In 1959 one of Ponnary’s students, You Sambo, decided to visit her informally with several of his friends. By then, Ponnary and Saloth Sar were living in the southern part of the city, not far from Chamraon Vichea. Their Chinese-style house was flush to the ground, and Sambo found the rooms spotlessly clean and the furnishings sparse but neat, with a few books and some unprepossessing “pictures of China” on the walls. Sambo met Saloth Sar that afternoon for the first time. He found him “very clean and well presented (s‘aat s’om) ... very smooth.... I could see he was good natured (chet l‘oo).... I could see immediately that he was an attractive figure (khoonj kuo oy srolanh) and that I could easily become his lifelong friend.” Sar’s smooth face, deep voice, and calm gestures were reassuring. He seemed to be someone who could “explain things in such a way that you came to love justice and honesty and hate corruption.” On later visits Sambo took part in informal seminars where young people—junior officers in the army, teachers, and students—would discuss their ideals for Cambodia and for themselves. Sambo remembered Saloth Sar leading discussions without revealing his political alignment and attacking dishonesty in government circles.19

Chamraon Vichea provided Saloth Sar with a stage for his political talents and a theater for his clandestine party work. Another private college, Kambuj‘ bot—almost completely staffed by Communists in the 1950s and 1960s—had been founded by the Democrats in 1952 after Sihanouk’s coup d’état. Its name, which means “Son of Kampuchea,” had been used by Prince Yuthevong when he was writing for the Democratic press. Both schools catered to students who had failed their examinations for the state-run college system inherited from colonial times. Those who passed examinations at the end of their college careers (the ones Saloth Sar failed in 1948) were allowed to enroll in a lycée. The pass rate at private colleges was not especially high, but many parents were willing to take the risk and pay modest annual fees in the hope of guaranteeing their children the government positions that flowed to lycée graduates. About three hundred students attended the four-year course at Chamraon Vichea.20

The college’s origins are obscure. Chhay Yat said that it was established with funds provided by Lon Nol, Prince Norodom Chantaraingsey, and others who saw such a school as an investment and as a way of counterbalancing the influence of the Democrats at Kambuj‘bot. Sar may have obtained a post there thanks to his schoolboy friendship with Lon Nol’s brother Lon Non, and his family connections with Chantaraingsey. Neither man would have known of Sar’s Communist affiliations, and even if they had, they would not have taken them seriously. Nevertheless, Chamraon Vichea, like Kambuj’bot, soon became a haven for radicals who lacked credentials to teach in the more prestigious and better-paying state system.21