Chronik Thailands

กาลานุกรมสยามประเทศไทย

von

Alois Payer

Chronik 1961 / B. E. 2504


Zitierweise / cite as:

Payer, Alois <1944 - >: Chronik Thailands = กาลานุกรมสยามประเทศไทย. -- Chronik 1961 / B. E. 2504. -- Fassung vom 2017-03-17. -- URL: http://www.payer.de/thailandchronik/chronik1961.htm

Erstmals publiziert: 2012-10-02

Überarbeitungen: 2017-03-17 [Ergänzungen] ; 2016-12-23 [Ergänzungen] ; 2016-12-01 [Ergänzungen] ; 2016-11-21 [Ergänzungen] ; 2016-09-27 [Ergänzungen] ; 2016-09-09 [Ergänzungen] ; 2016-08-31 [Ergänzungen] ; 2016-07-06 [Ergänzungen] ; 2016-04-07 [Ergänzungen] ; 2016-03-27 [Ergänzungen] ; 2016-01-18 [Ergänzungen] ; 2016-01-03 [Ergänzungen] ; 2015-12-09 [Ergänzungen] ; 2015-11-11 [Ergänzungen] ; 2015-09-24 [Ergänzungen] ; 2015-09-14 [Ergänzungen] ; 2015-07-06 [Ergänzungen] ; 2015-06-02 [Ergänzungen] ; 2015-04-27 [Ergänzungen] ; 2015-02-10 [Ergänzungen] ; 2014-10-31 [Ergänzungen] ; 2014-10-18 [Ergänzungen] ; 2014-09-24 [Ergänzungen] ; 2014-09-15 [Ergänzungen] ;  2014-08-21 [Ergänzungen] ; 2014-03-03 [Ergänzungen] ; 2013-12-04 [Ergänzungen] ; 2013-11-21 [Ergänzungen] ; 2013-11-06 [Ergänzungen] ; 2013-11-01 [Ergänzungen] ; 2013-10-27 [Ergänzungen] ; 2013-10-06 [Ergänzungen] ; 2013-09-19 [Ergänzungen] ; 2013-06-07 [Ergänzungen] ; 2013-06-04 [Ergänzungen] ; 2013-05-24 [Ergänzungen] ; 2013-05-20 [Ergänzungen] ; 2013-04-29 [Ergänzungen] ; 2013-04-21 [Ergänzungen] ; 2013-01-23 [Ergänzungen] ; 2013-01-12 [Ergänzungen]

©opyright: Dieser Text steht der Allgemeinheit zur Verfügung. Eine Verwertung in Publikationen, die über übliche Zitate hinausgeht, bedarf der ausdrücklichen Genehmigung des Herausgebers.

Dieser Text ist Teil der Abteilung Thailand von Tüpfli's Global Village Library


ช้างตายทั้งตัวเอาใบบัวปิดไม่มิด


 

 

Gewidmet meiner lieben Frau

Margarete Payer

die seit unserem ersten Besuch in Thailand 1974 mit mir die Liebe zu den und die Sorge um die Bewohner Thailands teilt.

 


Vorsicht bei den Statistikdiagrammen!

Bei thailändischen Statistiken muss man mit allen Fehlerquellen rechnen, die in folgendem Werk beschrieben sind:

Morgenstern, Oskar <1902 - 1977>: On the accuracy of economic observations. -- 2. ed. -- Princeton : Princeton Univ. Press, 1963. -- 322 S. ; 20 cm.

Die Statistikdiagramme geben also meistens eher qualitative als korrekte quantitative Beziehungen wieder.

 


2504 / 1961 undatiert


Statistik:
  • Anzahl der durch unvorsichtiges Fahren in Großbangkok verursachten Verkehrsunfälle: 3908
    • davon Todesfälle: 184
    • davon Verletzte: 2947
  • Brände in Großbangkok: 181
    • davon durch Fahrlässigkeit: 153
    • davon durch Unfälle: 25
    • davon Brandstiftung: 3
  • Festnahmen durch die Wasserpolizei: 8473
    • davon wegen Vergehen gegen Navigationsbestimmungen: 1326
    • davon wegen Vergehen gegen Fischereigesetze: 1704
    • davon wegen Vergehen gegen Zollbestimmungen: 427
  • Anzahl der von der Staatsanwaltschaft eingeleiteten Strafverfahren: 190.331
  • In Strafsachen verurteilte Männer: 113.056
  • In Strafsachen verurteilte Frauen: 15.491
  • Anzahl der Hinrichtungen: 9
  • Anzahl der Universitäten: 5
  • Anzahl der Universitätsstudenten: 18.000

1961 + 1962

Chiang Mai (เชียงใหม่): Anlässlich von Besuchen des Königspaars tanzen Hunderte in traditioneller Nordthai-Kleidung Fon Lep (ฟ้อนเล็บ)


Abb.: Fon Lep (ฟ้อนเล็บ), 2010
[Bildquelle: Alain Limoges. -- https://www.flickr.com/photos/alain_limoges/4421097653/. -- Zugriff am 2015-08-20. -- Creative Commons Lizenz (Namensnennung, keine kommerzielle Nutzung, share alike)]

Fon Lep (ฟ้อนเล็บ) auf Spotify:

URI: spotify:track:7LsSZoYiReFZlVTJizZyRL
URL: https://open.spotify.com/track/7LsSZoYiReFZlVTJizZyRL

1961

The Northeast Development Plan, 1962-1966 / The Committee on Development of the Northeast. The Government of Thailand. -- Bangkok : Planning Office, National Economic Development Board, Office of the Prime Minister, [1961]. -- 129 S. ; 27 cm.

"The aim of the Northeast Development Plan is to raise the standard of living of the Northeastern peoples to levels comparable with that of other regions, bringing about general welfare and happiness to the inhabitants of this region, and to lay down economic and social infrastructures for future economic stability and progress. The Committee holds above all the fact that the Northeastern part is an integral and inseparable part of the Kingdom of Thailand and that the Thai nationals living in the Northeastern region are Thai citizens."

[a.a.O., S. 2. -- Zitiert von Keyes, Charles Fenton <1937 - >. -- In: Regions and national integration in Thailand 1892 - 1992 / Volker Grabowsky [1959 - ] (ed.). -- Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz, 1995. -- 296 S. ; 24 cm. -- ISBN 3-447-03608-7. -- "Papers presented at the Sixth International Symposium on Southeast Asia Studies at Passau University in June 1992". -- S. 162f.]

Keyes kommentiert:

"Although the new policy presumed that successful development would promote greater loyalty among northeasterners to the Thai state, the implementation of the policy initially had quite the reverse effect. The new programmes instituted under the plan led to a dramatic increase in the numbers of interactions villagers had with representatives of the Thai government. Villagers had already developed rather negative attitudes toward government officials based on their interactions with district officials and police officers. From the villagers' perspective these officials frequently intruded into the lives of villagers only to prevent them from doing something, to force compliance with some regulation, or to demand something. Villagers were harassed by police for making rice beer and whiskey; they often had to pay bribes to the police when they wished to transport goods to market; they had to pay additional bribes to district officials to get permits to hold festivals or to undertake many types of economic activities; and they were also expected to provide a feast for officials when the latter came to the village to tell people of government policies. New types of officials - community development workers, agricultural extension officers, or military civic action teams - while ostensibly sent to assist villagers typically, unless they were of rural northeastern background themselves, simply intensified the authoritarian presence of the government in the villages. The main consequence of the implementation of the government's development plan in the Northeast was an intensification of friction between northeastern villagers and Thai officials. "

[Quelle: Keyes, Charles Fenton <1937 - >. -- In: Regions and national integration in Thailand 1892 - 1992 / Volker Grabowsky [1959 - ] (ed.). -- Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz, 1995. -- 296 S. ; 24 cm. -- ISBN 3-447-03608-7. -- "Papers presented at the Sixth International Symposium on Southeast Asia Studies at Passau University in June 1992". -- S. 163.]

1961 - 1972

Die US ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) hat eine Field Unit in Thailand

"From 1961 to 1972 the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the Department of Defense had a field unit in Bangkok. It was initiated as part of Project AGILE, which was concerned with research on remote area conflict. The unit was established for a variety of reasons: to facilitate United States research in tropical environments and so make the research more realistic; to help develop the Thai counterinsurgency capabilities; and to encourage and strengthen development of a Thai military research and development effort. The ARPA field unit (called ARPA Research and Development Center—Thailand) was part of the joint U.S.-Thai Military Research and Development Center (MRDC). The Thai part of the Center, which was established at the same time as the ARPA field unit and is still in existence, is commanded by a Thai general officer, and reports to the Directorate of Research and Education under the Chief of Staff of the Thai Supreme Command. At times Australian and United Kingdom military specialists have assisted and advised MRDC. The Director of the ARPA field unit, like the Commander of MACTHAI, worked under overlapping lines of command. He reported to the Ambassador, coordinated with the Commander of MACTHAI and C1NCPAC, and was ultimately under the control of ARPA officials in Washington. Initiation of projects required approval from both the U.S. Mission in Bangkok and the Thai Supreme Command.

Some joint work was done in the Center, but to a very large extent the work was done by Americans, some of whom were military and civilian personnel assigned to ARPA, but most of whom were U.S. contractor personnel who at one time numbered nearly 200. In the very late 1960s increasing emphasis was put on training Thais as researchers with the objective of phasing ARPA out. On-the-job training was conducted and selected Thais were sent for schooling in the United States. Increasingly the Thais have developed the capability to do their own research. Whether they undertake to do an adequate amount is another question.

Early ARPA studies were primarily related to ground mobility and radio communications under tropical conditions but also sought to improve individual combat rations, clothing, and equipment for the Thai soldier. Only a few early studies related to counterinsurgency. For example, one in 1965 on village security was a pioneer approach to that vital aspect of counterinsurgency. In 1966-1967, however, the whole ARPA effort in Thailand was reoriented toward research primarily relevant to counterinsurgency, and the ARPA field unit was informally recognized as the research arm of the United States Mission regarding internal security problems. Though much of its work was controversial, under the Rural Security Systems Program, ARPA studied border control, village security, insurgent psychological operations, ethnic groups of North Thailand, and a host of other counterinsurgency-related subjects. Working with its Thai counterpart, it compiled much-needed data, and tested various equipment for the Thai armed forces. An Electronics Laboratory started in 1963 is now operated by a Thai staff; an Aerial Reconnaissance Laboratory with a specially- equipped plane which participates in counterinsurgency operations is now also mn by the Thais.

Because of the increased Thai capability and in keeping with the spirit of the Nixon Doctrine, the ARPA field unit was rapidly phased down in 1971 and was closed down completely in December, 1972."

[Quelle: Tanham, George K. (George Kilpatrick) <1922 - 2003>: Trial in Thailand. -- New York : Crane, Russak, 1974. -- 175 S.  ; 24 cm. -- ISBN 0-8448-0318-9. -- S. 125f.]

"SELECTED ARPA/MRDC RESEARCH PROJECTS IN THAILAND

 

PROJECT AUTHORS DATE
Observations on Mobile Development Unit-2 Operations Lee W. Huff June 1963
Mobile Development Unit Follow-Up Lee W. Huff Nov. 1964
Village Security Pilot Study, Northeast Thailand D. J. Blakeslee
L. W. Huff
R. W. Kicked
May 1965
Low-Altitude Visual Search for Individual Human Targets: Further Field Testing in Southeast Asia D. J. Blakeslee June 1965
Survival Manual for Thailand and Adjacent Areas. Annex. Edible and Poisonous Plants and Animals Tern Smitinand
Wilbur R. Scheible
April 1966
Ethnography of the Akah Robert W. Kickert
(Austrian anthropologist)
in progress, March 1966
Examination of Popularly Held Images: Prerequisites to Political Integration of the Thai-Islam M. Ladd Thomas*
(political scientist, Northern Illinois University)
 in progress, March 1966
Social Structure and Shifting Agriculture in a Meo Community George A. Binney* in progress, March 1966
A Social Anthropological Study of Yao People in Thailand Peter K. Kandre* in progress, March 1966
Concept of Insurgency Conflict in Thailand; Logistical and Transportation Studies Research Analysis Corporation** in progress, March 1966
[A research program on the basis of] Analysis of Regional Conflict; Surveillance; Communication; Insurgent Logistics; Population Control; Contingency Allocation; Counterinsurgency Operations of Indigenous Naval Forces Stanford Research Institute** in progress, March 1966
Thailand Village Radio Study  James L. Woods
Percy W. Collom Termpoon Kovatana Robert W. Kickert
Jerrold Milsted
 Jan. 1967

* ARPA staff member or individual contractee.
** ARPA
contractee."

[Quelle: Wakin, Eric: Anthropology goes to war : professional ethics & counterinsurgency in Thailand. -- Madison, WI : University of Wisconsin, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 1992. -- 319 S. : Ill. ; 23 cm. -- (Monograph <University of Wisconsin--Madison. Center for Southeast Asian Studies> ;  No. 7). -- ISBN 978-1-881261-03-2. -- S. 82f. -- Fair use]

1961 - 1974

USA: Project AGILE, ein Forschungsprogramm zur Bekämpfung kommunistischer Aufstände. Thailand ist ein Schwerpunkt.

"Project AGILE was an ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency ) project in the 1960s that investigated means for engaging in remote, limited warfare of an asymmetric type. The research was intended for use in providing U.S. support to countries engaged in fighting Communist insurgents, particularly in Vietnam and Thailand.[1]

History

Project AGILE was directed by the United States Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration, or ARPA, and ran from mid 1961 through 1974, when it was canceled. The project was charged with developing methods to use in the looming Vietnam War, and also provided information for use by Thailand in counterinsurgency action against Communist rebels.[2][3]

Coverage

Project AGILE covered a wide range of topics related to warfare under various conditions present in the Far East, from electronic surveillance, used to interdict Communist convoys in the Ho Chi Minh trail, to sociological research on troops likely to be subverted by Communist rebels. It was broken down into a number of subprojects.[3][4]

Subprojects II and VIII were merged into Subproject I, and the resulting subproject covered weapons, individual equipment, and rations. Individual weapons included the M16 assault rifle, special purpose shotguns for use as insurgency weapons, flamethrowers, and rifle grenades. Crew served weapons included cupolas for armored personnel carriers, quad-mount machine guns, squeeze bore .50 to .30 caliber guns, multiple shot grenade launchers, lightweight mortars, and the Stoner 63 weapons system.[5]

Subproject III covered remote area mobility and logistics. Included were studies of air and land transport, amphibious and water transport, STOL aircraft, and remote airstrips.[6]

Subproject IV covered communications systems. Both technical and procedural aspects of radio communications were studied, as well as power supplies and antennas.[7]

Subproject V covered combat surveillance and target acquisition. Included were studies of airborne systems, such as infrared, radar, light amplification and spectral zone photography; surface use systems such as night vision, personal Doppler radar, target illumination, metal and cavity detectors; security and navigation systems.[8]

Subproject VI covered "individual and special projects", which included use of herbicides (such as Agent Orange), psychological warfare, and medical research and equipment. The use of herbicides was largely inspired by the British use of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T (Agent Orange) to destroy jungle-grown crops during the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s.[9]

Subproject VII covered technical planning and programming, including research into morbidity and casualties, environmental issues, and various tactical studies, both of Viet Cong operations, and other instances of asymmetric warfare, such as conflicts in Algeria and Latin America.[15]"

[Quelle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_AGILE. -- Zugriff am 2015-06-19]

"Agile’s stated purpose was to:

conduct R & D [Research and Development] programs for systems to provide improvements in allied nations’ capability to meet the threat of insurgency, and DOD [Department of Defense] capability to assist them in doing so with the particular goal of minimizing U. S. operational involvement. In particular, it will concentrate on such areas as counterinfiltration, local security, capability of small units in guerilla warfare, and specialized systems for specific related purposes."

[Zitiert in: Randolph, R. Sean: The United States and Thailand : alliance dynamics, 1950-1985. -- Berkeley : Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1986. -- 245 S. ; 23 cm. -- (Research papers and policy studies, 12). -- ISBN 0-912966-92-0. -- S. 110]

1961

Die USA eröffnen ein ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency ) Field Office in Thailand. Das Office ist bis 1972 tätig.

