38 See Chandler, Tragedy, Chapter 7; Isaacs, Without Honor, pp. 276ff.; and Shawcross, Sideshow, pp. 361ff. William Duiker, China and Vietnam: The Roots of Conflict (Berkeley, Calif., 1986), p. 60 (n47), claims that ”two Vietnamese divisions“ participated in the final attack on Phnom Penh. See also K. Gough, ”Roots of the Pol Pot Regime in Kampuchea,“ in L. Donald, ed., Themes in Ethnology and History (Meerut, 1987), p. 134, where Gough, drawing on interviews in Vietnam, claimed that Vietnamese artillery participated in the assault on Cambodia’s capital. See also Burchett, China-Cambodia-Vietnam Triangle, p. 144, which claims that Sar visited Beijing and Hanoi in late 1974 to plead for military aid. None was forthcoming from China; the Vietnamese allegedly offered heavy artillery and a few gun crews. The visit is uncorroborated and unlikely given the travel times involved, but the requests might well have been made through diplomatic channels. Saloth Sar/Pol Pot always denied Vietnamese participation in the ”historic victory“ of April 1975.

39 See Chhim Samauk’s confession; and Chou Chet’s confession. Becker, When the War Was Over, p. 178, says that Sar entered the city ”like a nocturnal predator [that] shuns daylight.“ See also Men Tul’s confession, p. 51, which states that during this period Brother Number One ”moved his quarters without warning every two or three days.“ See also Chandler, Kiernan, and Boua, eds. and trans., Pol Pot Plans the Future, p. 276.

40 See author’s interview with Loth Suong and Chea Samy (October 1990); and Kate Frieson’s interview with them (January 1990). Saloth Chhay had worked for a Republican journal in the 1970s. A Cambodian official who visited Saloth Sar’s relatives in Kompong Thom in the 1980s claims that Sar’s sister Saroeun, who had left the palace in 1941, received favored treatment, ordered by Saloth Sar, under Democratic Kampuchea. This information contrasts sharply with Sar’s neglect of other family members and is not corroborated in Youk Chhang’s interviews with Saroeun and her brother Saloth Nhiep.

41 On the massacre of the army officers, see author’s interview with Ty Sophen (February 1989); and the confession of Cho Chhan (Sreng) (March 1977): ”After the liberation of the entire country the Organization put forward a policy of successively exterminating officers, starting from the generals and working down to the lieutenants.“ In 1988 Pol Pot told assembled cadre that the ”smashing“ of Lon Nol’s soldiers and officials had been deliberate, because they ”represented imperialist strata“ (Roger Normand, personal communication, drawn from his interviews with Red Khmer defectors).

42 On the Mayaguez incident, see Chandler, Tragedy, p. 257. Also see Roy Rowan, The Four Days of Mayaguez (New York, 1975).

43 On Sar’s visit to Vietnam, see Livre noir, p. 72; and author’s interview with Ngo Dien (October 1990). On Chinese aid, see Kiernan, HPP, p. 413. On Sar’s photograph with Mao, see Y Phandara, Retour a Phnom Penh (Paris, 1982), p. 52. Phandara saw the photograph in the DK Embassy in Beijing in 1977.

44 See Laurence Picq, Au delà du ciel (Paris, 1984), Chapter 1.