Sydney H. Schanberg Is Dead at 82; Former Times Correspondent Chronicled Terror of 1970s Cambodia

Sydney H. Schanberg, a correspondent for The New York Times who won a Pulitzer Prize for covering Cambodia’s fall to the Khmer Rouge in 1975 and inspired the film “The Killing Fields” with the story of his Cambodian colleague’s survival during the genocide of millions, died on Saturday in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. He was 82.

His death was confirmed by Charles Kaiser, a friend and former Times reporter, who said Mr. Schanberg had a heart attack on Tuesday.

A restive, intense, Harvard-educated newspaperman with bulldog tenacity, Mr. Schanberg was a nearly ideal foreign correspondent: a risk-taking adventurer who distrusted officials, relied on himself in a war zone and wrote vividly of political and military tyrants and the suffering and death of their victims with the passion of an eyewitness to history.

Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/business/media/sydney-h-schanberg-is-dead-at-82-former-times-correspondent-chronicled-terror-of-1970s-cambodia.html?_r=1

The New York Times 2016-07-09

A great man and reporter now gone. RIP

A favorite movie and story...Actually met Dr. Ngor on my first flight to Thailand

Was too young to remember the atrocities but the book and movie were excellent. Sam Waterston played him well. It was tough walking through the various buildings that displayed what the people had actually gone through. Good to see they preserved it well.

Time to re-watch the movie.

And despite it all, Cambodia is now ruled as a private enterprise by former Khmer Rouge commander Hun Sen, acolyte of one Mr. Shinawat. And since the death of Lee Kuan Yew, seemingly, Hun Sen has become the role model for all of Southeast Asia.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/07/stranglehold-hun-sen-rules-cambodia-and-his-family-own-it-says-report

A bit of sad trivia...Dr. Ngor survived the atrocities of cambodia, but was murdered by a black thug in Los Angeles in an attempted robbery...

And despite it all, Cambodia is now ruled as a private enterprise by former Khmer Rouge commander Hun Sen, acolyte of one Mr. Shinawat. And since the death of Lee Kuan Yew, seemingly, Hun Sen has become the role model for all of Southeast Asia. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/07/stranglehold-hun-sen-rules-cambodia-and-his-family-own-it-says-report

Irony on ThaiVisa is not lost.