"Agile was administered by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), a division of the Department of Defense. Operating in Thailand through an ARPA field office established in 1961, U. S.-supported research was conducted under the auspices of the Joint Thai/U. S. Military Research and Development Center (MRDC), a mutual undertaking of ARPA and the Thai Ministry of Defense. Though some MRDC projects were in fact joint undertakings, most research was primarily American both in concept and execution.

According to Congressional testimony, ARPA objectives in Thailand were:

  1. Working with the pertinent Thai researchers on a project to describe and design the most effective RTG [Royal Thai Government] measures to counter the insurgent threat;
  2. Research counterinsurgency topics in response to ad hoc requests generated by the U. S. mission;
  3. Help develop Thai Ministry of Defense capability to define, manage and perform military research, development, testing, and evaluation.75

At its height in 1969-70, ARPA employed as many as five hundred anthropologists, political scientists, engineers, equipment specialists, and other researchers in its Bangkok office, with an annual budget of $10 million. Including Thai military personnel, the complement of the Joint Thai-U. S. MRDC exceeded seven hundred. While some U. S. military personnel were assigned to the center, the majority of ARPA staff were civilian personnel supplied under contract by such organizations as

  • RAND Corporation,
  • Research Analysis Corporation (RAC),
  • American Institutes for Research (AIR),
  • General Research Corporation (GRC),
  • Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory (CAL), and
  • Stanford Research Institute (SRI).

The U. S. counterinsurgency effort, through USOM [United States Operations Mission], also drew on the general American academic community through the Academic Advisory Council for Thailand (AACT), a body of professional academics assembled in conjunction with the Southeast Asia Development Advisory Group (SEADAG) of New York’s Asia Society; Lauriston Sharp [1907 - 1993] served as the first chairman of AACT. AACT was expected to aid USOM in the recruitment of professional research personnel and in the assembly of a directory of U. S. citizens having specialized knowledge useful to U. S. research activities in Thailand. AACT was also expected to organize conferences aimed

"to provide the mission [i.e., USOM] with substantive recommendations on security and development programing as well as methodological advice on how to analyze the problem in the field" and to "provide reports on agricultural development and/or methodological problems dealing with security research."76

AACT was also to

"identify research that is being, has been, or will be conducted in universities, foundations, and other institutions that may relate to the developmental and counterinsurgency activities in Thailand."77

In brief, by producing

"coordination between the academic community of Thai scholars and AID,"78

AACT was "to act as a think tank and data base for the mission"79 in its counterinsurgency capacity.

Initially, Thailand had been chosen as a major research site because of its environmental features (which, as in Vietnam and many other insurgent- troubled areas, combine varied terrain features in a tropical climate), its relatively peaceful domestic situation, and the existence of an "incipient" internal security threat. ARPA research in its early years (1962-65) centered on the agency’s traditional function of technology development, but with a marked emphasis on counterinsurgency warfare.

Beginning in 1966, ARPA’s program was reoriented to give heavier emphasis to counterinsurgency research relating directly to Thailand; the production of ARPA’s Thailand studies was rapidly accelerated. All research projects required the approval of ARPA’s Washington office and as a practical matter were subject to veto by the embassy’s Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency; MACTHAI [U.S. Military Assistance Command Thailand] approval was also required. As a criterion for approval, all but a few of the projects undertaken by ARPA/Thailand had to be justified in terms of their contribution to the overall counterinsurgency effort.80

The range of ARPA projects during its peak production period of 1965-69 was extraordinarily broad, ranging from jungle radio development to manuals for the identification of local vessels in the Gulf of Siam (popularly known as "Jane’s Fighting Junks").

ARPA researchers

  • developed a combat ration suitable for use by the Thai armed forces and Thai National Police Department;
  • compiled a directory of Thai highways suitable for use as emergency airstrips;
  • developed a combat pack suitable for the needs of Thai infantrymen;
  • studied terrain features affecting ground vehicle mobility in Thailand;
  • developed magnetic sensors for surveillance of boats on Thai inland waterways;
  • developed a similar system for the scanning of rural trail traffic;
  • evaluated communications systems requirements for counterinsurgency forces in northeast Thailand;
  • studied systems for the surveillance and control of insurgent traffic crossing the Mekong River into Thailand;
  • studied village alarm and security systems for rural Thailand;
  • and studied the vulnerability of Thailand’s electric power system to insurgent sabotage.81

As many as one-third of ARPA’s projects were within the broad field of social science research. The following projects suggest the range of ARPA interest in this area:

  • Border Patrol Police Capabilities and Potentials for Counterinsurgency in Thailand (1966).
  • Thai Law and Civil Administration in Counterinsurgency (1966).
  • The Communist Terrorist Organization in Southern Thailand (1967).
  • The Evolution of Successful Counterinsurgency Operations in Malaya (1967).
  • Counterinsurgency Systems Manual—Northeast Thailand (1967).
  • Communist Terrorist Logistics in Southern Thailand—A Quantative Analysis (1968).
  • Insurgent Support Denial Methods for Southern Thailand (1968).
  • An Analytic Approach to the Estimation of Counterguerilla Capabilities (1968).
  • Insurgent Organizations and Operational Patterns: A Primer for Northeast Thailand (1969).
  • Socio-Economic Approach to the Political Integration of the Thai- Islam: An Appraisal (1969).
  • Village Leadership in Northeast Thailand (1971).
  • The Impact of RTG Assistance and Communications on Defense- Related Attitudes of Remote Villages (1970).82

ARPA produced maps of the names and approximate locations of Thailand’s many hill tribe villages, as well as separate handbooks providing information concerning the geographical, cultural, political, and economic characteristics of the Meo [ม้ง] and the Karen [กะเหรี่ยง], two of Thailand’s most important tribal groupings.

Under one three-year program, the trail networks of Thailand’s four northern provinces were mapped in detail and supplemented with administrative and environmental charts.

ARPA also developed a course of instruction on the application of intelligence to operations in Northeast Thailand and an operational gaming curriculum for the RTAF [Royal Thai Air Force] War College.

Under another contract, the Stanford Research Institute was commissioned to develop a "village data base" containing information on the size, location, geometry, economy, leadership, population characteristics, and proximity to police posts of all Thai villages, beginning with the Northeast. The information was to be incorporated in a "Village Information System" (VIST), which would computerize the data for easy reference by the RTG in its counterinsurgency planning. The VIST, however, was only partially completed before ARPA funding was terminated and the system was transferred to the Ministry of the Interior.

The concrete results produced by this massive ARPA effort (not to mention USOM’s smaller but parallel research program) are debatable. One problem inherent in the U. S. research effort was the sensitivity of many of the topics proposed by American researchers. The reluctance of both Thai and American officials, military and civil, to open certain subject areas to the examination of outside investigators occasionally frustrated what might otherwise have been valuable research proposals. Another difficulty besetting the American research effort was that the volume of research was often justified as much by the availability of funding as by a demonstrated need or desire for such information on the part of the Thais. Much of what was produced was too voluminous or too technical to be effectively translated by ARPA’s overextended translation staff, and much of what reached the Thais was seen only at the senior staff level, where it was often received with indifference. U. S. research input was most often accepted passively, as a concession to the peculiar American proclivity for data accumulation. Subsequent application was rare.

Testimony by ARPA head Dr. Eberhardt Rechtin in 1971 acknowledged that

"the results of past research have been mixed, with some projects (border zone security) paying off very well and the results of others (village security) not being implemented for a variety of non-technical reasons. . . . The core of the problem is the relationship of the Royal Thai Government to its people. . . . This government-to-people relationship is inherently so political that it has proven generally impractical as a field of ARPA research producing implementable results."83

Owing in part to this realization, ARPA funding in Thailand was cut back from $10 million in fiscal 1969 to $4 million in fiscal 1970, and its traditional emphasis on military hardware research was restored.84"

[Quelle: Randolph, R. Sean: The United States and Thailand : alliance dynamics, 1950-1985. -- Berkeley : Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1986. -- 245 S. ; 23 cm. -- (Research papers and policy studies, 12). -- ISBN 0-912966-92-0. -- S. 110 - 114. -- Fair use]

1961 - 1975

Die USA operieren von Flugplätzen in Thailand aus gegen Laos und Nordvietnam.


Abb.: Die wichtigsten Flugplätze der USA in Thailand, 1961 - 1975
[Bildquelle: NordNordWest / Wikipedia. -- GNU FDLIcense]

"The United States Air Force deployed combat aircraft to Thailand from 1961 to 1975 during the Vietnam War. Today, USAF units train annually with other Asian Air Forces in Thailand. Royal Thai Air Force Bases are an important element in the Pentagon's "forward positioning" strategy.

Vietnam War

During the Vietnam War, about 80% of all USAF air strikes over North Vietnam originated from air bases in Thailand. At its peak in 1969 a greater number of Airmen were serving in Thailand than were serving in South Vietnam.

Under Thailand's "gentleman's agreement" with the U.S., the bases were considered Royal Thai Air Force (กองทัพอากาศไทย)) bases and were commanded by Thai officers. Thai air police controlled access to the bases; U.S. air police who helped them did carry guns. Command of the American units, however, remained with U.S. wing commanders and their Seventh Air Force/Thirteenth Air Force headquarters.

Out of the Thai bases flew the most extraordinary air-combat team that had ever been assembled. From Udorn (อุดรธานี), just 40 minutes by air from Hanoi, flew supersonic, unarmed RF-101 and RF-4C reconnaissance jets streaking over target areas immediately before and after a raid to photograph the damage so assessments of attacks could be made. From Korat (โคราช), Takhli (ตาคลี) and Ubon (อุบลราชธานี) came the Republic F-105 Thunderchiefs and F-4C and F-4D Phantoms that actually delivered the bombs and also General Dynamics F-111s with terrain-following radar from Takhli (ตาคลี). (During the deployment of the F-111s three crashed soon after arriving at Takhli and the F-111 fleet was grounded to investigate the problem). From U-Tapao (อู่ตะเภา) airfield on the Gulf of Siam, the largest airfield in Southeast Asia, came the Boeing B-52s and the four-engine Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker refuellers that took to the air and refueled the aircraft just before and after they hit North Vietnam. From Takhli flew EB-66 electronic-warfare jets with special equipment that can detect the "fingerprints" of enemy radar in the sky and then send out a signal that fouls up the screen below. Flying out of Takhli, F-105s armed with radar-guided Shrike missiles had the job of knocking out SAM sites.

Finally, from Nakhon Phanom (นครพนม) came every pilot's best friend: the air-rescue-and-recovery team. Flying ungainly looking, green and brown CH-3 helicopters, or "Jolly Green Giants," R. &. R. pilots had even gone into Hanoi's outskirts to rescue downed fliers.

These are the major bases the USAF operated from in Thailand:

  • Don Muang Royal (ดอนเมือง) Thai Air Force Base, 1961–1970
Major USAF Unit: 631st Combat Support Group, 1962-1970
  • Korat (โคราช) Royal Thai Air Force Base, 1962–1975
Major USAF Unit: 388th Tactical Fighter Wing, 1965-1975

Abb.: ®Patch 388th Tactical Fighter Wing
[Bildquelle: Wikipedia. -- Public domain]
  • Nakhon Phanom (นครพนม) Royal Thai Navy Base, 1962–1976
Major USAF Unit: 56th Special Operations Wing, 1967-1975

Abb.: ®Patch 56th Special Operations Wing
[Bildquelle: Wikipedia. -- Public domain]
  • Takhli (ตาคลี) Royal Thai Air Force Base, 1961–1971; 1972–1974
Major USAF Unit: 355th Tactical Fighter Wing, 1965-1971; Rotational units, 1972-1974

Abb.: ®Patch 355th Tactical Fighter Wing
[Bildquelle: Wikipedia. -- Public domain]
 
  • U-Tapao (อู่ตะเภา) Royal Thai Navy Airfield, 1965–1976
Major USAF Units: 4258th Strategic Wing, 1966-1970; 307th Strategic Wing, 1970-1975

Abb.: ®Patch 4258th Strategic Wing
[Bildquelle: Wikipedia. -- Public domain]


Abb.: ®Patch 307th Strategic Wing
[Bildquelle: Wikipedia. -- Public domain]
  • Ubon (อุบลราชธานี) Royal Thai Air Force Base, 1965–1974
Major USAF Unit: 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, 1965-1974

Abb.: ®Patch 8th Tactical Fighter Wing
[Bildquelle: Wikipedia. -- Public domain]
  • Udorn (อุดรธานี) Royal Thai Air Force Base, 1964–1976
Major USAF Unit: 432d Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, 1966-1975"

Abb.: ®Patch 432d Tactical Reconnaissance Wing


[Bildquelle: Wikipedia. -- Public domain]

 
[Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force_in_Thailand. -- Zugriff am 2012-06-16]


Abb.: Fliegen von Udorn (อุดรธานี) aus: RF-101 Aufklärungsflugzeug in Südvietnam, 1967
[Bildquelle: USAF / Wikipedia. -- Public domain]


Abb.: Fliegen von Udorn (อุดรธานี) aus: Kampf-Hubschrauber Sikorski HH-3E Jolly Green Giant (wird hier im Flug betankt): "The first USAF HH-3Es arrived in Vietnam in 1967, and they operated out of Udorn Air Base, Thailand, and Da Nang Air Base, South Vietnam. During the Southeast Asia War, HH-3 crewmen were awarded one Medal of Honor, twenty-four Air Force Crosses, and over 190 Silver Stars. "
[Bildquelle: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=17538. -- Zugriff am 2013-10-26]


Abb.: Fliegen von Korat (โคราช), Takhli (ตาคลี) und Ubon (อุบลราชธานี) aus: Einstrahliges Kampfflugzeug Republic F-105 Thunderchief über Vietnam, 1960er Jahre
Der abgebildete Bomber wurde 1968-12-24 über Laos abgeschossen
[Bildquelle: USAF / Wikipedia. -- Public domain]


Abb.: Fliegen von Korat (โคราช), Takhli (ตาคลี) und Ubon (อุบลราชธานี) aus: Jagdbomber General Dynamics F-111 über Südostasien, 1968
[Bildquelle: USAF / Wikipedia. -- Public domain]


Abb.: Fliegen von
Korat (โคราช) aus: Kampfflugzeug LTV A-7D Corsair II: "The A-7D demonstrated its outstanding ground attack capability flying with the 354th Tactical Fighter Wing at Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, during the closing months of the Southeast Asia War. The Corsair II achieved its excellent accuracy with the aid of an automatic electronic navigation and weapons delivery system. Although designed primarily as a ground attack aircraft, it also had limited air-to-air combat capability."
[Bildquelle: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=298. -- Zugriff am 2013-10-26]
 


Abb.: Fliegen von U-Tapao (อู่ตะเภา) aus: Langstreckenbomber Boeing B-52 bombardiert Vietnam, 1965/66
[Bildquelle: USAF / Wikipedia. -- Public domain]


Abb.: Fliegen von U-Tapao (อู่ตะเภา) aus: Stratotanker Boeing KC-135 betankt B-52-Langstreckenbomber
[Bildquelle: USAF / Wikipedia. -- Public domain]


Abb.: In Takhli (ตาคลี) stationierter Douglas EB-66E Destroyer Aufklärer und Leichtbomber, 1970
[Bildquelle: USAF / Wikipedia. -- Public domain]


Abb.: Fliegen von Nakhon Phanom (นครพนม) aus: Kampfbomber Douglas B-26K Counter Invader: "In 1966 the old bomber was resurrected once more when the improved B-26K Counter Invader returned to Southeast Asia for ground-attack missions along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Modified by On Mark Engineering, the B-26K had a rebuilt fuselage and tail, strengthened wings, improved engines, reversible propellers, wing-tip fuel tanks and other refinements. Redesignated A-26As, Counter Invaders remained in Southeast Asia until 1969 and retired from USAF service."
[Bildquelle: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=301. -- Zugriff am 2013-10-26]


