Meanwhile in Hanoi, according to the Livre noir, Saloth Sar and his colleagues, en route to Cambodia from Beijing, were feted warmly by the Vietnamese. Pol Pot later wrote that at a banquet in Hanoi, “the Cambodian delegation was covered with praise from beginning to end.... [T]he Vietnamese had a pressing need for Cambodian friendship, aid and assistance.” The exact opposite was closer to the truth. In fact, Pol Pot admitted as much when he wrote that the Vietnamese at this stage offered him mixed combat commands, five thousand rifles, and international propaganda support. These were offers he was in no position to refuse. Writing in 1978, however, he said that he had refused to be a client and asserted that he had taken a strong line with the Vietnamese. “For those in charge of Vietnam,” he fantasized, “the problem of the liberation of South Vietnam was not their greatest concern. In their eyes, the problem of Cambodia was much more important” (emphasis added).4

In April 1970 Sar left Hanoi for Cambodia, traveling on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The journey took a month and a half. As he came south, through North Vietnam, Laos, and northeastern Cambodia, Sar must have been impressed by what he saw. Thousands of trucks lumbered down the trail with weapons, ammunition, and supplies for Vietnamese Communist forces; resting places were set up at regular intervals. Now and then, Sar and his colleagues were able to hitch rides on trucks. At other times, they walked briskly, under forest cover, braving attacks from malaria and U.S. bombers. Chhim Samauk later spoke of camping in “more than twenty places” and of occasionally commandeering elephants from local people for rides. For Saloth Sar, it must have been a thrilling trek. He arrived at the Lao-Cambodian border toward the end of May. According to Chhim Samauk, Sar became ill twice during the trip—first with malaria and then from accidentally eating poisonous “peacock mushrooms” (psut kngaouk) in a soup. At the Lao-Cambodian border Sar formally welcomed Cambodian volunteers who had come down the trail with him from Hanoi before proceeding with them to the party’s headquarters in the northeast.5

The Livre noir contends that he spent his first days in Cambodia fending off Vietnamese demands for cooperation. Vietnamese assertions that Ieng Sary had agreed to their requests (confirmed in Kheang Sim Hon’s confession) are dismissed by the Livre noir as “lies.” The weight of the evidence suggests that Sar accepted promises of aid from the Vietnamese officials who welcomed him, agreed to their proposals of mixed commands, and approved Ieng Sary’s earlier decision to accept Vietnamese assistance. At this stage of the Cambodian revolution, Sar had no choice. Soon after his arrival at Office 102, Sar sent Ieng Sary back up the trail to become the party’s liaison officer in Hanoi, where he joined Keo Meas, sent on a similar mission in 1969. This event, corroborated by many sources, confirms that the Red Khmer were still cooperating fully—tactically and secretly—with North Vietnam.6