[1] When the Vietnam War spilled into Cambodia, Bizot was employed at the Angkor Conservation Office, restoring ceramics and bronzes.

Throughout those years of war, as I frantically scoured the hinterland for the old manuscripts that the heads of monasteries had secreted in lacquered chests, I witnessed the Americans' imperviousness to the realities of Cambodia," wrote Bizot in his memoirs of the time.

He was released in December 1971 after Comrade Duch wrote a detailed report that convinced the Khmer Rouge leadership of Bizot's innocence.

[citation needed] When the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975, Bizot, like most other foreigners in the country, sought refuge in the French Embassy.

He returned to Cambodia in 2003 and met his former captor Duch, who was waiting for his trial for crimes against humanity, for about one hour and a half (a few minutes of the encounter were put on film).