Abb.: Fliegen von Nakhon Phanom (นครพนม) aus: Beech QU-22B: "In 1970 a detachment of the 553rd Reconnaissance Wing (later the 554th Reconnaissance Squadron) known as the "Vampires," conducted the first operational QU-22B flights. During a typical mission, the QU-22B orbited near the Ho Chi Minh Trail, picking up signals from Igloo White acoustic and vibration sensing ground units and relaying them to the Information Surveillance Center (or "Task Force Alpha") at Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base."
[Quelle: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=317. -- Zugriff am 2013-10-26]


Abb.: Fliegen von Nakhon Phanom (นครพนม) aus: CH-3 Helikopter, 1964
[Bildquelle: USAF / Wikipedia. -- Public domain]

Nordvietnamesische Luftwaffe:


Abb.: Sowjetischer Abfangjäger Mikojan-Gurewitsch MiG-21 (
Микоян-Гуревич МиГ-21) "Fishbed": Nordvietnam besitzt über 200 Stück: "In the Southeast Asia War, the MiG-21 was a dangerous adversary. Fast as U.S. jets, it was more agile than the F-4 Phantom, its main opponent. Although American forces lost about 50 aircraft to North Vietnamese MiG-21s, the U.S. Air Force shot down 68 MiG-21s in air combat."
[Bildquelle: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=16889. -- Zugriff am 2013-10-26]


Abb.:
Sowjetisches Kampfflugzeug Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17F (Микоян-Гуревич МиГ-17) "Fresco": "The North Vietnamese Air Force (VPAF) created its first MiG-17 unit, the 921st Fighter Regiment, in February 1964, after its pilots had received training in communist China. The VPAF also flew Chinese-built MiG-17s (called J-5s). U.S. Air Force fighter pilots were careful to use their considerable speed advantage to shoot down the more maneuverable MiG-17. Between July 10, 1965, and Feb. 14, 1968, USAF F-105s and F-4s downed 61 MiG-17s."
[Bildquelle: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=332. -- Zugriff am 2013-10-26]

1961

Es erscheint:

Battle of Vientiane of 1960 : (with historical background leading to the battle) / by Chalermnit Press correspondent [= Manich Jumsai [มานิจ ชุมสาย], 1908 - 2009]. -- Bangkok : Prayura Phisnaka, 1961. -- 109 S. : Ill. ; 22 cm

"Repression of the Thai People

As a result of this policy the Thai living in Vientiane [ວຽງຈັນ] were touched most. The Thai people good and bad had crossed over in big numbers both with and without passports to Vientiane either to flee away from the hands of the Thai law or to find a living in Vientiane, where they found no competition since the Lao were not commercial-minded and Laos still lacked technical men. It was easy therefore for Thai nationals to come and earn a much higher income in Laos and with practically no competition at all. The Laos did not even know how to grow rice and vegetables or raise stock properly so that they gave up fighting against the new comers in trade. The Thai controlled the whole market. Even menial work, the Laos hated it and would like to be only masters, so the Thai from the North Eastern provinces of Thailand came in big numbers to find employment as sellers, shop keepers, dish washers, children keepers, cooks and servants. The Thai embassy has no register of their men so that in times of trouble no form of information could be given them and the Thai in Vientiane, through lack of organization, had only to depend on their good selves for safety. And repression fell most heavily upon them, because the Thai embassy could not even protect its own diplomats. A certain embassy secretary by name of Reng Korporn was arrested by the military at Chinaimo camp, put to torture by electric shocks and had lost consciousness three times so that he would sign a confession of espionnage to be used by Laos as publicity against Thailand. After a series of protests lasting 24 hours the military released him. Several Thai nationals disappeared mysteriously and at the oral protests of the Thai ambassador to Prince Souvanna Pouma [ເຈົ້າສຸວັນນະພູມາ, 1901 – 1984], the latter said he knew nothing about it (this is quite true because the military under Kongle [ກອງ​ແລ, 1933 - 2014] usually did things without seeking instructions from nor informing the Prime Minister) it would be very difficult to find out right now, perhaps after the crisis he would be able to find out about these Thais for the ambassador. From the market rumours and from those crossing over to Nongkhai [หนองคาย] there were more and more dreadful stories narrated of various Thai individuals. Some were tortured the same way as the Thai secretary of the embassy. Some were arrested and shot in the camps. Some were shot into the river. Many were arrested and disappeared. They were suspected of being spies sent over by Phoumi [Phoumi Nosavan - ຜກຸມກິ ນອວກະກະສນ, 1920 - 1985] or engaged by Phoumi for sabotage works. Various sabotage activities in Vientiane were directed towards the Thais. Various Thai business concerns were checked, searched and their property seized. Various contractors were driven away with their lives leaving the property behind. The bookshop Viengmani belonging to a Thai was broken into and all the books taken away then they pursued the owner a man called Nai Choob and his wife who fled over to Nongkhai and dared no longer come back. The wrath of the soldiers was so great that they arrested one of his boy-sellers and shot him dead. The owner of a Thai hotel was arrested and tortured. A Lao friend testified him as no spy and he was allowed to go, after which he closed up his hotel and fled to Thailand. The soldiers of Kongle then dug entrenchments along the Mekong river and faced their guns and search-lights towards the Thai bank. Groups of soldiers crossed over the River from time to time in order to force the Thai village opposite to give them food and other commodities. Soldiers fired at any Thai ship which would pass along the Mekong river even during the day time. They asked passenger ships to stop and searched them. Many were arrested along with one American missionary and held for investigations even though they were travelling on the Thai side of the river. The soldiers of Kongle were very aggressive. One officer who fled to Nongkhai confessed that when the coup started Kongle had thought of a plan of taking Sichiengmai [ศรีเชียงใหม่] and to sweep right down to Korat [โคราช]. His plan was stopped by the more moderate colleagues who foresaw that their strength was too small for the daring adventure.

The question of American personnel and their families could be solved in a much easier way. There were only about 300 American families in Vientiane. When the tension against the safety of American citizens grew the Americans took advantage of the river brimming its edges after the heavy rains in the north that Vientiane was going to be flooded as a pretext for evacuation of women and children out of the country. This was done by an airlift from Vientiane to Udorn [อุดรธานี] by their own PEO [Peace Enforcement Operation] planes, and from Udorn to Bangkok by rail."

[a.a.O., S. 71ff. -- Fair use]

1961

Es erscheint:

Sisouk na Champassak [ນະ ຈຳປາສັກ] <1928 - 1985>: Storm over Laos : a contemporary history. -- New York : Praeger, 1961. -- 202 S. : Ill. ; 21 cm.


Abb.: Einbandtitel

1961

Die USA bilden in Südvietnam Piloten auf Douglas A-1E Skyraider Kampfflugzeugen aus. Die US-Flugzeuge werden mit den Kennzeichen der südvietnamesischen Luftwaffe übermalt.


Abb.: Douglas A-1E Skyraider Kampfflugzeug. "The Douglas A-1 Skyraider played an important part in the Southeast Asia War. Its ability to carry an immense amount of weapons and stay over the battlefield for extended periods of time made it a powerful weapon. This aircraft provided close air support to ground forces, attacked enemy supply lines, and protected helicopters rescuing airmen downed in enemy territory."
[Bildquelle: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=297. -- Zugriff am 2013-10-26]

1961

AFS Intercultural Programs beginnt seine Tätigkeit des Schüleraustauschs in Thailand: 14 Thais können ein Jahr an eine High School in den USA.


Abb.: ®Logo

"AFS Intercultural Programs (or AFS, originally the American Field Service) was established in 1915 by A. Piatt Andrew (1873 - 1936), a onetime economics professor at Harvard University and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. Begun as a service of volunteer ambulance drivers in 1914,[1] AFS has evolved into an international youth exchange organization.

Worldwide, AFS is a group of over 50 independent, not-for-profit organizations called partners, each with its own network of volunteers, professionally staffed office(s), volunteer board of directors and website. In 2007, almost 13,000 participants traveled abroad on AFS cultural exchanges between 65 countries, as supported by 44,000 active volunteers.[2] The U.S.-based partner, AFS-USA, sends more than 1,100 U.S. students abroad and places international students with more than 2,300 U.S. families each year. More than 424,000 people have gone abroad with AFS and over 100,000 former AFS students live in the U.S."

[Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFS_Intercultural_Programs. -- Zugriff am 2015-04-25]

1961

Es erscheint

Textor, Robert B. (Bayard) <1923 - 2013>: From peasant to pedicab driver : a social study of northeastern Thai farmers who periodically migrated to Bangkok and became pedicab drivers. -- 2. ed. -- New Haven : Yale University, Southeast Asia Studies, 1961. -- 83 S. : Ill. ; 28 cm. -- (Yale Southeast Asia Studies. Cultural report series ; no. 9). -- "First edition ... appeared as one of five parts published by the UNESCO Research Centre on the Social Implications of Industrialisation in Southern Asia ... The original volume was entitled, The social implications of industrialisation and urbanisation: five studies of urban populations of recent rural origin in cities of southern Asia."
"A contemporary ethnography recorded that the majority of drivers came from the Northeast and that

"the degree of interest in parliamentary politics [among them] is probably greater than that found among other working people, in Bangkok or elsewhere in Thailand" (Textor 1961, 44)."

[Quelle: Mitchell, James Leonhard: Luk Thung : the culture and politics of Thailand's most popular music. -- Chiang Mai : Silkworm, 2015. --208 S. : Ill ; 21 cm. -- ISBN 978-616-215-106-4. -- S. 143]

1961

Es erscheint:

Okes, Imogene E.: Effective communication by Americans with Thai. -- In: Journalism Quarterly. -- 38 (1961)

"The research committee, very realistically appraising the current competitive international situation listed 10 objectives for the American communicator in Thailand. These are, briefly, as follows:
  • promote good will toward the United States,
  • promote expectation of success for the United States and its friends,
  • encourage cooperation with the United States,
  • show importance of developing new energy sources,
  • arouse hostility toward Chinese Communists,
  • discredit the Communists,
  • show appreciation for Thai accomplishments,
  • convince of non-interference by the United States in internal affairs of Thailand,
  • instill hope for the future, and
  • strengthen common ideals for Thai and Americans."

[Zitiert in: Wakin, Eric: Anthropology goes to war : professional ethics & counterinsurgency in Thailand. -- Madison, WI : University of Wisconsin, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 1992. -- 319 S. : Ill. ; 23 cm. -- (Monograph <University of Wisconsin--Madison. Center for Southeast Asian Studies> ;  No. 7). -- ISBN 978-1-881261-03-2. -- S. 74f., Anm. 45]

1961

Es erscheint:

Sparrow, Gerald <1903 - 1988>: No other elephant. -- London : Jarrolds, 1961. -- 191 S. ; 22  cm. -- Der Autor war von 1930 - 1954 britischer Rechtsberater der Thai-Regierung


Abb.: Umschlagtitel

"Siam had never been governed so efficiently, so economically, and so wisely as it was under King Prachadhipok, and, whisper who dares, the standard has not quite been maintained since. ... In England lie died, and only now are the Siamese people beginning to realize how good and honest and enlightened he was."

[a.a.O. -- Zitiert in: Batson, Benjamin Arthur <1942 - >: The end of the absolute monarchy in Siam. -- Singapore : Oxford Univ. Pr., 1984. -- 349 S. : Ill. ; 22 cm. -- (Southeast Asia publications series ; no. 10). -- ISBN 0-19-582612-4. -- S. 48]

1961 - 2006

Entwicklung der Reisproduktion und des Reisertrags (paddy = ungeschält) 1961 bis 2006:


Abb.: Gesamtproduktion an Reis (in 1000 Tonnen) 1961 - 2006
[Bildquelle: Shii / Wikimedia. -- Public domain]


Abb.: Reisertrag pro Hektar 1961 - 2006
[Bildquelle: Shii / Wikimedia. -- Public domain]
 

1961

Neue 1-Baht-Münze (บาท):


Abb.: 1-Baht-Münze (บาท) ab 1961
[Bildquelle: Qwaszx123 / th.Wikipedia. -- Creative Commons Lizenz (Namensnennung, share alike)]

1961

Die deutsche Firma Osram und die niederländische Firma Philips gründen in Thailand gemeinsam die Firma "Thail Lamps Company Ltd.". Anfangskapital: 10 Mio. DM.

1961

Harmful Habit Forming Drugs Act. Regelt die Behandlung und Rehabilitation Drogensüchtiger.

1961

Die drei häufigsten angeklagten Straftaten:


Abb.: Die drei häufigsten strafrechtlichen Anklagen 1961
[Datenquelle: Thailand official year book 1964. -- S. 283]

1961

Mittelzuweisung für den Bau von drei regionalen Fernsehsendern:


Abb.: Lage der regionalen Fernsehstationen
[Bildquelle: CIA. -- Public domain]

1961

Bau eines staatlichen Jugendzentrums im Huai Kwang (ห้วยขวาง) housing project. Kosten: eine halbe Million Baht.

1961

Staatliches Self-Help Settlement Poject (โครงการนิคมสร้างตนเอง): Thai-Buddhisten erhalten in den malaiischsprachigen Südprovinzen pro Familie 18 - 25 Rai Land, wenn sie sich dort ansiedeln. Dadurch soll der Süden ent-muslimisiert werden.

1961

Private School Teaching Islam Program (PSTI) definiert für muslimische pondok (muslimische Privatschulen) Mindeststandards und ein staatliches Curriculum mit einigen weltlichen Fächern. Die pondok sollen in registrierte muslimische Privatschulen (โรงเรียนเอกชนสอนศาสนาอิสลาม) umgewandelt werden. Die pondok dürfen aber weiterhin Islam unterrichten. Bis 1971 werden 109 der 535 Pondok geschlossen.

1961

Im Nationalstadium (สนามศุภชลาศัย กรีฑาสถานแห่งชาติ) wird ein Schwimmbecken nach internationalem Standard (50 x 25 m) für 5000 Zuschauer gebaut.

1961

Gründung des Office of Atoms for Peace (OAP) of Thailand (สำนักงานปรมาณูเพื่อสันติ)


Abb.: ®Logo

"The Office of Atoms for Peace (OAP) of Thailand (สำนักงานปรมาณูเพื่อสันติ) located in Chatuchak district (จตุจักร), Bangkok, Thailand, was established in 1961 as the Office of Atomic Energy for Peace, the OAP serves as the main authority in nuclear research in Thailand. The OAP employs approximately 400 people. The research topics and services provided at the OAP include radioisotope production, gamma radiography, neutron activation analysis, neutron radiography, and gemstone irradiation.

The OAP operates a 2-megawatt nuclear research reactor, Thai Research Reactor 1/Modification 1 (TRR-1/M1). The TRR-1/M1 is of the type TRIGA Mark III, built by General Atomics, and began operation in 1962 after being commissioned in 1961 as a 1MW reactor. The TRR-1/M1 underwent its modification during 1975-1977, at which point it began operation as a 2MW reactor. TRR-1/M1 is the only nuclear reactor in Thailand.

In 2006, OAP was divided into two separate entities: the original OAP, which will oversee nuclear and radiation regulations nationally, and the new Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology (สถาบันเทคโนโลยีนิวเคลียร์แห่งชาติ, TINT), which will conduct peaceful nuclear research and offer services to the public."

[Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Atoms_for_Peace. -- Zugriff am 2012-06-09]

1961

4000 Kuomintang-Kämpfer (中國國民黨) ziehen sich aus Burma zurück nach Mae Salong (แม่สลอง) (jetzt: Santhikiri - สันติคีรี, Provinz Chiang Rai - เชียงราย), dort bauen sie eine der größten Heroinproduktionsstätten Südostasiens auf.


