The King Is Dead

One morning this week, just before noon, a servant entered the palace bed room of King Ananda Mahidol, 20-year-old constitutional monarch of Siam, and found the king's lifeless body. There was a bullet wound over his left eye, and a pistol lay at his left side. Courtiers who sniffed foul play remembered that Ananda was right handed. Although he had been thoroughly accustomed to handling firearms, the Siamese police and medical authorities pronounced his death "accidental." While his people grieved and the young queen mother, the Phraratanani Sri Sangwan, lay prostrate, Siam's new parliament met and chose his brother, Prince Phumiphon (pronounced: Poomipon) Aduldet, 18, as King.

Ananda had been a shy, studious boy who performed his royal duties with docility but without much interest. Most of his brief life had been lived abroad. His father (halfbrother of the late King Prajadhipok) had taken a medical degree at Harvard: Ananda had been born in Germany, educated in Switzerland. He became king under a regency in 1935 when Prajadhipok abdicated.

Last month Ananda signed a new constitution providing a popularly elected Siamese parliament, and last fortnight he opened the first session. This week he had planned to leave by air for the U.S., then go to Switzerland to finish a law course at the University of Lausanne. His family and the strong, subtle men who run Siam had opposed this trip, promising to import tutors if he wanted more study. But Ananda had persisted.

Last April a U.S. correspondent in Bangkok, after trying vainly for an interview with Ananda, concluded that he was more or less a prisoner of the politicians. What ever the real cause of his death, Ananda is out of prison now.

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