Word: sarit
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Thailand. Elections ordered by the new strongman, Marshal Sarit, were completed last week. Fellow travelers are reeling backward, deprived of the support of Pibulsonggram, whom Sarit ousted in last September's coup. Rice is cheap and plentiful. Sarit and all major parties back Thailand's past SEATO commitments, and prospects are that the country will continue prosperous and stable...
...Resign." One of the first orders directed General Phao, who had been forced to resign as police chief the week before, to surrender himself. Phao heard the order at home, went first to a nearby Chinese bar for two quick bracers, then to Sarit's headquarters. Along the way, Phao unbuckled his police automatic and chucked it into the viscid, green waters of a Bangkok canal. Sarit gave him two choices: leave the country or become a Buddhist monk. Phao chose to leave for Switzerland, where he can count his money. He had not been exiled, said a Foreign...
...Marshal Sarit's bloodless coup so surprised Bangkok diplomats that most of them heard of it at breakfast the morning after. Shortly before midnight Marshal Sarit's brand-new U.S. tanks and weapons carriers had taken up positions controlling Bangkok's key traffic arteries. Efficient little Thai infantrymen, troops of Sarit's crack 1st Division, set up mortar and machine-gun emplacements, and over the radio came the first of a series of orders from Sarit and the new government...
Kept in Kep. As Sarit's troops were moving into position to take over Bangkok, the army radio broadcast frantic appeals for Pibul to surrender. "Please report, please report as soon as possible," said the military announcers. But Pibul, accompanied only by a military aide, was already speeding south at the wheel of his Thunderbird. Somewhere along the coast of the Gulf of Siam, Pibul and his aide boarded a navy LCM manned by his personal guards. Three days later Pibul and a skeleton personal staff disembarked some 200 miles away at the Cambodian seaside resort...
Change for the Better. His victorious successor, granite-faced Marshal Sarit got official blessing from 29-year-old King Phumiphon Aduldet, then sent personal messages to the U.S. and British embassies assuring them that the change in government presaged no change in Thailand's pro-Western foreign policy. As an earnest of his intentions, Sarit saw to it that able, pro-Western Pote Sarasin, a 52-year-old aristocrat who served for five years as Ambassador to Washington, was named temporary Premier. Meanwhile, a scheduled meeting of the SEATO military group convened in Bangkok without a hitch. Said Sarit...