Abb.: Mae Salong (แม่สลอง), 2011
[Bildquelle:
UN Photo / Kibae Park. -- http://www.flickr.com/photos/un_photo/6280733352/in/photostream/. -- Zugriff am 2012-02-21. -- Creative Commons Lizenz (Namensnennung, keine kommerzielle Nutzung, keine Bearbeitung)]


Abb.: Bei Mae Salong (แม่สลอง) heute: Wat Santhikiri (วัดสันติคีรี), 2011
[Bildquelle: Ryan. -- http://www.flickr.com/photos/bighairymonkey/5656788962/. -- Zugriff am 2012-02-21. -- Creative Commons Lizenz (Namensnennung, keine kommerzielel Nutzung, share alike)]

"In Bangkok, Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat’s government knew those KMT [Kuomintang - 中國國民黨] troops that remained on Thailand’s northern borders would inevitably be drawn into Burma’s opium-fuelled insurgencies, making improved relations with Rangoon difficult. The Thai were nonetheless unwilling to risk creating yet another insurgency along their borders by taking military action against the KMT. Besides, powerful elements within Bangkok’s military government insisted that the KMT barred communist infiltration across Thailand’s northern borders. Further dampening enthusiasm for firm action were the senior political, police,and military officials profiting from KMT drug trafficking and other smuggling enterprises."

[Quelle: Gibson, Richard M. ; Chen, Wenhua [陳, 文華] <1944 - >: The secret army : Chiang Kai-Shek and the drug warlords of the golden triangle. -- Singapore : Wiley, 2011. -- 338 S. ;: Ill. ; 23 cm. -- ISBN 978-0-470-83018-5. -- S. 213f. -- Fair use]

1961

Eine Delegation des Wirtschaftsministerium der Bundesrepublik unter Leitung von Ministerialdirigent Kurt Daniel kommt nach Bangkok, um eine Ausweitung der wirtschaftlichen und technischen Zusammenarbeit auszuhandeln (Daniel Mission). In der Folge erhält Thailand von der Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau langfristige Kredite:


Abb.: Lage von Kaeng Khoi (แก่งคอย) und Bua Yai (บัวใหญ่)


Abb.: Lage von Nam Phong (น้ำพอง)
[Bildquelle: US World Sheet NE48. -- http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/imw/txu-oclc-6654394-ne-48-6th-ed.jpg. -- Public domain]

1961

Es erscheint

ดำรงราชานุภาพ <สมเด็จพระเจ้าบรมวงศ์เธอ กรมพระยา> [Damrong Rajanubhab] <1862 - 1943> ; นริศรานุวัดติวงศ์ <พลเอก สมเด็จพระเจ้าบรมวงศ์เธอ เจ้าฟ้ากรมพระยา> [Narisara Nuwattiwong] <1863 - 1947>: สาส์นสมเด็จ [Briefe von Prinzen]. -- กรุงเทพฯ : คุรุสภา, 2504 - 2505 [= 1961 - 1962]. -- 27 Bände


Abb.: Einbandtitel von Bd. 1 in einer Neuausgabe

"Collection of letters exchanged by Prince Damrong and Prince Narisara Nuwattiwong, largely during the period 1933 - 42; a veritable encyclopaedia of Thai cultural and historical information."

[Quelle: Breazeale, Kennon: The writings of Prince Damrong Rajanubhab : a chronology with annotations. -- Bangkok : Toyota Thailand Foundation : Foundation for the Promotion of Social Science and Humanities Textbooks Project, 2008.  -- 60 S. ; 22 cm. -- ISBN 9789740697411. -- S. 53]

1961

Es erscheint

Wenk, Klaus <1927 - 2006>: Die Metrik in der thailändischen Dichtung. -- Hamburg : Gesellschaft f. Natur- u. Völkerkunde Ostasiens e.V.; Tokyo [Tokio] : Dt. Gesellschaft f. Natur- u. Völkerkunde Ostasiens e.V.; Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz in Komm., 1961. -- 160 S. : Ill. ; 25 cm. -- (Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens <OAG> ; Bd. 42 )

"Vorwort

Das Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist, eine zusammenfassende Darstellung der thailändischen Metrik zu bringen, so, wie diese aus der heute bekannten Dichtung zu entnehmen ist.

Die Arbeit kann jedoch nicht mehr als ein Beginn sein. Die thailändische Literaturwissenschaft steckt noch in den allerersten Anfängen. In keinem Fall konnte daher auf wissenschaftlich begründete Detailergebnisse zurückgegriffen werden. Außer einigen schematischen Darstellungen in Schulgrammatiken liegen bislang keine Beiträge zur thailändischen Metrik vor.

Ein weiterer Mangel, der besonders bei literarischen Arbeiten hinderlich wirkt, ist das Fehlen brauchbarer Textausgaben. Keine der literarischen Quellen ist bisher kritisch untersucht. Von fast allen älteren Dichtungen, beginnend mit dem 13./14. Jahrhundert, kann nur die mutmaßliche Entstehungszeit angegeben werden. Der Autor ist in den meisten Fällen unbekannt. Diese Unsicherheit der Texte und das Fehlen sicherer Daten machen im heutigen Zeitpunkt eine kontinuierliche Darstellung der Entwicklung der thailändischen Literatur und damit zusammenhängend der Metrik beinahe unmöglich. Eine historische Analyse könnte aber manche der in dieser Arbeit noch nicht geklärten Fragen lösen helfen.

Eine grundsätzliche Schwierigkeit bei der Bearbeitung thailändischer Themen ist der Mangel jeglicher bibliographischer Vorarbeiten. Die bei Schweisguth, Etude sur la littérature siamoise, aufgeführte Bibliographie ist unzureichend und auch nicht immer genau. Man ist heute immer noch mehr oder weniger auf Zufallsfunde angewiesen, die ein planmäßiges Arbeiten nur sehr schwer ermöglichen.

Die im Text benutzte Umschrift folgt dem vom Royal Institute Thailand vorgeschlagenen System1. Die Umschrift nimmt auf die Orthographie der Wörter keine Rücksicht, sondern gibt das gesprochene Wort annähernd wieder. Die Transkription längerer Textabschnitte, die ohne Markierung der Töne erfolgt, beabsichtigt lediglich, eine Vorstellung vom Klang der Dichtung zu geben. Der thailändische Text kann dadurch keinesfalls ersetzt werden. Die sich hieran anschließenden Übersetzungen halten sich an das khana der Dichtung, sind aber im übrigen nicht metrisch. Sie können nicht mehr als eine möglichst wortgetreue Inhaltsangabe sein, die einen Eindruck von der Thematik der thailändischen Dichtung geben soll."

[a.a.O., S. 15]

1961

Als erste Ausländerin erhält die US-Bürgerin Freda Ring Lyman (1900 - 1986) einen königlichen Orden: The Most Noble Order of the Crown of Thailand 5th Class (เบญจมาภรณ์มงกุฎไทย). Sie erhält den Orden für ihre Tätigkeit in Wohltätigkeitsvereinen.

1961

Beginn der kontinuierlichen Missionstätigkeit von Mormonen in Thailand.


Abb.: Einbandtitel

"Latter-day Saints (Mormons) in Thailand

Although a Mormon missionary resided in Bangkok for some four months in 1854, the work of the Latter-day Saints (LDS) did not begin in Thailand until 1961 when two American couples unofficially formed its first group in Bangkok. That group was given official recognition in 1962 and grew steadily during the influx of American military and civilian personnel during the Vietnam War. In 1966, the LDS baptized its first Thai convert in Thailand, Nangnoi Thitapoora, and in that same year it organized the Thailand District of the Southern Far East Mission. The Bangkok group was also reorganized as the Bangkok Branch, the first branch in Thailand; the branch purchased the first SDA property in Thailand in 1967. In February 1968, the first group of full-time Mormon missionaries arrived in Bangkok, and by the end of the year they had initiated a program for translating and publishing SDA literature. The team soon began to win a number of converts, most important among them was Srilaksana Gottsche, known as "Sister Sri," in 1968. She played a key role in the translation of numerous SDA publications, esp. the Book of Mormon, which was published in Thai in 1976. The SDA opened Thailand's first chapel, the Asoke Chapel, in 1974.

Meanwhile, in June 1972, an SDA missionary was photographed sitting on the neck of a Buddha image in Sukhothai by another missionary. The photograph came into the hands of the Thai press, and a national scandal occurred, which proved to be a disaster for the SDA in Thailand. The two missionaries were jailed and then deported, and all hope for the SDA becoming officially registered with the government was lost.

The SDA organized its Thailand Mission (renamed Thailand Bangkok Mission) in 1973, and during the 1970s, the SDA took various steps to improve its images, and in 1980 it initiated work in the refugee camps in the Northeast, which were then rapidly growing in numbers. Theological work began in the late 1970s. In 1988, Anan Eldridge became the first Thai President of the Thailand mission, and during the late 1980s and the 1990s the SDA began experienced increased growth so that by 1995 it numbered over 6,000 members. In that same year, the SDA formed the Bangkok Stake, the first stake in Thailand, with Thipparat Kitsaward as its first president and Pornchai Juntratip as its first patriarch.

Source: Britsch, R. Lanier. From the East: The History of the Latter-Day Saints in Asia, 1851-1996. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company, 1998, pages 14-33 and 374-407."

[Quelle: Dictionary of Thai Christianity. -- http://www.herbswanson.com/dictionary.php. -- Zugriff am 2013-10-05]

1961

Briefmarken:

1961


Abb.: Reklame für die State Railway of Thailand, 1961
[Fair use]

1961

Die International Organization for Standardization (ISO) legt Normen für Container fest. damit wird der ungehinderte internationale Containerverkehr ermöglicht.


Abb.: ISO-Container, 2004
[Bildquelle: Nicke L / Wikimedia. -- GNU FDLicense]


2504 / 1961 datiert


1961-01-01/03

Die Thai Regierung informiert die USA, dass sie sofort mit dem Training von 4 Laoten als Piloten auf Trainingsflugzeug North American T-6 beginnen kann. Auch könne Thailand die ersten 4 von 10 vollbewaffneten T-6 zum Einsatz über Laos zur Verfügung stellen


Abb.: T-6
[Bildquelle: USAF / Wikimedia. -- Public domain]

1961-01-05

Bildung eines Central Council for National Parks. 150 Mio rai (ไร่, 1 rai = 1600 m²) Wald sollen geschützt werden. 60 Mio rai sind schon zerstört, nach Ministerpräsident Sarit "von versteckten Kapitalisten, die die Nation zerstören, und die schwerste Strafen erwarten".

1961-01-17

In seiner Rede zum Abschied vom Präsidentenamt spricht US-Präsident Dwight D. Eisenhower vom "military-industrial complex", der Verflechtung von Politikern, Militär und Rüstungsindustrie


Abb.: The military-industrial congressional media complex
[Bildquelle: http://occupywallst.org/forum/general-dynamics-and-the-military-industrial-congr/. -- Zugriff am 2013-11-01]

"OUR MILITARY ORGANIZATION today bears little resemblance to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

UNTIL THE LATEST of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry.

AMERICAN MAKERS of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well.

But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.

Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment.

WE ANNUALLY spend on military security more than the net income of all United States Corporations.

THIS CONJUNCTION of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience.

The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government.

We recognize the imperative need for this development.

Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications.

Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

IN THE COUNCILS of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.

The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

WE MUST NEVER let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.

We should take nothing for granted.

Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

[Quelle: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Eisenhower%27s_farewell_address_%28reading_copy%29. -- Zugriff am 2013-11-01]

1961-01-18

Das Königspaar kehrt von seiner Besuchtour in 17 Ländern zurück und wird begeistert begrüßt. Die Feiern dauern drei Tage. Der König begnadigt 35.000 Häftlinge, ausgenommen sind Häftlinge, bei denen man Sympathien für den Kommunismus vermutet.

1961-01-18

Tod von Thomas Anthony Dooley III (Tom Dooley) (1927 – 1961)

"Thomas Anthony Dooley III (January 17, 1927 – January 18, 1961) was an American who, while serving as a physician in the United States Navy and afterwards, became famous for his humanitarian and anti-communist political activities in South East Asia and the United States until his early death from cancer. He authored three popular books that described his activities in Vietnam and Laos: Deliver Us From Evil, The Edge of Tomorrow, and The Night They Burned the Mountain. These three were later collected into a single volume and published as "Dr. Tom Dooley's Three Great Books." The book jacket of "The Edge of Tomorrow" states that Dooley traveled "to a remote part of the world in order to combat the two greatest evils afflicting it: disease and Communism.

Early life

Thomas Anthony Dooley III was born January 17, 1927, in St. Louis, Missouri, and raised in a prominent Roman Catholic Irish-American household. He attended St. Roch Catholic School and St. Louis University High School, where he was a classmate (class of 1944) of Michael Harrington. He then went to college at the University of Notre Dame in 1944 and enlisted in the United States Navy's corpsman program, serving in a naval hospital in New York. In 1946, he returned to Notre Dame leaving without receiving a degree. In 1948, Dooley entered the Saint Louis University School of Medicine. When he graduated in 1953, after repeating his final year of medical school, he reenlisted in the navy. He completed his residency at Camp Pendleton, California, and then at Yokosuka, Japan. In 1954, he was assigned to the USS Montague which was traveling to Vietnam to evacuate refugees and transport them from communist-controlled North Vietnam to non-communist South Vietnam.[2]

Humanitarian and author

In May 1954, the Geneva Agreements divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel north into two political zones. People north of the 17th parallel lived under the Viet Minh government, and those south of the 17th parallel lived under the government of Ngo Dinh Diem (1901 - 1963). Hanoi and Haiphong remained free zones until May 1955. In August 1954, Dooley transferred to Task Force Ninety, a unit participating in the evacuation of over 600,000 North Vietnamese known as Operation Passage to Freedom. Here Dooley served as a French interpreter and medical officer for a Preventative Medicine Unit in Haiphong. He eventually oversaw the building and maintenance of refugee camps in Haiphong until May 1955, when the Viet Minh took over the city.[3]

While Dooley was working in refugee camps in Haiphong in 1954 and 1955, some have alleged that he came to the attention of Lieutenant Colonel Edward G. Lansdale (1908 - 1987), head of a CIA office in Saigon. According to these allegations, Dooley was chosen as a symbol of Vietnamese-American cooperation, and was encouraged to write about his experiences in the refugee camps. Father Maynard Kegler on researching Dooley's life for possible canonization received almost 500 CIA files through the Freedom of Information Act that showed Dooley had provided the CIA with information about the sentiments of villagers and movements of troops around his hospitals in Laos in the late 1950s.[4] Kegler concluded that although Dooley did provide the CIA with some information, he never initiated contact with them, he took no money, his motivation was patriotism, and he hoped this would afford him "more freedom to do his work and a little less harassment." [5]

William Lederer (1912 - 2009), author of The Ugly American (1958), helped initiate this phase of Dooley's career. Lederer, who was at the time serving as a press officer, attached to the admiralty, appreciated the eloquence of Dooley's situation reports, and suggested that he write a book.[6]

In 1956, Dooley's book Deliver Us from Evil was released and became a best-seller, establishing him as an icon of American humanitarian and anti-communist activities abroad. Dooley's vivid accounts of communist atrocities committed on the refugees are not fully substantiated by other sources. According to journalist Randy Shilts (1951 - 1994), Dooley was on a promotional tour for this book when he was investigated for participating in homosexual activities.[7] It seems that what the Navy discovered about Dooley's private life resulted in a negotiated agreement that he would announce he was leaving the Navy in order to serve the people of Vietnam.[8]

After leaving the Navy, Dooley and three former Navy corpsmen, established a hospital near Luang Namtha (ຫລວງນໍ້າທາ), Laos. the hospital was five miles south of the Chinese border. In an article entitled "Why I'm A Jungle Medic," printed in Think magazine, June 1958, Dooley said they chose Laos because the country, with 3,000,000 people, had only one "bonafide" doctor.[9] Dooley went on to establish additional medical clinics and hospitals under the sponsorship of the International Rescue Committee. He explained to the Laotian Minister of Health that he wished to work in an area near the Chinese border because "there are sick people there and furthermore people who had been flooded with potent draughts of anti-Western propaganda from Red China."[10] Dooley founded the Medical International Cooperation Organization (MEDICO) under the auspices of which he built hospitals at Nam Tha, Muong Sing, and Ban Houei Sa. The plan for MEDICO was that it would build, stock, supply, and train staff for small hospitals; after 16 months, MEDICO planned to turn over these hospitals to the host country's government.[11] During this same time period, he wrote two books, The Edge of Tomorrow and The Night They Burned the Mountain, about his experience in Laos, including descriptions of atrocities he said were committed by communist soldiers.

