Yes it was an example of one of Chomsky's half-truths.
> I will have to read the book myself but looking at the references it does look like it has a "wide range of sources".
This was an example Chomsky lying by omission. There were, indeed, plenty of other sources for information in the book - for events prior to the Khmer Rouge coming to power.
> Just to be clear: You are saying that he fabricated citations? Can you tell me the specific ones?
Yes. He wrote, "Their scholarship collapses under the barest scrutiny. To cite a few cases, they state that among those evacuated from Phnom Penh, “virtually everybody saw the consequences of [summary executions] in the form of the corpses of men, women and children rapidly bloating and rotting in the hot sun,” citing, among others, J.J. Cazaux, who wrote, [...]. They also cite The New York Times, May 9, 1975, where Sydney Shanberg wrote [...]"
Neither Cazaux nor Shanberg were cited as evidence for the passage quoted. The book certainly cited Shanberg elsewhere, though in reference to early favorable views of the Khmer Rouge.
> I assume he's referring to the letter he describes himself in the subsequent paragraph from, "an economist and statistician for the Cambodian Government until March 1975" who "visited refugee camps in Thailand and kept in touch with Khmers" and who relayed conversations from a "European friend who cycled around Phnom Penh for many days after its fall" and who you misleadingly describe as merely "a reader".
This was an example of Chomsky dishonest borrowing of authority. The Economist does provide analysis "by highly qualified specialists who have studied the full range of evidence available."
This letter to the editor authored by a UN employee (mischaracterized by Chomsky as someone who worked for the Cambodian government) offered his "first impression" of an Economist article and contained personal estimates of civilian war deaths seemingly based on what he "felt" and some anecdotes.
That certainly wasn't written by one of the Economist's stable of highly qualified specialists who have studied the full range of evidence available - unlike the article the letter was responding to - an article that stated (correctly) that there were a million civilian deaths.
In an alternative reality where the Khmer Rouge were capitalists and an anti-Chomsky had written Distortions at Fourth Hand, there is little doubt that real Chomsky would have ripped it apart as American Imperialist propaganda. Sadly, neither he nor his apologists hold his writings to the standards he held others.
