Years later, after Vietnamese forces had driven Pol Pot into exile, a statement by his supporters complained that in 1953 intellectuals like Sar “were given tasks that had nothing to do with their skills; kitchen chores and the transport of organic fertilizer for crops among other things.” Such assignments may have offended Sar’s amour propre, but he was never averse to party discipline, and it must have become clear to him that the Vietnamese and their Cambodian colleagues considered him an asset. As an indication of this, Pham Van Ba recalled taking charge of his political training. Because of his background, Sar was ideally suited for united front work bridging gaps between various dissident groups on behalf of the Indochina Communist party. As proof of his usefulness, Sar, who had no combat experience or any competence in Vietnamese, was assigned to the Communists’ headquarters along the border rather than to a less prestigious, more vulnerable unit. It appears that the Vietnamese and their Cambodian colleagues were saving him for important work. Sar’s time at the headquarters, at the edge of two national struggles for independence, was a kind of entrance examination.4

Saloth Sar’s value to the Vietnamese sprang largely from the fact that he had links with the urban Cambodian elite, the Democrats, and the Communists in France. His unpretentious manner, his time in Europe, and his willingness to learn made up for his unimpressive academic record, his elite family connections, and his brief exposure to Marxism-Leninism. By walking to the Vietnamese frontier and offering his services he stole the march on better qualified colleagues in France like Ieng Sary, Hou Youn, and Thiounn Mumm and on radicals in Phnom Penh who were still uncertain about communism or unwilling to take risks.

Sar’s reaction to his months in the resistance is not recorded. He may have seen the rough-and-ready atmosphere of the headquarters unit as an extension of his militancy in Paris and a welcome immersion among workers and peasants reminiscent of his time in Yugoslavia. He was flattered at being singled out by Pham Van Ba and his Cambodian assistant, Tou Samouth. Perhaps he felt that his life was beginning to gather speed.

He was in little physical danger. By mid-1953 the First Indochina War, at least in the southern parts of Indochina, was dying down. The French were prepared to grant noncommunist components of the federation their independence, while pursuing their anticommunist war, primarily in northern Vietnam. In November 1953 France, pressured by Sihanouk, granted Cambodia its independence. This led Sihanouk to claim that his “royal crusade,” set in motion the year before, had been successful. Soon after, fighting between the French and resistance forces died down. Over the next few months, many noncommunist resistance units rallied to Sihanouk’s government. Those commanded by the Vietnamese waited on developments.