In 1959, Dooley returned to the United States for cancer treatment. He agreed to Fred W. Friendly's (1915 - 1998) request that his melanoma surgery be the subject of a CBS News documentary.[12] On April 21, 1960, Biography of a Cancer was broadcast; it was hosted by Howard K. Smith and included the surgery and an interview with Dooley.[13][14] Dooley died less than a year later.

According to James Fisher's comprehensive biography, Dooley remained a devout Catholic until his death. At his funeral, U.S. Sen. Stuart Symington described him as “One of those rare Americans who is truly a citizen of the world.” [15] After his death, John F. Kennedy cited Dooley's example when he launched the Peace Corps. Dooley was also awarded a Congressional Gold Medal after his death. He was buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.

Importance and Legacy

Although in 1959 a Gallup Poll named Dooley the 7th most admired man in the world, his legacy has been intertwined with the history of Vietnam War, sometimes in ways that appear to reflect badly on his activities in Southeast Asia. [16] But James T. Fisher, author of "Dr. America:The Lives of Thomas Dooley, 1927-1961", while detailing Dooley hagiography, points out that "those who sought to debunk Dooley's legend were no less prone to lapses in factuality."[17]

Other writers have held Dooley to be partially responsible for events that led to the war in Vietnam. Nicholas von Hoffman (1929 - ), in 1969, wrote that Dooley helped create "the climate of public misunderstanding that made the war in Vietnam possible" Despite Dooley’s seemingly contentious descriptions of Southeast Asia, Laotians dubbed him "Thanh Mo America" ("Dr. America"), and Dooley himself was frequently critical of United States actions in the region. He observed: “We are hated in most of the Orient. ... They think freedom means freedom of the capitalist to exploit the Oriental people. No Americans have ever gotten down to their level.”[18]

He also set personal high standards for MEDICO physicians, and sought to make his Operation Laos a people-to-people project.[19] According to Ted Hesburgh (1917 - 2015), he refused Dwight D. Eisenhower's offer to use government funds to assist in his work. [20] MEDICO depended primarily upon volunteers and private donations; by 1960 over 2000 physicians had applied to serve as volunteers, and new teams for medical assistance were established in Haiti, Cambodia, and Afghanistan. [21]

Dooley's legacy continues through the work of several organizations, including some organizations founded by people who knew and worked with him. Dr. Verne Chaney, for example, a surgeon, who worked with Dooley in Cambodia, founded the Dooley Foundation-Intermed International, an organization that provides medical equipment, supplies, personnel and financial support for the improvement of health services in underdeveloped countries [22] Betty Tisdale, who met Dooley and was inspired by his work, founded H.A.L.O.(Helping And Loving Orphans).[23][24] Just prior to the fall of Vietnam, she orchestrated the evacuation and adoption of 219 Vietnamese orphans to homes in the US. Today, Betty Tisdale and H.A.L.O. continue Dooley's work around the world, with people of all religions, to help orphans and at-risk children not only in Vietnam, but also in Mexico, Colombia, Indonesia and Afghanistan.[25][26][27] And, Teresa Gallagher, a volunteer who worked with Dooley, along with Dooley's brother, Malcolm, established the Dr. Tom Dooley Foundation that is dedicated to delivering medical care to people of the Third World; Dr. Jerry Brown, a 2013 graduate of the Foundation's program in Cameroon was among the "Ebola Fighters" named as the Time Person of the Year for 2014.[28]

The Dr. Tom Dooley Society of Notre Dame, an organization for medical alumni of Notre Dame, describes its mission as dedication to education, mentorship and global service to humanity. The Dooley Society awards current Notre Dame students and graduates stipends to participate in international medical mission trips.[29] The St. Louis University Dr. Tom Dooley Memorial Scholarship Program also provides opportunities for medical students to enhance their understanding of medicine in less developed and underprivileged countries.[30] The Gay and Lesbian Alumni of the University of Notre Dame and Saint Mary's College (GALA-ND/SMC) present a yearly Thomas A. Dooley Award to an individual who, through his or her faith-based background, have demonstrated personal courage, compassion and commitment to advance the human and civil rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans.[31]

Dooley is memorialized at the University of Notre Dame's Grotto of Our Lady, with a statue as well as an engraved copy of a letter he wrote to former Notre Dame president Ted Hesburgh."

[Quelle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Anthony_Dooley_III. -- Zugriff am 2016-04-07]

1961-01-19

Außenminister Thanat Khoman (ถนัด คอมันตร์, 1914 - ) in The Reporter über die USA:

"The feeling is growing very strong that we are treated less favorably than those nations that are uncommitted. There is less attention to our needs, our requirements, and our security than if we had been by ourselves."

[Zitiert in: Randolph, R. Sean: The United States and Thailand : alliance dynamics, 1950-1985. -- Berkeley : Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1986. -- 245 S. ; 23 cm. -- (Research papers and policy studies, 12). -- ISBN 0-912966-92-0. -- S. 38]

1961-01-19

Briefing des gewählten Präsidenten J.F. Kennedy durch US-Präsident Eisenhower:

"On January 19 Kennedy held a final meeting with Eisenhower. They talked alone and then met with advisers in the Cabinet Room. The discussion concentrated on points of crisis, and especially on the mounting difficulties in Laos. Eisenhower said that he had hoped that the South-East Asia Treaty Organization would take charge of the ‘controversy’ but that the British and French did not want SEATO to act. Christian A. Herter [1895 - 1966], the retiring Secretary of State, added that he did not think that ‘the Soviet bloc’ intended a major war in southeast Asia but that they would continue to make trouble up to the brink. The United States, Herter recommended, must convince the Communists of our intention to defend Laos, at the same time trying to persuade our allies to move with us in concert. If a political settlement could not be arranged in Laos, then this country must intervene. At this point, Eisenhower added that Laos was the key to all southeast Asia. If the communists took Laos, they would bring ‘unbelievable pressure’ on Thailand, Cambodia and South Vietnam. Laos, he said with solemnity, was so important that, if it reached the point where we could not persuade others to act with us, then he would be willing, ‘as a last desperate hope, to intervene unilaterally.’ He wondered for a moment why communist soldiers always seemed to have better morale than the soldiers ‘representing the democratic forces’; evidently there was something about ‘the communist philosophy’ which gave their supporters ‘a certain inspiration and a certain dedication.’ Then he said that it would be fatal to permit the communists any part in a new Laotian regime, citing the experience of China and the Marshall mission.

Kennedy, listening quietly, finally asked how long it would take to put an American division into Laos. Secretary Gates [Thomas Sovereign Gates Jr., 1906 – 1983, Verteidigungsminister] replied: twelve to seventeen days from the United States, less if we used troops already in the Pacific. Gates went on to say that he was ‘exceedingly sanguine’ about American capabilities for limited war; our forces were fully adequate to meet ‘any foreseeable test.’ Then he added that, while the United States was in excellent shape to meet one ‘limited war situation,’ it could not of course meet two limited war ‘situations’ going on at the same time."

[Quelle: Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. <1917 - 2007>: A thousand days : John F. Kennedy in the White House. -- London : Deutsch, 1967. -- 829 S. ; 18 cm. -- (Mayflower-Dell Paperback). -- Original erschienen 1965. -- S. 143f. -- Fair use]

 

1961-01-20 - 1963-11-22

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (1917 - 1963) ist Präsident der USA.


Abb.: John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy, 1963-07
[Bildquelle: Cecil Stoughton / White House / Wikimedia. -- Public domain]

1961-01-21 - 1969-01-20

Dean Rusk (1909 - 1994) ist US Secretary of State (Außenminister).


Abb.: Dean Rusk, 1968
[Bildquelle: LBJ Library photo by Yoichi Okamoto / Wikipedia. -- Public domain]

1961-01-26

Burma: Beginn der Mekong River Operation: 20.000 Soldaten der chinesischen Volksbefreiungsarmee [中国人民解放军] und 5.000 birmanische Soldaten greifen die Standorte von Kuomintang-Militär (KMT -中國國民黨) im östlichen Shan-Staat (မိူင်းတႆး) an. In der Folge evakuiert die Republik China (中華民國) 3.400 Soldaten und 825 von diesen Abhängige nach Taiwan (臺灣). Ca. 1500 bis 2000 KMT-Soldaten ziehen sich nach Thailand zurück. Ebensoviele leben in Rückzugsgebieten von Burma und Laos.

1961-02

Ein Thai-Militär - Prateep Jayapani (พันโท ประทีป ชัยปราณี) - und ein US-Militärberater - Richard "Kit" L. Carson - gründen die Mitraparb Foundation (มูลนิธิการศึกษามิตรภาพไทย อเมริกัน) zum Bau von Schulen in Dörfern. Die Stiftung wird in der Folgezeit 289 Schulen bauen.

"MITRAPARB EDUCATION FOUNDATION

As mentioned earlier, Thai rural education received a boost in 1961 when an American and a Thai military officer took shelter in a local school in the village of Ban Yang [บ้านยาง], Prachinburi Province [ปราจีนบุรี]. These officers launched the Mitraparb Education Foundation [มูลนิธิการศึกษามิตรภาพไทย อเมริกัน]. They conceived a scheme of staging parachute jumps, boxing, and other shows in Bangkok and in such provinces as Nakhorn Ratchasima [นครราชสีมา], Saraburi [สระบุรี], Nakhorn Srithammarat [นครศรีธรรมราช], Chachoengsao [ฉะเชิงเทรา], and Prachinburi [ปราจีนบุรี]. The shows featured both Thai and American "sky-divers" and the proceeds from the first show, amounting to 80,000 baht, were used to construct a new eight-classroom school at Ban Yang. The success of this initial endeavor led the foundation to extend such aid to other parts of the country. Under royal patronage, the foundation arranged shows, villagers helped in construction, and local residents made donations. In certain poverty-stricken villages, the foundation gave additional financial aid besides the proceeds from shows.

Over a period of twenty-five years, Mitraparb Education Foundation has been responsible for the construction of 289 schools, all of them outside Bangkok. It supplied books, school lunches, uniforms, teaching aids, and grants to outstanding students to help them further their education at the technical level in teachers’ training schools. Most of the leadership for this voluntary effort was provided by General Saiyud Kerdphol [พลเอกสายหยุด เกิดผล, 1922 - ], onetime Thai Armed Forces Supreme Commander.

The foundation’s committee consisted of an equal number of Thais and Americans. Everything about the program was done on that basis, a former jumper with Mitraparb recalled.

"At a local airport, the jumpers lined up - Thais and Americans - and loaded on the planes to fly to the dropping point. The first jump was always one Thai and one American jumping together. The American jumped with a Thai flag, the Thai with an American flag. After landing and taking off their parachutes, these two came together, shook hands, stood shoulder-to-shoulder to salute the senior officer, and presented both flags to Boy Scouts who handed them to the honor guard to be raised while the national anthem of each was played. Overhead, the planes were orbiting until this opening ceremony was over. "

"[In the early 1970s] people bought a 2-3 baht ticket just to watch, or a 5-6 baht ticket to watch and participate in the raffle. Companies donated items for the raffle, such as the Singer Company, which donated a sewing machine for each demonstration, or a tire company providing a set of tires. Perhaps the biggest gathering was in Konchanaburi, where 106, 000 people paid, though it seemed like twice as many attended. "

Typically, this officer recalled, about 150 jumpers dropped either "static line" or free-falling, i. e. skydiving. In a peak year in the 1970s, 24 demonstrations were held throughout Thailand.

"Mitraparb represented extraordinary cooperation between all the armed services of both countries, " this officer added.

Formal activity has quieted considerably over the past years as Thailand’s booming economy has permitted : he government to provide modern educational facilities. But the example created by Mitraparb has aspired a number of people-to-people self-help programs, including nongovernmental organizations, Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs, and Thai military activities which have targeted depressed remote areas for assistance with dispensaries, fair price markets, and infrastructure development. These projects, although they have a different identity, draw on the example of Mitraparb and keep that spirit alive."

[Quelle: The Eagle and the elephant : Thai-American relations since 1833 = ความสัมพันธ์ไทย-อเมริกัน ตั้งแต่ พ.ศ. 2376. -- Golden Jubilee ed. = ฉบับกาญจนาภิเซกสมโภช / ed. Patricia Norland [u.a.]. -- Bangkok : United States Information Service, 1997. -- 279 S. : Ill. ; 29 cm. -- ISBN 974-89415-1-5. -- S. 192f.]

1961-02-01

Die von der CIA betriebene Air America übernimmt die Tätigkeiten des US Marine Corps in der Royal Thai Air Force Base Udorn (อุดรธานี)


Abb.: Royal Thai Air Force Base Udorn (
อุดรธานี)
[Bildquelle: U.S. Marine Corps. -- Public domain]

1961-02-10 -1974

Auf der Takhli (ตาคลี) Royal Thai Air Force Base treffen die ersten  einstrahligen Jagdbomber F-100D Super Sabre des US 27th Tactical Fighter Wing (TFW) ein. Sie werden gegen den Pathet Lao eingesetzt.


Abb.: Lage der Takhli (ตาคลี) Royal Thai Air Force Base
[Bildquelle: CIA. -- Public domain]

Von der Takhli (ตาคลี) Royal Thai Air Force Base werden vor allem folgende Flugzeuge eingesetzt:


Abb.: Einstrahliger Jagdbomber F-100D Super Sabre
[Bildquelle: USAF / Wikipedia. -- Public domain]


Abb.: EinstrahligerJagddbomber F-105 Thunderchief (1963–1970): mit voller Bombenlast über Laos
[Bildquelle: USAF / Wikipedia. -- Public domain]


Abb.: Strategischer Bomber Boeing KB-50 Superfortress (1964–1965)
[Bildquelle: USAF / Wikipedia. -- Public domain]


Abb.: Abfangjäger Lokheed F-104 Starfighter (1965), ca. 1960
[Bildquelel: USAF / Wikipedia. -- Public domain]


Abb.: Aufklärungsflugzeug und Bomber Douglas EB-66 Destroyer (1965–1970): stationiert in Thakli (ตาคลี), 1970-03-30
[Bildquelle: USAF / Wikipedia. -- Public domain]


Abb.: Tankflugzeug Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker (1967–1968): tankt B-52-Bomber auf
[Bildquelle: USAF / Wikipedia. -- Public domain]


Abb.: Jagdbomber General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark (1968, 1972–1974): über Südostasien, 1968
[Bildquelle: USAF / Wikipedia. -- Public domain]


Abb.: Jagdbomber McDonnell F-4 Phantom II (1972): mit ausgelegter voller Munition, 1964
[Bildquelle: USAF / Wikipedia. -- Public domain]


Abb.: Lockheed MC-130 Combat Talon mit Hubschraubern: "Son Tay Raid. 1970 U.S. forces attempted to rescue POWs from captivity in North Vietnam. American officials decided a daring operation in the heart of North Vietnam was worth the risk, and President Richard Nixon asked the Pentagon to explore "some unconventional rescue ideas."
[Bildquelle: USAF / Wkipedia. -- Public domain]

1961-02-24

Premiere des Films บันทึกรักของพิมพ์ฉวี (Banthuek Rak Pimchawee - Love Diary of Pimchawee) mit Mitr Chaibancha (มิตร ชัยบัญชา, 1934 - 1970) und  Petchara Chaowarat (เพชรา เชาวราษฎร์, 1943 - ). Es ist der erste gemeinsame Film dieser beiden äußerst beliebten Schauspieler.


Abb.: Plakat
[Bildquelle: th.Wikipedia. -- Fair use]

1961-02-25

Der Präsident Nationalchinas, Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石, 1887 - 1975), empfängt US-Botschafter Everett F. Drumright (1906 - 1993) und teilt ihm mit, das er alle Kuomintang-Truppen aus dem Goldenen Dreieck zurückbeordert und jegliche Unterstützung für die beendet, sie sich weigern.

1961-03-01

US-Präsident J. F. Kennedy gründet das Peace Corps. Der erste Direktor (bis 1966) ist Robert Sargent Shriver Jr. (1915 - 2011). Shriver bereist zuerst 8 Entwicklungsländer - darunter Thailand - und bietet ihnen US-Freiwillige an. Die ersten 45 Freiwilligen kommen nach Thailand am 1962-01-21 ein. Bis 2014 werden über 5.100 Freiwillige US-Bürger Dienst in Thailand tun.


