Witness Richard Dudman, 76 Years a Newspaperman, Keeps His Skepticism

Victor Koppe, Defence Counsel for Nuon Chea, broke a cardinal rule of litigators: Do not ask a question to which you do not know the answer. The error reverberated in the lack of useful responses he was able to get from his own witness

Richard Dudman, 96, had a 76-year career as a newspaper reporter and editor. During the 31 years he spent with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, he covered the Cuban Revolution, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Watergate, Iran-Contra and various wars and revolutions in Latin America, the Middle East and the Far East. His last story with the Post– Dispatch was the shooting of Ronal Reagan in 1981. In 1970, when his beat was the Vietnam War, he was captured by the Viet Cong in Cambodia. He wrote a book of his experiences, “40 Days with the Viet Cong,” an ordeal that ended in his release “only after he was able to convince his captors that he was a newspaperman and not a CIA spy.” He told the Tribunal that he “learned first-hand that the Viet Cong who held (him) were actually friendly and helpful, and (he) saw them as individuals rather than a faceless enemy.” In December, 1978, he jumped at the chance to join fellow journalist, Elizabeth Becker, and Marxist, Malcolm Caldwell, as the first writers allowed into Cambodia since the Khmer Rouge takeover. He had heard stories of brutality and mass extermination, and he wanted to investigate for himself, to make his own decisions on what was really happening in Cambodia.

Mr. Koppe asked Mr. Dudman to outline on what evidence he had based his August 17, 1990 New York Times Op-Ed, “Pol Pot Brutal, But No Mass Murderer.” Mr. Dudman replied that he had looked for signs of brutality and he had found them, but that there was “not enough evidence to make a judgment,” on mass extermination. (He did not write the headline and feels it went “beyond the story.”) He said “a newspaperman must always keep his skepticism and write about what he sees and learns.” Given that Mr. Dudman is a defence witness, Mr. Koppe could not have been happy when the witness elaborated. Given what he has now read and the sources he has consulted since his 1978 trip, he “doubts if he would have written the story knowing what (he) knows today.” Having taken another look, he “now know(s) more,” and is convinced there was mass murder going on.

Defence counsel read in a long passage from Richard Dudman’s January, 1979, report on the visit in which he related the “information received in advanced was mostly misleading,” that he had found “a generally healthy population, with a healthy demographic mix of men, women and babies;” working hours from 7A.M. to 7 P.M. (which he did not think was unreasonable in harvest season); factories functioning; and that rice exports had resumed. The witness could remember “looking for signs of abuse of the population,” and that he “wrote what he saw.”

Mr. Dudman insisted that his report in 1979 and his Op-Ed of 1990 were “two different experiences,” but that he did not see a conflict as he had written about what he had experienced and what he saw on both occasions.

Mr. Koppe recapped Elizabeth Becker’s testimony dismissing Richard Dudman’s opinion in the Op-Ed as the work of someone who had not returned to Cambodia since 1978 and whose ideas were “entirely out of date.” She had accused Mr. Dudman of not having availed himself of the “overwhelming evidence of an incompetent murderous regime,” to be found in the Tuol Sleng records and other archives. She had opined that Dudman’s Op-Ed was what you got with “single-source reporting,” (which she had defined as when the government controls where a reporter goes, what they see and to whom they can talk). But the old-school newspaperman averred that he “wrote about what (he had seen) on that trip with normal, journalistic skepticism.” He acknowledged that no one likes to hear criticism about himself, but he was not quite sure what the accusation of single sourcing was about. Graciously, he conceded that Ms. Becker “has a long perspective,” given her extensive background of living in Cambodia.

The witness came back to his major experiences of his capture by the Viet Cong and being threatened the night of Malcolm Caldwell’s murder. Asked by counsel to say whether there was anything in his 1979 report that he now thinks was either “too positive or too uncritical,” Mr. Dudman answered affirmatively. From his reading and sources consulted, he now thinks that there was genocide under the Pol Pot regime, and he “wouldn’t now write this article.”

The 1990 article was based on Richard Dudman’s tour of 11 out of 19 of Cambodia’s provinces in 1978. He had found the trip “unsatisfactory,” as it had been a tightly-controlled affair. Mr. Koppe questioned what the newspaperman then had meant when he wrote of the visit that he had: “had the ability to gather significant information, and had had plenty of opportunities for observation.” Unfortunately, the witness did not remember the quote, and had no recollection of what he meant by writing the statement. Mr. Dudman had not re-read the Op-Ed or his 1979 report on the trip to prepare for court, and had little memory of what was in either piece of writing. He did make clear that the visitors had been “very much limited” (example, they could not speak to anyone), but he maintained that he “had kept (his) eyes open. (He) wrote what (he) could see.” The journalist asserted that (given the restricting circumstances), he had not been able to write “a full report. The whole thing was limited,” but he does not ever think he “…ever knows everything, has learned everything, about where (he) is.” Neither could he recall specifically to what“significant information about the new Cambodia,” he could have been referring in another quote from Mr. Koppe of his work.

The witness reflected that the quote that “the physical condition of life may have improved…possibly for the vast majority of people, as the regime claimed,” was “an informed guess” based on what he had seen. Unfortunately, Mr. Dudman no longer has the notes or photographs he took on the 1978 trip.

Mr. Dudman vividly described his “terrible experience” the night after interviewing Pol Pot. He had been awakened by gunshots. He went across the hall and discussed what was going on with Malcolm Caldwell. The men decided to stay in their rooms until the event “blew over.” On his way back, a young man appeared from down the hall, pointed a pistol at him and fired. He missed. Dudman ran into his room, closing the door behind him. Several shots came through it. It was too low to get under the bed, so he hid behind it, listening to more shots. About two hours later, the Cambodian diplomat, Prasith, knocked. He was told that Elizabeth Becker was all right, but that Malcolm Caldwell had been killed. Mr. Dudman was taken to Caldwell’s room to view the body that had “a gaping wound to the chest.” Across the threshold to the room, dead and lying in a pool of blood, was the young man who had shot at him. Mr. Dudman and Ms. Becker left the same day for China connecting on to the U.S., taking Caldwell’s body with them. In retelling the story, it was obvious that Mr. Dudman is still visibly traumatized by the events of that night, some 37 years ago.

There has been a lot of “guesswork” as to why there had been the attack on the group. Mr. Dudman did not remember why he had termed it “a terrorist attack on the three of them.” He had heard various theories but “really did not have an opinion” on the motive, and could not recall which theory was “most persuasive.” That it could have been a tactic by Vietnam to embarrass Cambodia (it was the responsibility of the DK to keep their guests safe), was “a plausible explanation,” but he had no way of knowing whether it was true. Pol Pot repeatedly had said when interviewed that Vietnam was going to invade, but that (with the help of the U.S.), “Cambodia would throw them back.” This is the only detail that the witness remembers of the interview.

Neither could Richard Dudman attest to how he had prepared for the trip but noted that he “would have spoken to a lot of specialists.” Mr. Dudman knows Douglas Pike, a State Department official, but could not think back if he would have been one of those specialists, whether he had read the “Black Paper” issued by the Cambodia Ministry of Foreign Affairs postulating reasons for Vietnam’s aggression, or anything about the military agreement signed by the Soviet Union and Vietnam just before the 1978 trip.

Richard Dudman returns to the stand tomorrow to listen to a video excerpt of his interview of Pol Pot. Defence Counsel is hoping it will refresh the veteran journalist’s memory. For the audience at the ECCC, it promises to be an interesting morning.