Last week, Thanat Khoman, the longtime politician and former foreign minister of Thailand, died of natural causes in Bangkok. He was 102, and one of the last surviving leaders who played a central role in the Indochina Wars of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Thanat was foreign minister between 1959 and 1971, when the spread of communism through Indochina—communist forces had nearly encircled Luang Prabang during the First Indochina War, and communist forces obviously were making gains in Laos and South Vietnam during Thanat’s tenure—terrified the conservative Thai military regime. Thailand supposedly prided itself on neutrality and working with all nations, a foundation of Thai diplomacy for centuries, yet it already had been moving closer toward a security partnership with the United States even before Thanat’s tenure as foreign minister.
http://blogs.cfr.org/asia/2016/03/08/thanat-khoman-and-the-fraying-of-the-u-s-thailand-alliance/
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