Abb.: ®Logo


Abb.: US-Präsident J. F. Kennedy und Robert Sargent Shriver Jr. bei einem Empfang für Peace-Corps-Freiwillige, 1962-08-09
[Bildquelle: Abbie Rowe, photographer, U.S. National Park Service / Wikimedia. -- Public domain]

"The Peace Corps is a volunteer program run by the United States government. The stated mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: providing technical assistance; helping people outside the United States to understand American culture; and helping Americans to understand the cultures of other countries. The work is generally related to social and economic development. Each program participant, a Peace Corps Volunteer, is an American citizen, typically with a college degree, who works abroad for a period of 24 months after three months of training. Volunteers work with governments, schools, non-profit organizations, non-government organizations, and entrepreneurs in education, hunger, business, information technology, agriculture, and the environment. After 24 months of service, volunteers can request an extension of service.[2]

The program was established by Executive Order 10924, issued by President John F. Kennedy on March 1, 1961, announced by televised broadcast March 2, 1961, and authorized by Congress on September 22, 1961, with passage of the Peace Corps Act (Public Law 87-293). The act declares the program's purpose as follows:

To promote world peace and friendship through a Peace Corps, which shall make available to interested countries and areas men and women of the United States qualified for service abroad and willing to serve, under conditions of hardship if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower.

Since 1961, over 210,000 Americans have joined the Peace Corps and have served in 139 countries."

[Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_corps. -- Zugriff am 2013-01-23]

1961-03-01 - 1961-03-05

SEATO Luftabwehrübung AIRBULL in Thailand.

1961-03-07

"Lai Ming-t’ang and his team arrived in Bangkok the day of Taipei’s March 6 withdrawal announcement to discuss the pending evacuation with Prime Minister Sarit and RTA [Royal Thai Army] commander Thanom Kittikachon [ถนอม กิตติขจร, 1911 - 2004]. On March 7, the Thai cabinet approved a joint ROC-RTG [Republic of China - Royal Thai Government] evacuation committee chaired by Air Chief Marshal Thawi Chulasap [ทวี จุลละทรัพย์, 1914 - 1996], an old friend of Lai Ming-t’ang and RTARF [Royal Thai Armed Forces] Supreme Command chief of staff. The committee considered shuttling evacuees from Lao airfields to Chiang Mai [เชียงใหม่] or Udorn [อุดรธานี] for onward flights to Taiwan [臺灣]. Lai Ming-t’ang preferred Udorn’s airport, which was in northeastern Thailand and closer to Taiwan. Washington, however, rejected that plan for fear of compromising sensitive US operations related to its efforts in Laos. Evacuation would be through Chiang Mai.

From Bangkok, Lai Ming-t’ang and his staff flew to Chiang Rai [เชียงราย], briefly visited a KMT [Kuomintang - 中國國民黨] logistics base at Chiang Saen [เชียงแสน], and then crossed the river to Laos and YAVA [Yunnan Anticommunist Volunteer Army] headquarters at Ban Kwan."

[Quelle: Gibson, Richard M. ; Chen, Wenhua [陳, 文華] <1944 - >: The secret army : Chiang Kai-Shek and the drug warlords of the golden triangle. -- Singapore : Wiley, 2011. -- 338 S. ;: Ill. ; 23 cm. -- ISBN 978-0-470-83018-5. -- S. 219. -- Fair use]


Abb.: Lage von
Chiang Saen [เชียงแสน] und Ban Kwan
[Bildquelle: OpenStreetMap. -- Creative Commons Lizenz (Namensnennung, share alike)]

1961-03-08 - 1961-03-19

SEATO Kommando-Übung RAJATA in Thailand.

1961-03-09

The US Food and Drug Administration gibt als erste Anti-Baby-Pille Enovid zum Verkauf frei. Damit beginnt eine Revolution der Reproduktion und Sexualität.


Abb.: Enovid
[Bildquelle: http://www.women-health-info.com/218-Birth-control-pills-facts.html. -- Zugriff am 2013-01-23]

1961-03-13 - 1961-08

Operation Millpond


Abb.: Lage von Udon Thani (อุดรธานี)
[Bildquelle: OpenStreetMap. -- Creative Commons Lizenz (Namensnennung, share alike)]

"Operation Millpond, which operated from 13 March 1961 through August 1961, was an American covert operation designed to introduce air power into the Laotian Civil War. A force of 16 A-26 Invaders, 16 Sikorsky H-34s, and other military materiel was hastily shipped in from Okinawa (沖縄県) and held ready to operate from the Kingdom of Thailand. After this hasty preparation for bombing in Laos, the debacle at the Bay of Pigs invasion resulted in the cancellation of Millpond. The A-26s were returned to Okinawa. However, the precedent had been set for covert Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored air operations in Laos.


Abb.:
 A-26 Invader, Thailand, 1967/69
[Bildquelle: Wikimedia. -- Public domain]


Abb.:
Sikorsky H-34, 1964
[Bildquelle: Wikimedia. -- Public domain]

[...]

Millpond operations
See also: Operation Momentum and Battle of Luang Namtha

Joint Task Force 116, compiled from all branches of the U.S. military and based on Okinawa, had been alerted for action in Laos. Units of the Seventh Fleet were forwarded to the Gulf of Siam.[3] At a 13 March 1961 meeting, President Kennedy approved recommendations made to him by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The regnant materiel in the proposal was a small fleet of 16 A-26 Invader light bombers, to be stationed in Thailand for aerial interdiction of communist supply lines in Laos. They were to be unmarked, and maintained by the CIA's wholly owned airline, Air America.[4] Programs Evaluation Office officials had assured the president's military aide that the A-26s would suffice to chase the communists from the Plain of Jars.[5] The A-26s would be accompanied by 16 Sikorsky H-34 helicopters, also for Air America use, also unmarked. Four C-130 Hercules, three Douglas DC-4s, and a Douglas C-47 were part of the anonymous package. The Royal Thai Army would covertly ship four batteries of 105mm howitzers to the Royal Lao Army. The existing advisory groups in Bangkok and Vientiane would be augmented with 100 more U.S. military men. Lastly, an additional 1,000 Hmong guerrillas would be trained by the CIA via Operation Momentum by 1 April.[4]

There followed a scramble for aircraft and volunteer air crews willing to operate in secrecy. The U.S. military, thus far restricted to using aerial rockets and machine guns, pressured for permission to use bombs and napalm. On 21 March 1961, the airlift of H-34s from Okinawa began; it ended on 24 March at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base with the turnover to Air America of 16 copters and a mixed bag of 37 U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Navy pilots. The A-26 Invaders went to Takhli (ตาคลี) Royal Thai Air Force Base.[6] Major Harry C. Aderholt (1920 – 2010), already active in covert airlift operations into Laos, supervised them.[7]

By 3 April 1961 the Millpond A-26s were manned and ready to fly; another 16 were due on 18 April. Practice missions were flown in four flights of four A-26s apiece. Also on 3 April, 14 of the H-34s began helilift operations east of Vang Vieng (ວັງວຽງ), Laos. On 16 April 1961, the Millpond A-26 pilots were commissioned into the Royal Lao Air Force. Their aircraft were loaded with 250 pound bombs, rockets, ammunition, and napalm—though the latter was removed by order of Ambassador Winthrop G. Brown (1907 - 1987). They received an evening briefing, and were ready to fly in the morning. As it turned out, the debacle of the Bay of Pigs Invasion on the other side of the globe caused cancellation of the mission.[7][8][9]

On 26 April, General Phoumi Nosavan (ຜກຸມກິ ນອວກະກະສນ, 1920 - 1985) of the Royal Lao Army urgently requested air strikes to ward off threatened communist assaults on Luang Prabang (ຫຼວງພຣະບາງ), Pakxan (ປາກຊັນ), Vientiane (ວຽງຈັນ), and Savannakhet (ສະຫວັນນະເຂດ). Ambassador Brown did not want to scuttle an upcoming 12 May ceasefire, but felt he would order Millpond bombings if provoked by communist attacks. With this decision, he eliminated the top priority Millpond objective and took up the secondary one of supporting troops in contact.[10] Meanwhile, the pilots were confined to the air base except for occasional photo reconnaissance by a camera-equipped A-26. On the second of these, on 1 May, the Millpond A-26 was damaged by 37mm antiaircraft fire over Napé on the Lao-Vietnamese border. The A-26s were then grounded.[7] However, the Invaders never did fly a bombing sortie.[11][12]

In August 1961, the Millpond A-26 force was dissolved and the operation cancelled, with the planes returned to Okinawa and the mixed crew of military and Air America pilots reverting to their former assignments. Despite this unpromising start by Millpond, covert CIA support was becoming the cornerstone of the burgeoning Laotian Civil War.[13]

[Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Millpond. -- Zugriff am 2015-04-24]

1961-03-15 - 1963-08-15

Frederick Nolting (1911 - 1989) ist US-Botschafter in Südvietnam.


Abb.: US-Präsident Johnson, Südvietnams Präsident Ngo Dinh Diem , Frederick Nolting, Saigon, 1961-05-12
[Bildquelle: USGov / Wikipedia. -- Public domain]

1961-03-18

Nachtklub-Besitzer erhalten von der Polizei eine Warnung, Shows zu veranstalten, die durch obszöne Tänze darauf aus sind, sexuelle Instinkte zu erregen. Schon vorher war allen Zeitungen verboten worden, Bilder von spärlich bekleideten Frauen zu veröffentlichen. Das Ganze ist Teil der Zensur zur Erhaltung moralischer Standards.


Abb.: Tanz, "der darauf aus ist, sexuelle Instinkte zu erregen", Bangkok, 2006
[Bildquelle: Gregorof / Wikimedia. -- Creative Commons Lizenz (Namensnennung, share alike)]

1961-03-23

Pressekonferenz von Präsident Kennedy zu Laos:

"First, we strongly and unreservedly support the goal of a neutral and independent Laos, tied to no outside power or group of powers, threatening no one, and free from any domination. Our support for the present duly constituted government is aimed entirely and exclusively at that result, and if in the past there has been any possible ground for misunderstanding of our desire for a truly neutral Laos, there should be none now.

Second, if there is to be a peaceful solution, there must be a cessation of the present armed attacks by externally supported Communists. If these attacks do not stop, those who support a truly neutral Laos will have to consider their response. The shape of this necessary response will, of course, be carefully considered, not only here in Washington, but in the SEATO Conference with our allies which begins next Monday.

[...]

My fellow Americans, Laos is far away from America, but the world is small. Its two million people live in a country three times the size of Austria. The security of all Southeast Asia will be endangered if Laos loses its neutral independence. Its own safety runs with the safety of us all, in real neutrality observed by all.

I want to make it clear to the American people, and to all of the world, that all we want in Laos is peace, not war -- a truly neutral government, not a cold war pawn, a settlement concluded at the conference table and not on the battlefield."

[Quelle: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/Press-Conferences/News-Conference-8.aspx. -- Zugriff am 2016-03-27]

1961-03-23

Abschuss einer EC-47 der US Air Force über der Ebene der Tonkrüge (ທົ່ງໄຫຫິນ) in Laos. Das Flugzeug war auf Spionagetour.


Abb.: Lage der Ebene der Tonkrüge (
ທົ່ງໄຫຫິນ)
[Bildquelle: OpenStreetMap. -- Creative Commons Lizenz (Namensnennung, share alike)]


Abb.: Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron EC-47s über Vietnam, 1972
[Bildquelle: USAF / Wikimedia. -- Public domain]

1961-03-25

US Präsident Kennedy schickt 250 Marines nach Udorn (อุดร), um eine Unterhalt-Station für Helikopter einzurichten, die US-genehme Rechte in Laos zu unterstützen.


Abb.: Lage des US-Stützpunkts Udorn (อุดร)
[Bildquelle: CIA. -- Public domain]

1961-03-26

SEATO Minister-Konferenz. Thailand drängt zur militärischen Intervention in Laos, Großbritannien und Frankreich sind dagegen. Die USA erhalten Zusicherung von Truppenunterstützung durch Thailand, Pakistan und die Philippinen.

1961-03-29 - 1963-08-19

Kenneth Todd Young ist US-Botschafter in Thailand. Er sagt aufgrund der Lagebeurteilung der Botschaft  für Thailand kommunistische Aufstände innerhalb der nächsten Jahre voraus.

1961-03-30

"By March 30, nearly 4,000 KMT [Kuomintang - 中國國民黨] soldiers and their dependents had left Chiang Mai [เชียงใหม่] for Taiwan [臺灣]. Most of those remaining were Third and Fifth Army personnel dispersed along Thailand’s borders. Opposite Burma, around Ban Fang [ฝาง] and Ban Tha Ton [ท่าตอน], more than 2,000 soldiers of those armies, including a number of child soldiers as young as age nine, were refusing to evacuate. (Most of the Golden Triangle insurgents routinely recruited children in their pre-teen and early teen years as soldiers.)

In Laos, hundreds more chose to stay on as FAR mercenaries."

[Quelle: Gibson, Richard M. ; Chen, Wenhua [陳, 文華] <1944 - >: The secret army : Chiang Kai-Shek and the drug warlords of the golden triangle. -- Singapore : Wiley, 2011. -- 338 S. ;: Ill. ; 23 cm. -- ISBN 978-0-470-83018-5. -- S. 222. -- Fair use]


Abb.: Lage von Fang [ฝาง] und Tha Ton [ท่าตอน]
[Bildquelle: OpenStreetMap. -- Creative Commons Lizenz (Namensnennung, share alike)]

1961-03-30

Einheitsabkommen über die Betäubungsmittel (engl. Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs; franz. Convention unique sur les stupéfiants). Vereinigt verschiedene Gremien zum International Narcotics Control Board (INCB)


Abb.: ®Logo

1961-04

Eröffnung des von den USA finanzierten neuen Kontrollturms am Flughafen Don Muang in Bangkok. Der Kontrollturm ist der modernste in ganz Südostasien. Folgende Flugplätze werden von den USA mit moderner Luftfahrtüberwachungsausrüstung ausgestattet:


Abb.: Lage der genannten Flugplätze
[Bildquelle: CIA. -- Public domain]

1961-04

Auf der Don Muang Royal Thai Air Force Base in Bangkok trifft ein Vortrupp der US-Air Force 6010th Tactical (TAC) Group ein. Ebenso mindestens vier einstrahlige Abfangjäger  Convair F-102 Delta Dagger des auf den Philippinen stationierten 509th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron.


Abb.: "Two USAF Convair F-102A Delta Dagger interceptors of the 509th Fighter Interceptor Squadron over Vietnam in November 1966. Originally deployed to escort bombers over North Vietnam and defend South Vietnamese airspace against possible North Vietnamese bombers, they provided close air support for allied ground forces in South Vietnam. 14 F-102s would be lost during the war, 1 in air to air combat.", 1966-11
[Bildquelle: USAF / Wikimedia. -- Public domain]

"During the early years of the Vietnam War (1961–1966), Don Muang was used as a major command and logistics hub of the United States Air Force. The USAF forces at Don Muang were under the command of the United States Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) Thirteenth Air Force.

After the expansion of U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield in 1966, most American units and personnel were transferred from Don Muang, however a small USAF liaison office remained at the base until 1975. The APO for Don Muang was APO San Francisco, 96303

USAF Advisory Units

6010th Tactical Group

The official American military presence in Thailand started in April 1961 when an advanced party of the USAF 6010th Tactical (TAC) Group arrived at Don Muang at the request of the Royal Thai government to establish an aircraft warning system.

Also in April 1961, a small detachment of F-102 "Delta Daggers" from the 509th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, based at Clark AB, Philippines were sent to Don Muang under Operation Bell Tone. Their mission was to bolster the defense capabilities of the Royal Thai Air Force. For the next several years, a minimum of four F-102 interceptors were kept on alert at Don Muang.

