A suburban O'ahu neighborhood became the unlikely venue for news about bloodshed in Cambodia as the country fell to Communist-led guerrillas in April 1975.

Days after Khmer Rouge forces seized Phnom Penh and began their infamous reign of terror, exiled Cambodian President Lon Nol and his family moved into a four-bedroom home he purchased on Kamilo Street in Hawai'i Kai.

From his living room sofa, the deposed strongman described atrocities in his homeland, called for United Nations intervention and sought support for refugees.

"What's happening in Cambodia concerns not only Cambodia but the whole of Southeast Asia," he told The Advertiser shortly after settling in. He remained on O'ahu for four years.

The former general and defense minister had taken control of Cambodia after helping to lead a 1970 coup that overthrew vacillating Prince Norodom Sihanouk.

Lon became a convenient but ineffective U.S. ally as the war in neighboring Vietnam drew to a close and fighting intensified in Cambodia. The U.S. dropped more bombs on suspected North Vietnamese strongholds in Cambodia than on Japan during World War II, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and combatants while buying time for the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam.

Though Lon received U.S. military and financial support while in power, some American officials and many others had doubts about him.

His frequent consultations with astrologers were thought odd, and critics accused his regime of widespread torture, murder and corruption. When he and a fleeing entourage of 28 landed at Hickam Air Force Base on a C-135, protesters angrily demanded that he leave.

While Lon's power was short-lived, the coup is now widely seen as a major turning point in modern Cambodian history.

The ousted Sihanouk aligned himself with the Khmer Rouge rebels and called for patriotic Cambodians to join them. What had been a weak Communist insurgency quickly swelled with thousands of fighters who knew little or nothing of their military leaders' ideology. And the massive U.S. bombing campaign infuriated Cambodian peasants and drove North Vietnamese forces deeper into Cambodia.

Meanwhile, Lon had sought to strengthen his position by releasing hundreds of political prisoners — including Kaing Geuk Eav, better known as Comrade Duch, who is now awaiting trial in Cambodia's U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal.

After the 1975 rebel victory, Duch ran the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, where he allegedly oversaw the torture and execution of thousands of men, women and children. He has been charged with crimes against humanity and is being held without bail.

Lon had escaped to Hawai'i just in time; his younger brother, Gen. Lon Non, remained behind to negotiate with the rebels and was promptly executed.

From his new home, Lon Nol pledged to create a government-in-exile and return to power, but he lacked support and never saw Cambodia again.

He enrolled in English classes at the University of Hawai'i, sent his children to public schools, and was occasionally spotted shopping in Chinatown.

He soon bought a larger Hawai'i Kai home, at Kumukahi Place, and later moved to a 4-acre spread on an unpaved road in Nanakuli, where he raised geese and rabbits and grew vegetables. His son Rith, who attended Wai'anae High School, would translate for journalists who occasionally sought out the aging former despot.

In 1978, Lon wrecked his brand-new Lincoln Continental on the H-1 Freeway in 'Aiea, but escaped serious injury.

Before moving to California the following year, he said the Mainland would offer his children better opportunities.

He died of heart failure in Fullerton, Ca., in 1985, at age 72.

Advertiser Staff Writer Johnny Brannon is traveling in Southeast Asia as a Jefferson Fellow with Honolulu's East-West Center.

Reach Johnny Brannon at jbrannon@honoluluadvertiser.com.