“Leading communists like Khieu Samphan had served as ministers in his government during the 1960s, and he thought he knew them well. In early 1973 the prince and his wife Monique toured the CPK’s “liberated zone,” posing with pasted-on smiles in the black pajamas worn by the communist troops. He later wrote to several Democrats in the US, reassuring them (and maybe also himself) that the Khmer Rouge would not set up a communist system after coming to power, “but a Swedish type of kingdom.”15 In private he was more pessimistic, predicting that the Khmer Rouge would spit him out “like a cherry pit” once they gained power.16”