Then in November 1961, four RF-101C reconnaissance aircraft of the 45th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron stationed at Misawa AB, Japan and their photo lab arrived at Don Muang. The RF-101s were sent to assist Royal Thai AF RT-33 aircraft in performing aerial recon flights over Laos the RF-101s stayed until May 1962, then returned for a second deployment during November and December 1962. In August 1962 elements of the 15th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron stationed at Kadena AB, Okinawa were deployed to Don Muang flying RF-101C's.

Two milestones occurred early in 1962. The Military Assistance Group in South Vietnam was renamed U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) on 6 February. The other being a joint communication from Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Thai Foreign Minister Thanat Koman on 6 March in which the United States "firm intention... to aid Thailand, its ally and historic friend in resisting communist aggression and subversion". As a result, the Military Assistance Command, Thailand (MACT) was set up on 15 May 1962 at Don Muang.

35th Tactical Group

In November 1962 the 2nd Air Division assumed control of the 6010th TAC Group. In August the group was re-designated the 35th Tactical Group. The 35th TAC group consisted of the following units:

  • 35th Air Base Squadron - Located at Don Muang.
  • 331st Air Base Squadron - Located at Takhli RTAFB.
  • 332nd Air Base Squadron - Located at Ubon RTAFB.
  • Det #1, 35th Tactical Group - Located at Korat RTAFB.

By mid-1964 the situation in Southeast Asia was ambiguous. North Vietnam was determined to take over South Vietnam. Communist rebel forces were making military and political gains in Laos. The United States was taking over the role of "protector" from France in the area and the fear was that Communism would prevail over the democratic governments in the region. However there was no real justification for a full-scale American military involvement in the region.

On 31 July 1964 the Gulf of Tonkin Incident occurred. It was a pair of alleged attacks by North Vietnamese gunboats on two American destroyers, the USS Maddox and the USS C. Turner Joy, off the North Vietnamese coast in the Gulf of Tonkin. As a result, President Johnson would order more forces to support the west-allied South Vietnam government, and additional USAF forces were dispatched to Thailand, beginning a large scale United States military presence in Southeast Asia.

631st Combat Support Group

In July 1965 the 35th TAC Group was re-designated the 6236th Combat Support Group and again in April 1966 it was re-designated the 631st Combat Support Group. In March 1965 there were 1342 enlisted men stationed at Don Muang RTAFB, with their primary mission to provide support for all USAF units and detachments assigned to the base or other bases in Thailand.

Units assigned to Don Muang RTAFB were the following:

  • Host Unit - 631st Combat Support Group - 2 C-47s
    • Det #4 315th Air Division - 7 C-130Es
    • 509th Fighter Interceptor Squadron - 5 F-102s
    • 452nd Air Refueling Squadron - 4 KC-135s
509th Fighter Interceptor Squadron

F-102's were primarily interceptors assigned to the Air Defense Command in the United States, however it was over the skies of Southeast Asia that the F-102 was to achieve its only taste of combat. Aircraft from the 509th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, based at Clark Air Force Base were sent on Temporary Duty (TDY) to Don Muang in March 1962 to provide air defense against the unlikely event that North Vietnamese aircraft would attack Thailand.

TDY F-102As from 509th also stood alert at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Bien Hoa AB and Da Nang AB in South Vietnam and at Udon RTAFB in Thailand.

The F-102A was finally withdrawn from Southeast Asia in December 1969. The F-102A established an excellent safety record with almost ten years of flying air defense and a few combat air patrols for SAC B-52s, only 15 F-102As were lost.

Although a few missions were flown over North Vietnam, the Southeast Asia-stationed F-102As are not thought to have actually engaged in air-to-air combat, although one of F-102A of the 509th FIS was lost to an air-to-air missile fired by a MiG-21 while flying a CAP over Route Package IV on 3 February 1968.

Two F-102As were lost to AAA/small arms fire and four were destroyed on the ground by the Viet Cong and eight were lost in operational accidents.

USAF withdrawal from Don Muang

By 1966 the USAF and Thai Air Force had established a major presence in Thailand, with the Americans operating out of six Royal Thai Air Bases. At Don Muang the USAF had stationed KC-135 air refueling tankers from Strategic Air Command (SAC) for refueling tactical combat aircraft over the skies of Indochina. Thailand was officially neutral in the Vietnam War and the visibility of the large USAF Boeing tankers in its capital was causing political embarrassment to the Thai government.

The USAF 7th Air Force in Saigon wanted to have additional KC-135's in Thailand and the solution reached was to expand the Naval airfield at U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield and base the tankers there. Expansion of U-Tapao began in October 1965, with the completed new facility opening at the end of 1967. The 11,000-foot (3,400 m) runway became operational on 6 July 1966. U-Tapao received its first complement of USAF Strategic Air Command (SAC) KC-135 tankers in August 1966. By September, the base was supporting 15 tankers.

The opening of U-Tapao also allowed the United States to route most of its logistics requirements in Thailand to be routed through that facility rather than having large cargo aircraft arrive in the Thai capital.

By 1970 most USAF operations had moved out of Don Muang, however administrative personnel coordinating activities along with Military Assistance Command, Thailand (MACT) staff were assigned to the base until 1975."

[Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Muang_Royal_Thai_Air_Force_Base. -- Zugriff am 2013-111-21]

1961-04-03

Die USA schenken der thailändischen Luftwaffe zwanzig F-68F Sabre Düsenjäger.


Abb.: F-68F
[Bildquelle: Wikipedia. -- Public domain]

1961-04-07

Die USA sagen der Regierung von Vietnam anlässlich der Präsidentschaftswahlen vom 9. April starke Unterstützung gegen die oppositionellen Kräfte zu.

1961-04-10

Der Internationale Gerichtshof beginnt mit den Anhörungen zum Grenzstreit zwischen Thailand und Kambodscha um Prasat Preah Vihear (ប្រាសាទព្រះវិហារ / ปราสาทพระวิหาร), es wird keine Lösung gefunden.

1961-04-12

Der Sowjetunion gelingt es, erstmals einen Menschen - Juri Alexejewitsch Gagarin (Ю́рий Алексе́евич Гага́рин, 1934 - 1968) - in eine Erdumlaufbahn zu bringen und nach 108 Minuten wieder sicher auf die Erde zurückzubringen.


Abb.: Juri Alexejewitsch Gagarin (Ю́рий Алексе́евич Гага́рин), 1962
[Bildquelle: Wikipedia. -- Public domain]
 

1961-04-16 - 1961-04-20

Der Präsident Indonesiens, Sukarno (1901 - 1970), ist auf Staatsbesuch in Thailand.


Abb.: Sukarno
[Bildquelle: Tropenmuseum of the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) / Wikimedia. -- Creative Commons Lizenz (Namensnennung, share alike)]


Abb.: Sukarno
[Bildquelle: AK Rockefeller. -- http://www.flickr.com/photos/akrockefeller/7208432006/. -- Zugriff am 2013-05-24. -- Creative Commons Lizenz (Namensnennung, share alike)]

1961-04-17

Die Polizei beginnt zu überprüfen, ob die Taxis in Bangkok gemäß einer Anordnung von November 1960 mit lizenzierten Taxametern ausgestattet sind und bei Nacht beleuchtet die Aufschrift "TAXI" tragen.

1961-04-17

Radio Peking berichtet, dass ein Thai-Freiwiiliger, der bei den laotischen Streitkräften dient, von kommunistischen Kräften gefangen genommen wurde.

1961-04-18

Die USA bilden eine militärische Beratergruppe zur Unterstützung der Regierung von Prinz Boun Oum Na Champassak (ບຸນອຸ້ມ ນະ ຈຳປາສັກ, 1912 - 1980)

1961-04-24 - 1961-11-07

Laos; Project Field Goal: US Air Force Flieger fliegen Erkundungsflüge über Laos. Sie stehen dabei unter schwerem Beschuss durch Pathet Lao

1961-04-26

Tod von Luang Po Li Dhammadharo (พระสุทธิธรรมรังสีคัมภีรเมธาจารย์ / ท่านพ่อลี ธมฺมธโร, 1907 - 1961)


Abb.: Luang Po Li Dhammadharo (พระสุทธิธรรมรังสีคัมภีรเมธาจารย์ / ท่านพ่อลี ธมฺมธโร)
[Faire use]

1961-04-26

Die ersten hundert US-Vietnamsoldaten kommen zum Erholungsurlaub (R&R) nach Pattaya (พัทยา). Damit beginnt der Aufstieg Pattayas als Zentrum des Sextourismus.


Abb.: Lage von  Pattaya (พัทยา)
[Bildquelle: OpenStreetMap. -- Creative Commons Lizenz (Namensnennung, share alike)]

1961-04-29

Die USA starten Project Ekarad (ເອກະຣັດ): Thai Militär bildet unter Aufsicht von US-Beratern laotische Land- und Luftstreitkräfte - teils ganze Bataillone - in Thailand aus. es werden u.a. ausgebildet

  1. 8 Infanterie-Bataillone - 6 Wochen
  2. 6 Artillerie-Batterien - 12 Wochen
  3. 1000 Rekruten - 8 Wochen

1961-05

Ministerpräsident Sarit: "Die USA geben uns volle Garantien. Wir sind wie eine Jungfrau: niemand darf uns berühren."

1961-05

In Bangkok werden fünf Russen wegen kommunistischer Umtriebe verhaftet.

1961-05

Südvietnam beauftragt die Firma Kastor, Hilton, Chesley, Clifford and Atherton Inc. mit den Public Relations in den USA.  Jahresbudget ca. 200.000 US$

1961-05-09

Die US Joint Chiefs of Staff empfehlen US-Truppen nach Thailand zu schicken.

1961-05-09 - 1961-05-24

US-Vizepräsident Lyndon B. Johnson (1908 - 1973) besucht Vietnam, Philippinen, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indien, Pakistan

"Purpose: to reassure Asian leaders that despite Laos, the United States could be counted on to support them. Johnson reported the mission had halted the decline of confidence in the United States, but did not restore confidence already lost. Johnson strongly believed that faith must be restored, the "battle against communism must be joined in Southeast Asia with strength and determination" (or the US would be reduced to a fortress America with defenses pulled back to California's shores); he believed there was no alternative to US leadership in Southeast Asia but that any help extended--military, economic, social--must be part of a mutual effort and contingent upon Asian willingness to "take the necessary measures to make our aid effective." He reported that American troops were neither required nor desired by Asian leaders at this time.

Calling Thailand and Vietnam the most immediate, most immediate, most important trouble spots, the Vice President said the US "must decide whether to support Diem--or let Vietnam fall," opted for supporting Diem, said "the most important thing is imaginative, creative, American management of our military aid program," and reported $50 million in military and economic assistance "will be needed if we decide to support Vietnam." The same amount was recommended for Thailand.

The Vice President concluded by posing this as the fundamental decision: "whether . . . to meet the challenge of Communist expansion now in Southeast Asia or throw in the towel." Cautioning that "heavy and continuing costs" would be required, that sometime the US "may be faced with the further decision of whether we commit major United States forces to the area or cut our losses and withdraw should our other efforts fail," Johnson recommended "we proceed with a clear-cut and strong program of action.""

[Quelle: Pentagon Papers. -- https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon2/pent1.htm. -- Zugriff am 2013-12-04[

Memorandum Johnson's an Präsident Kennedy vom 1961-05-23:

“1. The battle against Communism must be joined in Southeast Asia with strength and determination to achieve success there—or the United States, inevitably, must surrender the Pacific and take up our defenses in our own shores. Asian Communism is comprised and contained by the maintenance of free nations on the sub-continent. Without this inhibitory influence, the island outposts—Philippines, Japan, Taiwan—have no security and the vast Pacific becomes a Red Sea.

“2. The struggle is far from lost in Southeast Asia and it is by no means inevitable that it must be lost. In each country it is possible to build a sound structure capable of withstanding and turning the Communist surge. The will to resist—while now the target of subversive attack—is there. The key to what is done by Asians in defense of Southeast Asian freedom is confidence in the United States.

“3. There is no alternative to United States leadership in Southeast Asia. Leadership in individual countries—or the regional leadership and cooperation so appealing to Asians—rests on the knowledge and faith in United States power, will and understanding.

“4. SEATO is not now and probably never will be the answer because of British and French unwillingness to support decisive action. Asian distrust of the British and French is outspoken. Success at Geneva would prolong SEATO’s role. Failure at Geneva would terminate SEATO’s meaningfulness. In the latter event, we must be ready with a new approach to collective security in the area.

“We should consider an alliance of all the free nations of the Pacific and Asia who are willing to join forces in defense of their freedom. Such an organization should:

  • “a) have a clear-cut command authority
  • “b) also devote attention to measures and programs of social justice, housing, land reform, etc.

“5. Asian leaders—at this time—do not want American troops involved in Southeast Asia other than on training missions. American combat troop involvement is not only not required, it is not desirable. Possibly Americans fail to appreciate fully the subtlety that recently-colonial peoples would not look with favor upon governments which invited or accepted the return this soon of Western troops. To the extent that fear of ground troop involvement dominates our political responses to Asia in Congress or elsewhere, it seems most desirable to me to allay those paralysing fears in confidence, on the strength of the individual statements made by leaders consulted on this trip. This does not minimize or disregard the probability that open attack would bring calls for U.S. combat troops. But the present probability of open attack seems scant, and we might gain much needed flexibility in our policies if the spectre of combat troop commitment could be lessened domestically.

“6. Any help—economic as well as military—we give less developed nations to secure and maintain their freedom must be a part of a mutual effort. These nations cannot be saved by United States help alone. To the extent the Southeast Asian nations are prepared to take the necessary measures to make our aid effective, we can be—and must be—unstinting in our assistance. It would be useful to enunciate more clearly than we have—for the guidance of these young and unsophisticated nations—what we expect or require of them.

“7. In large measure, the greatest danger Southeast Asia offers to nations like the United States is not the momentary threat of Communism itself, rather that danger stems from hunger, ignorance, poverty and disease. We must—whatever strategies we evolve—keep these enemies the point of our attack, and make imaginative use of our scientific and technological capability in such enterprises.

“8. Vietnam and Thailand are the immediate—and most important—trouble spots, critical to the U.S. These areas require the attention of our very best talents—under the very closest Washington direction—on matters economic, military and political.

“The basic decision in Southeast Asia is here. We must decide whether to help these countries to the best of our ability or throw in the towel in the area and pull back our defenses to San Francisco and a ‘Fortress America’ concept. More important, we would say to the world in this case that we don’t live up to the treaties and don’t stand by our friends. This is not my concept. I recommend that we move forward promptly with a major effort to help these countries defend themselves. I consider the key here is to get our best MAAG people to control, plan, direct and exact results from our military aid program. In Vietnam and Thailand, we must move forward together.”

[Quelle: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v23/d4. -- Zugriff am 2016-09-09]

1961-05-11

US-Präsident Kennedy entsendet weitere 400 Spezialeinheiten (United States Army Special Forces aka Green Berets) und 100 Militärberater nach Südvietnam. Damit sind in Südvietnam mindesten 2000 US-Militärberater.

1961-05-15 - 1962-07-23

Indochina-Konferenz in Genf wegen Laos. An der Konferenz sind 14 Staaten beteiligt: Großbritannien, Frankreich, USA, UdSSR, VR China, Nordvietnam, Südvietnam, Kambodscha, Kanada, Indien, Polen, Burma, Thailand, Laos sowie die drei Bürgerkriegsparteien (Boun Oum - ບຸນອຸ້ມ ນະ ຈຳປາສັກ, 1911 - 1962, Neutralisten, Pathet Lao - ປະເທດລາວ).

1961-05-16

Wegen der Besorgnis über den Pathet Lao (ປະເທດລາວ) besucht US-Vizepräsident Lyndon B. Johnson (1908 - 1973) Thailand. Er versichert Thailand des Beistands der USA, wenn er auch zugibt, dass der Kampf "long, costly, and, in many instances, dangerous" sein werde.

1961-05-17

In der Operation Hurricane, einem gemeinsamen Unternehmen der USA, Nationalchinas (中華民國) und Thailands - werden 6000 Kuomintang (中國國民黨) Soldaten von Chiangmai und anderen Nordprovinzen nach Nationalchina (Taiwan) repatriiert. Die Kuomintang hatten seit 1949 Teile von Burma, Thailand und Laos als skrupellose Warlords unterdrückt.

