Revolution by News Broadcast

"Oh, God," moaned an overemotional Siamese consul in Singapore last week, "what will happen to our King now?" The answer to this rhetorical question--in a land which most Americans are apt to regard as a musical-comedy setting--was: nothing whatever. In the 19 years since Siam became a constitutional monarchy, her political history has been punctuated by eight coups d'etat, none of which had any profound effect on the powerless ruling House of Chakkri. Last week, young hepcat King Phumiphon Adundet,* his pretty Queen Sirikit and their eight-month-old daughter Princess Lotus Precious Stone arrived home from Switzerland to find their nation just recovering from one of the quietest coups in its history.

The dancing feet in Bangkok's perennially gay nightspots had scarcely missed a beat when the government radio announced that "due to present world tension and the Communist infiltration in parliamentary circles, the Army, Navy, Air Force, police and patriotic Siamese had found it necessary to stage a military coup d'etat." Most of Bangkok merely sighed and carried on. It had been a revolution by news broadcast.

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.

The only victim was Siamese democracy itself, never a vigorous adversary. In place of a two-chamber parliament, half of whose members were elected, Phibun's new government would operate by consent of a one-chamber, one-party parliament, all of whose members would be appointed by Phibun.

* Composer of Blue Night, in Mike Todd's Broadway musical, Peep Show.

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