Nate Thayer, reporter who interviewed Pol Pot, dies

By MARK PRATT
Associated Press

Nate Thayer, a fearless reporter who survived several brushes with death while covering conflict in Southeast Asia and was the last Western journalist to interview Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, has died. Thayer’s brother said he was found dead at his Falmouth, Massachusetts, home on Tuesday. He was 62 and had been suffering multiple ailments. Thayer worked for several news organizations, but landed the Pol Pot interview while working for the Far Eastern Economic Review. His 1997 report on the leader of the murderous regime that devastated Cambodia was the reclusive Pol Pot’s first interview in nearly 20 years. Thayer wrote of slipping into the jungle to see Pol Pot, who shocked the world by saying said his “conscience is clear.”