Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare

"Philip Short observed Pol Pot at close quarters during the one and only official visit he ever made abroad. It was China, 1977, two years after the reclusive Cambodian had seized power. Short was struck with Pol Pot's charm and charisma, his detachment and self-abnegation, which seemed more appropriate to a Buddhist monk than to the leader of a feudal nation-state." "Yet Pol was the architect of one of the most radical and ruthless experiments in social engineering ever undertaken. His egalitar…