This is exactly what The Call has done. A Call reporter recently got hold of an official State Department manual of "evidence" against the newly-liberated South-east Asian country. Included in this volume, prepared for the UN, are accounts from refugees as well as a number of Airgram reports from CIA and U.S. embassy staffers in Thailand.

These documents contain all kinds of lies and rumors, presented as though they were absolute proof. But even so, Kampuchea's achievements in agriculture, reconstruction, health, social welfare and other fields are so dramatic that even the CIA agents filing these reports are forced to give grudging respect.

"We admit to being surprised that the rice harvest was as bountiful as refugees claim," reads a March 31, 1976, report. "Much would seem to have been against it: spotty rainfall, many fields tilled for the first time in years, former city people not knowing what they were doing and the lack of chemical fertilizer..."

A later report contradicts official U.S. claims that Kampuchea's agriculture is in a shambles and that people are starving: "In the pilot's village near Samrong, people [attempted] to grow three crops of rice last year... and the people found themselves in the unique position of harvesting and planting rice at the same time." This is a remarkable achievement, showing the improvements in farming that now enable everyone to eat.

A September 21, 1976, Airgram confirms that industry and transportation are being rebuilt: "Bag, sugar, kenaf and rice milling plants are in operation in Battambang," and the railroads are open and frequently used.

In this Sept. 21, 1976, Airgram, the State Department describes the relations that exist between leaders of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and average villagers:

"Usually the term used between villagers and the KC [Kampuchean communists] is mit, the word for 'friend,' which has now taken on the meaning of 'comrade.' Often at the local level, KC do not even bother with this.... In cases where a villager and a KC have become friends, they use with one another the traditional Cambodian words for brother (bong, paon)."

Other accounts go on in this same theme. Despite continuing claims in the Western press that Kampuchea is a "police state" in which the army has "massacred" millions, State Department reports show the democratic relations which exist between the army and the people.

The Revolutionary Army grows its own vegetables so as not to be a burden on the populace... fewer than 20 (and sometimes less than 10) militia members are assigned to village cooperatives of up to 2,500 people these and statements like them run throughout the two-inch-thick document.

Of course, the U.S. government volume is not meant to be a tribute to the revolution in Kampuchea, and most of its "evidence" does consist of either rumors and lies or accounts from those dissatisfied with socialism. But here and there, a glimmer of truth shines through.

Nov. 28, 1978