Nate Thayer has died
Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2023 1:58 pm
See NYT story.
Thayer was the reporter who interviewed Pol Pot in the Cambodian jungle for Ted Koppel's Nightline in 1997, 20 years after his failed attempts to make Cambodia a communist haven - the Killing Fields and all that. I remember him from then - Nightline was about the only major network program I ever watched regularly over the nearly 40 years I have lived here. Thayer was very much a larger than life self-aggrandizing reporter but there is no doubt that his interview with an elderly and ailing Pol Pot was hard gained. It seems that in later life - he was only 62 when he was found dead yesterday - he fell into drug and alcohol abuse and had many medical issues.
Thayer was the reporter who interviewed Pol Pot in the Cambodian jungle for Ted Koppel's Nightline in 1997, 20 years after his failed attempts to make Cambodia a communist haven - the Killing Fields and all that. I remember him from then - Nightline was about the only major network program I ever watched regularly over the nearly 40 years I have lived here. Thayer was very much a larger than life self-aggrandizing reporter but there is no doubt that his interview with an elderly and ailing Pol Pot was hard gained. It seems that in later life - he was only 62 when he was found dead yesterday - he fell into drug and alcohol abuse and had many medical issues.