27 See Kheang Sim Hon’s confession. On conditions toward the end of 1967, see Bu Phat’s confession. Kiernan, HPP, p. 181, asserts that “by December 1967, word had been passed around that the Samlaut rebellion was about to enter another phase”; this rumor may have reflected decisions taken at the study session. In 1978 the Livre noir noted (p. 34) that if the party “had not carried out armed struggle, it would have been condemned to disappear.” According to Engelbert and Goscha, Falling Out of Touch, Saloth Sar wrote to the Chinese authorities in October 1967, in a letter intercepted by the Vietnamese, that “we are preparing the implementation of a people’s war which has moved toward an unstoppable point.” He also praised “the line of people’s war which Chairman Mao has pointed out in terms of independence, sovereignty and self-reliance”—turns of phrase that must have been distressing to the Vietnamese. Nuon Chea, “History,” claims that the decision to implement armed struggle was taken by Communists in Phnom Penh acting under his leadership.

28 Kiernan, HPP, pp. 268ff.; Kiernan and Boua, Peasants and Politics, pp. 182ff.; and author’s interview with Ty Sophen (February 1989). On Bay Damram, see “Speech by Representative of the Party at the Ninth Anniversary of the Revolutionary Army,” Tung Padevat (December 1976—January 1977): 38-39; and Nuon Chea, “Statement of the CPK to the Communist Worker’s Party of Denmark, July 1978,” Journal of Communist Studies (March 1987): 26ff. Nuon Chea dated the decision to start armed struggle to a “Central Committee meeting” held in January 1968, shortly before the incident at Bay Damram. In his “History,” however, Chea claims to have made the decision with several colleagues in Phnom Penh, without reference to authorities in Ratanakiri. His statement to the Danes fails to mention Samlaut. However, under Democratic Kampuchea the region containing Samlaut and Phnom Vay Chap was named “sector (dombon) 1,” perhaps to honor its revolutionary credentials (see Michael Vickery, Cambodia, 1975—1982 [Boston, 1983], p. 67).

29 On the Bowles visit, see Chandler, Tragedy, Chapter 5; and William Shawcross, Sideshow: Nixon, Kissinger, and the Destruction of Cambodia (New York, 1979), pp. 68-71.

30 On morale issues, Al Santoli (personal communication). See also CIA reports from 1969 (numbers excised) in Pike Archives (Cambodia, 1969); and Kiernan, HPP, pp. 282ff. Nuon Chea’s “History” claims that Red Khmer forces at this time traded chickens for guns with Vietnamese quartered in Cambodia “because the Vietnamese were starving.”

31 See Siet Chhae’s confession.

32 See “Seckdei nai no’m 870” [Guidance from 870], Tung Padevat (January 1972): 12-37. The number ”870” was used to designate the highest authority in the Communist party. See also Nuon Chea, “Statement of the CPK,” p. 22: “We had no weapons to speak of and no aid from the outside.... Sometimes we had weapons but no ammunition. Sometimes even if we had no ammunition we carried weapons so as to frighten the enemy.”