Malcolm Caldwell

In December 1978, Caldwell was a member, along with Elizabeth Becker and Richard Dudman, of one of the few groups of Western journalists and writers invited to visit Cambodia since the Khmer Rouge had taken power in April 1975. The three visitors were given a highly structured tour of the country. “We traveled in a bubble,” wrote Becker. “No one was allowed to speak to me freely.” On 22 December, Caldwell had a private audience with Pol Pot, the leader of Cambodia. After the meeting, he came back to the guest house in Phnom Penh where the three were staying in a mood described as “euphoric”. At about 11:00 p.m. that night Becker was awakened by the sound of gunfire. She stepped out of her bedroom and saw a heavily armed Cambodian man who pointed a pistol at her. She ran back into her room and heard people moving and more gunshots. An hour later a Cambodian came to her bedroom door and told her that Caldwell was dead. She and Dudman went to his room. He had been shot in the chest and the body of a Cambodian man was also in the room, possibly the same man who had pointed the pistol at Becker.

Malcolm Caldwell was born in Stirling, Scotland, the son of an architect. The family moved to Kirkcudbright where his father, Archibald Thomson Caldwell was appointed the County Architect for Kirkcudbrightshire; a post he held from 1950 until his early death in 1957. Malcolm was educated at Kirkcudbright Academy where he was Dux in 1949. [1] He obtained degrees from University of Nottingham and University of Edinburgh. He completed two years’ national service in the British army, becoming a sergeant in the Army Education Corps. In 1959 he joined the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London as a Research Fellow. Although he met with conservative opposition within the School, he remained on its faculty throughout his life. As well as being an academic, he was an energetic and committed radical political activist. He was chair of the UK Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament from 1968-1970. He was dedicated to criticising Western foreign policy and capitalist economics, paying particular attention to American policy. He was a founding editor of the Journal of Contemporary Asia, a journal concerned with revolutionary movements in Asia. In 1978 Caldwell was one of the Labour Party candidates in St Mary’s ward in the local elections for the Bexley London Borough Council.

James Alexander Malcolm Caldwell (27 September 1931 – 23 December 1978) was a Scottish academic and a prolific Marxist writer. He was a consistent critic of American foreign policy, a campaigner for Asian communist and socialist movements and a supporter of the Khmer Rouge. Caldwell was murdered under mysterious circumstances a few hours after meeting Pol Pot in Cambodia.