Word: songgram
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Intertwined Fates. Quickly Dulles made clear that the U.S. sees the defense of the SEATO area as only a part of the defense of the whole Pacific. Thailand's Premier Phibun Songgram, pointing out nervously that 20,000 "Free Thai" troops were mobilized across the Chinese border, wanted the U.S. to put troops right in Thailand where everybody could see them. The Communist threat, Dulles replied, is not a local problem but a coordinated assault on the free world by a unified power controlling 800 million people. No nation could keep enough power within its borders to combat that...
...year later there was a small revolution. Marshal Phibun Songgram, Pridi's ancient rival in the seesaw of Siamese politics, took over as Premier and charged that Pridi himself was responsible for the King's murder. (Pridi has since turned up in Peking, leading a "Free Thai" movement blessed by the Communists.) In the years that followed, successive courts of inquiry tried to fix the blame for the King's death on other guilty parties to no positive avail...
...land rich in rice and devoutly Buddhist; its 19 million people worship in gaily decorated temples. Thailand's Premier and strongman, Marshal Phibun Songgram, is no Nehru neutralist: he is Southeast Asia's most stoutly anti-Communist leader. Only last month the U.S. agreed to help build up Thailand's army from 65,000 to 100,000. In its drive for the "unification" of Asia, Red China would have to crush-or undermine-Thailand...
...Siamese side of the Laos border there are already some 50,000 pro-Communist Chinese and Vietnamese rebels, organized and trained by Chinese and Viet Minh agents. They sit astride the traditional opium-smuggling routes, and are believed to have accumulated stocks of modern arms. Field Marshal Phibun Songgram's border guards find it prudent not to trouble them. Former Premier Pridhi Panomyong has long been under Red Chinese tutelage in Peking...
There were two good reasons why the coup was quiet: 1) all the nation's armed forces for once" were on the same side; 2) efficient strong-man Premier Phibun Songgram, the ablest engineer of coups in the country, had staged this one against himself to streamline his government. After four hours, during which he was thrown out of office by prearrangement with his generals, admirals and air marshals, the Premier re-emerged at the head of a government more powerful than ever...