Office of the Historian

82. Paper Prepared by Lincoln Bloomfield of the National Security Council Staff1

Washington, February 12, 1980

KAMPUCHEA: DEMOGRAPHIC CATASTROPHE (C)

There follows for your information my summary of the assessment prepared by the Office of Geographic and Cartographic Research, NFAC (CIA), 29 January 1980 on the Kampuchean population. (C)2

In what appears to be a very seriously-researched demographic analysis, using statistical and other methodology approved by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, CIA has reached conclusions on basic population data for Kampuchea, and arrived at some devastating conclusions: (C)

Population in 1970: 7.1 million (U)

Population in December 1979: between 4.7 million and 5.5, most likely 5.2 million (U)

This means that between 1.2 million and 1.8 million were, in effect, murdered by the Khmer Rouge Pol Pot regime. Another estimated 700,000 died from inadequate diet, disease, and wartime dislocation [Page 282] following the December, 1978 Vietnamese invasion. The expected population of Kampuchea in December 1979, in the absence of war, mass execution, famine, and emigration, in the medium range of normal projections used by the United Nations, would be close to 9 million. The estimated present population of 5.2 million is 57% of that normal expectation. (U)

Even if food and health conditions were to improve markedly, rebuilding Kampuchean society would be a long process. Pol Pot executions effectively wiped out the whole leadership class; the ranks of those over 20 years old are thin; the life expectancy has been shortened so drastically that the adult population will in any event decrease further over the next two decades. Few children were born during the Pol Pot years, and those who survived are now suffering from disease and severe malnutrition. The fertility of unhealthy mothers and fathers is low, so not many babies will be born in the next few years. At best, the prospects for regeneration of the population by the end of the century are poor. (U)

To repeat what I recently quoted in the evening report:3 “The grim demographic outlook is for a Kampuchean population of few children, few elderly people, and many prematurely old people whose life span has been drastically shortened by events. Decimated by disease, famine, and war and bereft of its leaders and labor force, the Kampuchean society will need decades to come back, if it survives at all”. (U)

The report is available in my office for examination or copies for those interested. (U)

Lincoln P. Bloomfield4
  1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Global Issues, Bloomfield Subject File, Box 19, Refugees: Kampuchea, 12/79–6/80. Confidential.↩
  2. The CIA assessment is ibid. The copy is dated March 1980, not January 1980.↩
  3. Bloomfield’s evening report to Brzezinski, January 30, is in the Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Global Issues, Opinger/Bloomfield Subject File, Box 37, Evening Reports, 1–3/80.↩
  4. Bloomfield initialed above his typed signature.↩