Word: thanat
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...former government. Besides amiable, soft-spoken Premier Thanom Kittikachorn, the junta includes tough, earthy Praphas Charusathien, who, as commander-in-chief of the Royal Thai Army, is the most powerful man in the country. Among the members of the Cabinet who are at least temporarily out of a job: Thanat Khoman, a brilliant but unpopular Foreign Minister who helped forge an alliance between the U.S. and Thailand and in recent months has urged a closer relationship with China...
Another reason is that the Thais, like other Asians, are deeply distressed about the prospect of an almost total U.S. stand-down in Asia. Reflecting that gloom, Thai Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman last week delivered a U.S.-baiting speech, charging that American policy is being warped by the "confusions and convulsions" of hippie and yippie culture. He added the blunt but perhaps not unreasonable observation that the U.S. "is exhibiting signs of derangement and systematic disorder...
...Thais, whose own economy is showing symptoms of disorder after a decade of prosperity, are troubled not only about how to finance aid to Cambodia, but also about the timing. Thanat and Praphas displayed a surprising lack of agreement on the question when they appeared at a conference in Bangkok last week. Citing the Communist threat, Praphas said: "We have to send troops into Cambodia." Thanat maintained that "Thailand will fight only when it is unavoidable...
Fatal Flaw. It promises to be an acid test. At the annual meeting of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization in Manila last week, Washington's allies showed little enthusiasm for any regional plan. Thai Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman told TIME Correspondent Herman Nickel that his nation might decline to provide any substantial assistance unless its own security were "directly threatened." Some U.S. officials are convinced that Thanat is merely trying to squeeze more aid funds out of Washington; so far Bangkok has "loaned" Phnom-Penh some river-patrol craft, as well as five T-28 propeller-driven bombers...
...reduction in the number of U.S. servicemen stationed on their soil. There are now 50,000, barely fewer than are in South Korea. "Thailand is a country that stands on its own two feet," said Nixon as he urged the Thais to make new domestic reforms. Foreign Minister Thanat Kho-man took the cue from his guest. "It is an absolute necessity for Thailand to have many different measures to oppose the danger of aggression by Asian Communist countries," he said. "The most practical method is to develop our country and make it as progressive and prosperous as possible...