The anti-Vietnamese rhetoric of the Livre noir cannot conceal what must have delighted Saloth Sar in April 1970: His forces were now in a full-fledged military alliance with the Vietnamese. These unevenly endowed allies were dedicated to removing Lon Nol from power. The Red Khmer’s hopes were no longer thwarted by the exigencies of a secret, nonviolent Vietnamese-Sihanouk alliance. Instead, that alliance had now come into the open, become warlike, and was recast to include the Cambodian Communist party. The Communists could gain recruits by claiming loyalty to the prince while obtaining arms, training, and experience from Vietnam. Soon after the coup, several hundred well-trained Khmer set off from northern Vietnam to take part in their country’s struggle. Many of them had been in exile in Vietnam for fifteen years.40

Saloth Sar knew that Lon Nol’s army would be no match for the Vietnamese. He also suspected (and may have been told) that the Vietnamese had no intention of reinstating Sihanouk with genuine power when the war was over. For the time being, however, Sar believed that Sihanouk’s presence as head of a united, anti-American front would assure the Communists of international support. The crippling contradiction of being allied with Vietnam and opposing “feudalism” in Cambodia had now dissolved. For the first time since he had returned to Cambodia in 1953, Saloth Sar could contemplate actually seizing power. In his years in hiding, he and his associates had lived on hope. The thought of his dream coming true must have exhilarated him as he left Hanoi for Cambodia. After seven years in the wilderness, Saloth Sar was back on the revolutionary path.

CHAPTER SIX - Coming to Power, 1970—1976

CHAPTER SIX

Coming to Power, 1970—1976

The decision to form a National Front with Sihanouk as chief of state had two effects on Saloth Sar’s career. One was that after seven years on the run he became, at forty-five, the military commander of the Cambodian Communist component of a popular alliance. Another was that the movement he commanded now benefited from extensive Vietnamese military support. These two factors meant that he could preside over the expansion of the Cambodian Communist party, while his forces could be trained behind a shield provided by the battle-hardened Vietnamese.

Saloth Sar did not emerge from hiding, and it was more than a year before he was even identified as an official of Sihanouk’s National Front. Inside the country, authority was supposedly placed in the hands of one of the Three Ghosts—Khieu Samphan—ostensibly working on Sihanouk’s behalf. The Vietnamese Communists, for their part, openly admitted their alliance with the prince but said nothing about their relations with the Cambodian Communists or the presence of Vietnamese troops on Cambodian soil.1