The most far-reaching influence on Saloth Sar, however, was the war being waged in Vietnam. The war had at least three effects on Cambodian political life. One was that Sihanouk, half fearing a Communist victory and half desiring one (for he had come to hate the United States), decided that the way to keep Cambodia out of the war and guarantee its survival was to strike up an alliance with North Vietnam and its surrogate in South Vietnam, the National Liberation Front (NLF). In November 1963 Sihanouk rejected any further U.S. military assistance to his regime. He followed this in 1964 with a secret agreement with the Vietnamese that allowed Vietnamese Communist troops to station themselves on Cambodian soil and to move through the country so long as they respected its inhabitants. In exchange, the Vietnamese promised to honor Cambodia’s independence and its frontiers when the war was over. As the war intensified, the Cambodian bases became crucial to the Vietnamese, and in late 1966 arms from China began flowing to their forces via the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville (Kompong Som). Thus, in trying to outsmart larger powers and sidestep the conflict, Sihanouk compromised his neutrality and guaranteed that Cambodia would be dragged into the war.

A second effect of the war, and a by-product of Sihanouk’s arrangements, was that Cambodian Communists were called by the Vietnamese to provide military and logistical support. Several hundred Khmer Communists traveled to North Vietnam, without Sihanouk’s knowledge, for military and political training.

The third effect of the war was a growing malaise among Cambodia’s elite. By the late 1960s, they were nervous about Sihanouk’s policies and the possibility that Cambodia would be dragged into the war. Many of their children, pouring through an expanded education system, were also unhappy with the prospect of unemployment after they graduated and with Sihanouk’s style of rule. Some of them were inspired by radical teachers. Sihanouk’s response to the malaise was to crack down on dissidents, a policy that alienated the students even more. By 1969 hundreds of them had left the towns to join the Communist resistance.2

A Hostage of the Vietnamese

In late 1963 a Communist militant spotted Saloth Sar in the eastern Cambodian province of Kompong Cham, not far from the Vietnamese border. By the end of 1964 several colleagues had encountered him in an encampment in that region known by the code name “Office (munthi) 100.” One text locates the encampment inside Vietnam; another places it in eastern Kompong Cham. It seems likely that the base moved back and forth across the border in response to military pressures. Saloth Sar remained there until he traveled to Vietnam and China at the end of 1965. These two years, when he accomplished little and depended on people who later became his enemies, marked a low point in his career.