SIAM: Return of Phibun

The Defense Ministry last week drew 8,000,000 baht (about $800,000) from the National Bank of Siam. In orderly Western fashion, the Ministry accounted for the expenditure: “to pay coup expenses.” Tango Interrupted. The coup itself had been orderly (one of the plotters described it as “very straightforward and very kind-hearted”) but a little hard for Westerners to understand. The first point to get straight is that all Siamese politics turns around the rivalry between royalist Field Marshal Phibun (pronounced “fee bun”) Songgram and republican Pridi Banomyong, who both went to school in France in the 1920s. The coup simply put Phibun’s men in, tossed Pridi Banomyong’s men out.

Pridi Banomyong’s henchman, Prime Minister Thamrong-Nawasawat, was dancing a tango at a charity ball one moonlit night two weeks ago when a friend whispered warning words in his ear. The Premier took it on the lam for a lamasery. Meanwhile Phibun’s military friends, using Siam’s 20 or so ancient little Swedish and Japanese tanks and armored cars, took over Bangkok. Phibun, as new Supreme Commander of Siamese Forces, entered the Defense Ministry on the shoulders of cheering soldiery. Many officers prostrated themselves in homage.

Many other Siamese remembered Phibun with less pleasure. When he first made himself Siam’s dictator, in 1938, he forbade Siamese to go without hats or shoes, to chew betel nut, to sit on the streets, to wear the panung (native skirt), or to dance to American and European music. In official photographs, shoes and hats were painted on unshod, hatless peasants. Phibun ordered officials to kiss their wives when they left for their Government offices. Violators of Phibun’s decrees were whisked off to “self-improvement centers.” When the Japanese took over Siam, Phibun collaborated with them and declared war on the U.S. and Britain. But Chief Political Rival Pridi Banomyong (under the code name “Ruth”) helped to organize a Free Siamese underground to help the Allies. In August 1944, Phibun resigned and retired to his country house. After the war, Pridi Banomyong seesawed to the top.

Kite Flying Resumed. Last spring Phibun entered Bangkok’s municipal kite flying contest. To Siamese, this was a perfectly plain sign that he was coming out of political retirement. His personal astrologer, Chalaem, had found that Phibun’s stars indicated rising power from March 26 onward. Phibun opened his pine-shaded bungalow in Bangkok’s suburbs. There he told the press: “I was fed up with retirement, so I bought kites. But kite flying is not so interesting as politics. … I am forming a new party with the slogan, ‘Right Is Might.'”

The Siamese were suspicious. What, they asked, would be his policy on betel chewing? “Oldfashioned folk who chew betel have nothing to fear from me,” replied Phibun. “I might even chew betel myself.”

Meanwhile Rival Pridi Banomyong’s man, Premier Thamrong-Nawasawat, failed to steer Siam off the postwar economic rocks. “Pridi Banomyong has soft ears,” said the Siamese; self-seekers seemed able to talk him into anything. The cost of living doubled. Official corruption was almost universal.

Apparently feeling that any change would be for the better, even if it brought back Phibun, the Siamese accepted his coup calmly. From Bangkok a TIME correspondent cabled typical man-in-the-street comment: “It is our lot to cooperate always with a coup.”

Phibun’s tone was equally calm. When ex-Premier Thamrong-Nawasawat last week came out of his monastic sanctuary, Phibun told him, “Please go home and live happily ever after.”