Next for Conquest

As if surrender at Geneva had given everybody a respite, Western Europe settled back last week and began to savor the prospects of "peaceful coexistence." Not so the Communists. With Indo-China subdued and broken, the Communists had their next victim clearly in their sights, and last week they proclaimed it: Thailand.

The Communists even had their candidate for the job of leading the new conquest. The man: Pridi Phanomyong, a 52-year-old Thai scholar who was respected among Thai nationalists in the manner that Ho Chi Minh was once respected in Indo-China. "For many," said the Bangkok Post, ". . . it must be an uncomfortable awakening."

Pridi the Nationalist. Thailand (Siam) has little in common with Indo-China; it has been independent since the late 18th century (except for the Japanese occupation in World War II), and is therefore free from Indo-China's colonial handicap.

It is a land rich in rice and devoutly Buddhist; its 19 million people worship in gaily decorated temples. Thailand's Premier and strongman, Marshal Phibun Songgram, is no Nehru neutralist: he is Southeast Asia's most stoutly anti-Communist leader. Only last month the U.S. agreed to help build up Thailand's army from 65,000 to 100,000. In its drive for the "unification" of Asia, Red China would have to crush--or undermine--Thailand.

Peking's chosen instrument, Pridi Phanomyong, is of notably nationalist--not Communist--background. In 1932 he helped Phibun set up Thailand's popular constitutional monarchy. He was named rector of Bangkok's respected University of Moral and Political Sciences. During World War II, Pridi led Thailand's underground resistance against the Japanese while Phibun was comfortably presiding over his country's Japanese puppet government (which declared war on the U.S.).

Inside the palace as Regent, Pridi worked closely and dangerously with American OSS agents; he earned the wartime regard of U.S. Major General "Wild Bill" Donovan, now the U.S. Ambassador to Thailand. For five months in 1946, Pridi was Thailand's Premier. Forced into exile 15 months later, Pridi left Bangkok in a motor launch borrowed from a good friend in the U.S. embassy. But on arrival in Singapore, Pridi mysteriously disappeared; nothing was seen or heard of him for the next seven years.

Pridi the Communist. Last week, with appropriate fanfare, Red China introduced Pridi as "Public Leader of Thailand." Pridi posed carefully as a genuine Thai nationalist, urging Thais never to serve as "cannon fodder for imperialism," but instead to "wage a struggle" against the U.S. "Although the forces of peace have achieved a tremendous victory in restoring peace in Indo-China," cried Pridi, "U.S. imperialists and the Thai reactionary government are still lording it . . . They are bent on using Thailand as a base for aggression."

Next day Moscow put out a blast against Thailand's "venal, corrupt, half-Fascist" government. From Washington came gloomy predictions of the next Red move: to campaign for an "Autonomous Thai Federation," which is already organized among the Thais who live inside South China. This grouping is designed to embrace 1,100,000 Laotians and 3,700,000 Cambodians (many of Thai stock), in addition to the 19 million Thais of Thailand. As such, it would make a handsome Red jewel to set beside a Viet Nam run by Ho Chi Minh.

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