[1] This had come about due to an incident earlier in his career in which he had drunkenly insisted that a subordinate shoot a live cat off his head, stating that it was a direct order when the soldier resisted.
[1][3][4] Under Sihanouk's regime, Savuth (along with a fellow officer, Les Kosem) was closely involved in the formation of FULRO, a guerrilla resistance movement seeking autonomy for the Degar tribes of Vietnam.
When Kosem disagreed with the direction being taken by FULRO's leader, Y-Bham Enuol, he forcibly detained him and placed him under house arrest at Savuth's residence in Phnom Penh.
Nixon did not respond to the offer, though Savuth's wife told Peter R. Kann of the Wall Street Journal that she was rather pleased with this as "giving away an elephant is bad luck".
[6] Savuth was killed in a car accident in November 1972,[2] though Khmer Rouge radio claimed that he had died during an attack by CPNLAF troops along National Route 5.