession of Kol Thai (January 1976). Samoeun and Soeurn both returned to Cambodia in 1970. Samoeun disappeared before 1975; Soeurn was executed as a traitor in 1976 (Kiernan, HPP, p. 401). According to Steve Heder (personal communication), Keo Meas’s confession suggests that Cambodians integrated into the Vietnamese armed forces became and remained members of the Vietnam Workers’ party, while those who were civilians were affiliated with the Cambodian movement headed by Son Ngoc Minh.

10 See Livre noir, pp. 26 and 50. For an analysis of the text, see Serge Thion, “The Ingratitude of Crocodiles,” BCAS 12, 4 (1980): 38-54.

11 Engelbert and Goscha, Falling Out of Touch, p. 74. According to Nuon Chea’s history, “when Saloth Sar returned, he said that the Vietnamese weren’t happy because (1) our party had gone to contact the Chinese party; (2) Saloth Sar didn’t call Ho Chi Minh ’uncle‘ (om). He called him ’Comrade chairman‘ (sommit protean).”

12 Livre noir, p. 27. In “Interview of Comrade Pol Pot to [sic] the DK Press Agency” (1978), Pol Pot asserted that he had given Vietnamese troops permission at this time to sojourn in zones controlled by Cambodian Communist forces. But no such zones existed before 1969, and the Vietnamese troops that were in Cambodia were there with Sihanouk’s permission, not Saloth Sar’s. The Communists’ decision to combine armed and political struggle was not made until late 1967. By 1978 Cambodia was at war with Vietnam, and Pol Pot’s resentment at years of Vietnamese condescension was intense. He was probably convinced that he had confronted them successfully in 1965-1966. Serge Thion noted that no Vietnamese documentation about the visit has been released (“Ingratitude of Crocodiles,” p. 42). Such documents might well vindicate Pol Pot’s assertion in 1978 that he had been treated as a “son” or a “littie brother” and confirm the close relations between the two parties that the Vietnamese took pains to deny after 1977. Engelbert and Goscha, in Falling Out of Touch, pp. 71ff., citing Vietnamese Communist sources, make it clear that Le Duan was enraged by the naïveté of the CPK documents presented by Sar in Hanoi. Duan criticized the documents in detail. A Vietnamese account of the confrontation, cited by Engelbert and Goscha, closes at page 75 with the sentence: “Saloth Sar left the meeting without saying anything at all.” After the humiliation, Sar lingered in Hanoi for several months. The depth of his rancor and his sense of helplessness are easy to imagine.

13 Carney, “Unexpected Victory,” p. 245 (n15). See also Kiernan, HPP, pp. 220ff. As evidence of Sino-Vietnamese collaboration at this time, a Cambodian Communist party member from Hanoi supervised a study session in late 1966 for Cambodians and their “Chinese brothers.”