Letters
Heroes of Thailand
Sir: As a one-time resident of Thailand, husband of a Thai and general Thai-phile 1 much enjoyed Richard West's vignette on Thailand's 200 years of Chakri kings (17 April).
Quoting from the Thai historian, the late Prince Chula, an Anglophile who took himself an English wife, Mr West refers to the pre-war motor racing exploits of Bira B., alias Prince Birabongse. I am glad to be able to report that this celebrated sporting prince is very much alive today, residing in Bangkok with a brace of wives, one major and one minor, cohabiting, so the story
goes, in one enormous bed. ApocryPhal, perhaps, even if in character, but what is 01 no doubt is that the valiant prince is as
sporting as ever and represented his countrY with distinction in the 1976 sailing Olympics at Kiel.
Of a less sprightly nature, but no less gallant, and also still living as Mr West in- timates, is the founder of modern Thailand, Pridi Panomyong. However, to put the record straight Pridi has, for some years
now, exchanged the rigours of a villa in the
suburbs of Peking for the comforts of one in the banlieue of Paris, where Khotnehli- like he doubtless awaits a recall. to power in the unlikely event that the parliamentary faction in Thai politics gains the upper hand. I was surprised by Mr West's thumbnail sketch, of Thailand's history since the precocious Pridi's coup did not touch 011
the impact of Pibul's most renowned suc- cessor, Field-Marshal Sarit, who held power in the early Sixties. Sarit was an ar-
chetypal military strong man with populist leanings and a voracious sexual appetite. He saw the strategic merit of econornie friendship with Japan and military friend- ship with the US, the former bringing fac- tories and Datsun taxis, the latter airfields, tanks and a network of strategic roads. He, was also brutally tough with all manner 0' dissidents and trouble-makers who were hi' discriminately branded as 'communists',
giving communism the bad name in Thailand it still, generally, enjoys to this
day. It was probably Sarit's far-sighted policies more than any other single factor that, so far at least, has proved the 'clotnirl° theory' wrong. How long has Thailand got? It's a ques- tion that people have always asked. When 1 first went to Thailand in 1970 at the height of the Vietnam war and 'domino' talk 1, asked it of local sages. They smiled and sal° enigmatically, 'Thailand's got five years,' Later I learned that the sages had been say- ing that in 1960, and again in 1965. BY 1975, when I left, I even felt sage enough to
say it myself. No doubt it was said in 1980 too,
Jocelyn Waller
56 Sussex Street, London SWI
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