1961-05-23

Report von US-Vizepräsident Lyndon B. Johnson an Präsident John F. Kennedy über die Eindrücke seiner Südostasienreise:


Abb.: Präsident John F. Kennedy mit Vizepräsident Lyndon B. Johnson, 1960/61
[Bildquelle: Frank Muto / Wikipedia. -- Public domain]

“I took to Southeast Asia some basic convictions about the problems faced there. I have come away from the mission there—and to India and Pakistan—with many of those convictions sharpened and deepened by what I saw and learned. I have also reached certain other conclusions which I believe may be of value as guidance for those responsible in formulating policies.

“These conclusions are as follows:

“1. The battle against Communism must be joined in Southeast Asia with strength and determination to achieve success there—or the United States, inevitably, must surrender the Pacific and take up our defenses in our own shores. Asian Communism is comprised and contained by the maintenance of free nations on the sub-continent. Without this inhibitory influence, the island outposts—Philippines, Japan, Taiwan—have no security and the vast Pacific becomes a Red Sea.

“2. The struggle is far from lost in Southeast Asia and it is by no means inevitable that it must be lost. In each country it is possible to build a sound structure capable of withstanding and turning the Communist surge. The will to resist—while now the target of subversive attack—is there. The key to what is done by Asians in defense of Southeast Asian freedom is confidence in the United States.

“3. There is no alternative to United States leadership in Southeast Asia. Leadership in individual countries—or the regional leadership and cooperation so appealing to Asians—rests on the knowledge and faith in United States power, will and understanding.

“4. SEATO is not now and probably never will be the answer because of British and French unwillingness to support decisive action. Asian distrust of the British and French is outspoken. Success at Geneva would prolong SEATO’s role. Failure at Geneva would terminate SEATO’s meaningfulness. In the latter event, we must be ready with a new approach to collective security in the area.

“We should consider an alliance of all the free nations of the Pacific and Asia who are willing to join forces in defense of their freedom. Such an organization should:

  • “a) have a clear-cut command authority
  • “b) also devote attention to measures and programs of social justice, housing, land reform, etc.

“5. Asian leaders—at this time—do not want American troops involved in Southeast Asia other than on training missions. American combat troop involvement is not only not required, it is not desirable. Possibly Americans fail to appreciate fully the subtlety that recently-colonial peoples would not look with favor upon governments which invited or accepted the return this soon of Western troops. To the extent that fear of ground troop involvement dominates our political responses to Asia in Congress or elsewhere, it seems most desirable to me to allay those paralysing fears in confidence, on the strength of the individual statements made by leaders consulted on this trip. This does not minimize or disregard the probability that open attack would bring calls for U.S. combat troops. But the present probability of open attack seems scant, and we might gain much needed flexibility in our policies if the spectre of combat troop commitment could be lessened domestically.

“6. Any help—economic as well as military—we give less developed nations to secure and maintain their freedom must be a part of a mutual effort. These nations cannot be saved by United States help alone. To the extent the Southeast Asian nations are prepared to take the necessary measures to make our aid effective, we can be—and must be—unstinting in our assistance. It would be useful to enunciate more clearly than we have—for the guidance of these young and unsophisticated nations—what we expect or require of them.

“7. In large measure, the greatest danger Southeast Asia offers to nations like the United States is not the momentary threat of Communism itself, rather that danger stems from hunger, ignorance, poverty and disease. We must—whatever strategies we evolve—keep these enemies the point of our attack, and make imaginative use of our scientific and technological capability in such enterprises.

“8. Vietnam and Thailand are the immediate—and most important—trouble spots, critical to the U.S. These areas require the attention of our very best talents—under the very closest Washington direction—on matters economic, military and political.

“The basic decision in Southeast Asia is here. We must decide whether to help these countries to the best of our ability or throw in the towel in the area and pull back our defenses to San Francisco and a ‘Fortress America’ concept. More important, we would say to the world in this case that we don’t live up to the treaties and don’t stand by our friends. This is not my concept. I recommend that we move forward promptly with a major effort to help these countries defend themselves. I consider the key here is to get our best MAAG people to control, plan, direct and exact results from our military aid program. In Vietnam and Thailand, we must move forward together.” (Memorandum from Johnson to Kennedy, May 23; Johnson Library, Vice President’s Security File, Nations and Regions, Southeast Asia)

The memorandum is printed in full in United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, Book 11, pages 159–166."

[Quelle: http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v23/d4. -- Zugriff am 2013-12-04]

1961-05-24

Auf der 14-Staatenkonferenz zu Laos in Genf leugnet Außenminister Thanat Khoman (ถนัด คอมันตร์, 1914 - ) heftig den Vorwurf Rotchinas, dass Thailand ein Militärbase der USA beherberge. Er verlässt zeitweise das Konferenzgebäude aus Protest gegen die Anwesenheit von Vertretern des Pathet Lao (ປະເທດລາວ), in dem er eine große Gefahr sieht.

1961-05-26

Die Bangkok Post berichtet über eine sezessionistische Bewegung in Nordostthailand: den Anhängern wird soziales Glück versprochen. Die Hauptstadt eine Nordoststaates soll Dong Palard (Provinz Sakon Nakhon [สกลนคร]) werden. Eine enge Anlehnung an Laos ist geplant.


Abb.: Lage der Provinz Sakon Nakhon [สกลนคร]
[Bildquelle: CIA. -- Public domain]

1961-05-31

In der Provinz Sakon Nakhon (สกลนคร) werden Krong Jandawong (ครอง จันดาวงศ์, 1909-1961) und Thongpan Sutthimat (ทองพันธ์ สุทธิมาศ) aus der Amphoe Sawang Dindaen (อำเภอสว่างแดนดิน) in ihrem Heimatdorf öffentlich hingerichtet. Ihnen wird kommunistische Subversion zur Übernahme Nordostthailands vorgeworfen. Krong ist ein Lehrer, der Bauer geworden ist, und eine Politik des Selbstvertrauens der Bauern vertreten hat. Seine Ideen fanden bei den Bauern großen Anklang.


Abb.: Krong Jandawong (ครอง จันดาวงศ์) und Thongpan Sutthimat (ทองพันธ์ สุทธิมาศ) vor der Hinrichtung
[Fair use]


Abb.: Lage von
Sawaeng Daen Din [สว่างแดนดิน]
[Bildquelle: OpenStreetMap. -- Creative Commons Lizenz (Namensnennung, share alike)]

"Although he had never been a CPT [Communist Party of Thailand] member, Khrong [Krong Jandawong - ครอง จันดาวงศ์, 1909-1961], who was immensely popular in his local area of Sakon Nakhon [สกลนคร], became a party martyr and the focus for intensified recruitment in this region of the Northeast. Born in 1908 to a moderately well-off farming family, Khrong had studied in government primary and secondary schools. He became a teacher, eventually becoming headmaster of several schools in his home province. In 1942 he resigned to start a poultry farm and later married the daughter of a wealthy Chinese merchant in Sawaeng Daen [สว่างแดนดิน] District of Sakon Nakhon. Elected to the House of Representatives from this area in 1957, Khrong supported the proposal to abolish the Anticommunist Act, and another bill calling for periodic reelection of kamnan [กำนัน] and village headmen. Both bills were defeated. Arrested and jailed by Sarit in 1958, he was released soon thereafter.

Khrong then started the Samakhi Tham [สามัคคีธรรม] (United in Dharma) movement in the Northeast, encouraging collective farming and advocating a union of Thailand’s Northeast with Laos. Khrong’s motto was, "Where there is a lump of sticky rice, that is the frontier of the Kingdom of Lao."20

This political activity caught the attention of Sarit’s police, who arrested Khrong in 1961 and chose to make an example of him, executing him in front of the Sawang Daen Din police station. After his execution, Khrong’s widow and all three of his children joined the CPT, his daughter Rassamee [รัศมี] later. becoming one of the party’s top guerrilla leaders and his widow later marrying a top CPT leader named Porn. The CPT declared Khrong a member posthumously in order to use his reputation with the people in the area to attract more recruits to the party. The Sawang Daen Din area rapidly became one of the most sensitive (insurgent-dominated) districts in the entire Northeast, the site of numerous government suppression operations."

[Quelle: Morell, David ; Chai-anan Samudavanija [ชัยอนันต์ สมุทวณิช] <1944 - >: Political conflict in Thailand : reform, reaction, revolution. -- Cambridge, Mass. : Oelgeschlager, 1981. -- 362 S. : Ill. ; 24 cm. -- ISBN 0-89946-044-5. -- S. 81. -- Fair use]

"A story told several years ago to one of the authors by the deputy district officer of Sawaeng Daen Din [อำเภอสว่างแดนดิน] district of Sakon Nakhon province, concerning Khrong Chandawong [Krong Jandawong - ครอง จันดาวงศ์, 1909-1961], illustrates the complexities of this process. According to this official, when Khrong first organized a group of his supporters in the forests of this area, they went from one village to the next, meeting the people and chatting with them about their general situation. Some months later, they returned to these same villages secretly at night, stealing several buffalo from each one, then hiding the animals in the forest. After this act, they came back to the villages, asking "how are things now?" Naturally, they heard many complaints about buffalo thieves. Discovering that the villagers had not yet called on the police for assistance in dealing with the problem, Khrong’s men suggested that they should do so. Returning again a little later, they heard of another grievance. "The police were terrible," the villagers reported. "They demanded whisky and money, some even chased after our local girls. And they never did recover any of our buffalo." So the group offered to assist the villagers in recovering the buffalo, a task that they fulfilled easily. The end result, according to the official relating this incident, was clear: Khrong and his supporters became heros to the villagers, the police were now seen as villains."

[Quelle: Morell, David ; Chai-anan Samudavanija [ชัยอนันต์ สมุทวณิช] <1944 - >: Political conflict in Thailand : reform, reaction, revolution. -- Cambridge, Mass. : Oelgeschlager, 1981. -- 362 S. : Ill. ; 24 cm. -- ISBN 0-89946-044-5. -- S. 94f., Anm. 39. -- Fair use]

"The search for Rassamee [รัศมี] (her name, in Thai, means Ray of Light") encapsules the history and the magnitude of the Communist thrust that threatens Thailand. Born Rassamee Jandavongs [รัศมี จันดาวงศ์], in Swang Daen Din [สว่างแดนดิน], she is the strikingly beautiful daughter of Krons Jandavongs [ครอง จันดาวงศ์, 1909-1961], once one of Thailand’s best-known intellectuals and an outspoken champion of the peasants in the northeast. A brilliant lawyer trained at Thamasat University [มหาวิทยาลัยธรรมศาสตร์] in Bangkok, Jandavongs reached his greatest power fourteen years ago when the Thai government banned all activity of the Communist Party. The Thai Communists simply broke into smaller groups and continued to function under socialist banners. Jandavongs formed the socialist party in the northeast and took to the back villages, telling the peasant, and with precise truth, that his poverty was nothing short of immoral; he accused the government in Bangkok, again with accuracy, of regional snobbery and neglect. The central government became alarmed about Jandavongs’ activity but was unable to curb him because Thai law at that time allowed freedom of political activity so long as one was not an avowed, open Communist. Then it came to the fore that Jandavongs, who had traveled widely in both Russia and Red China, was receiving money and munitions from China. Intelligence agents from Bangkok went on to claim that they had uncovered Jandavongs’ plot to overthrow the central government and set up a Communist state.

One morning, in 1960, as the entire village looked on in horror, government troops marched Krons Jandavongs onto the very field where the helicopter had landed six years later and shot him to death.

The shot was quickly heard in Bangkok where Rassamee was finishing her third year at Thamasat University. A brilliant student, her childhood dream of following in her father’s footsteps as a lawyer was not to be realized, Her father’s blood was still wet on the ground when Rassamee vanished; she went first to Laos, then to Hanoi, to China, and finally to Moscow. Meanwhile the Communist apparatus in Thailand went underground, where it remains to this day. Close friends of Krons Jandavongs took over the leadership of his northeastern unit and stepped up their recruiting for the day Rassamee would return and bring her father’s dream to fruition. Four years after her father’s death Rassamee did return. Now a seasoned Communist and trained in guerrilla warfare, Rassamee quietly slipped into northeast Thailand (she came by night, by boat, from the Communist-controlled section of Laos) and assumed leadership of the guerrilla machinery.

Once the government discovered her activity it was too late. She had already gathered a force of men and pitched camp deep in the snake-infested jungles of the Phupan mountain range [เทือกเขาภูพาน], which not only overlooks Swang Daen Din but curves through most of northeast Thailand as well.

Few people other than her followers and her victims have seen Rassamee since her return. She is on Thailand’s Most Wanted Persons List, yet the combined efforts of the Thai and United States governments have been unable to unearth a single picture of her. But Rassamee’s handiwork-burned bridges, murdered village officers and schoolteachers, stolen rice, and terrified villagers—is seen all too often, known all too well."

[Quelle: Lomax, Louis E. <1922 - 1970>: Thailand : the war that is, the war that will be. -- New York : Vintage Books, 1967.  -- 175 S. ; 19 cm. -- (Vintage book ; V-204). -- S. 6f.. -- Fair use]


Abb.: Lage der Phu Phan Range
 [เทือกเขาภูพาน]
[Bildquelle: Hdamm / Wikimedia. -- Creative Commons Lizenz (Namensnennung, share alike)]

1961-06-03

Wien (Österreich): erstes Gipfeltreffen von US-Präsident John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963) und dem sowjetischen Staats- und Parteichef Nikita S. Chruschtschow ( Никита Сергеевич Хрущёв, 1894 - 1971).


Abb.: John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963) (rechts) und Nikita S. Chruschtschow ( Никита Сергеевич Хрущёв), Wien 1961-06-03
[Bildquelle:
U. S. Department of State / Wikimedia. -- Public domain]

1961-06-05

Der stellvertretende US-Sicherheitsberater Walt Whitman Rostow (1916 - 2003) an Verteidigungsminister Robert McNamara (1916 - 2009):


Abb.: Einbandtitel

"Bob:

We must think of the kind of forces and missions for Thailand now, Vietnam later.
We need a guerrilla deterrence operation in Thailand's northeast.
We shall need forces to support a counter-guerrilla war in Vietnam:

aircraft
helicopters
communications men
special forces
militia teachers
etc.

WWR"

[Quelle: Pentagon Papers. -- https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon2/pent2.htm. -- Zugriff am 2013-12-04]

1961-06-13

70 US-Experten für Guerilla- und Dschungelkrieg treffen in Südvietnam ein. Sie sollen Südvietnam im Kampf gegen den Vietcong unterstützen.

Nach 1961-06-18

Die Dekane der Thammasat University (มหาวิทยาลัยธรรมศาสตร์) erwägen, die Studentin Duangchai Saardrakahs von der Universität zu verweisen. Ihr Vergehen: sie soll den Fliegengewicht-Boxer Pone Kingpetch (โผน กิ่งเพชร, 1935 - 1982) am Flughafen mit einem Kuss empfangen haben. Statt Verweisung bekommt die Studentin einen strengen Tadel der Universitätsleitung.


Abb.: Küssen verboten: Pone Kingpetch (โผน กิ่งเพชร), Statue, Hua Hin, 2006
[Bildquelle: Kriangsak Hongchumpae / Wikipedia. -- GNU FDLicense]

1961-06-19

Auf seiner von der in den USA beheimateten Asia Foundation finanzierten Reise nach Europa und den USA ist der Sangharaja (สมเด็จพระสังฆราช), Somdet Phra Ariyavangsagatanyana (สมเด็จพระอริยวงศาคตญาณ)  in Kalifornien eingetroffen. Dort trifft er Thai Studenten und führende Buddhisten. Er behauptet, dass, wenn mehr Menschen buddhistische Lehren schätzen würden, dauernder Frieden herrschen würde.

1961-06-19

Special Report by the US Task Force on Vietnam:

"South Laos, if saved, can be the keystone connecting the pillars of Thailand and South Vietnam, and sealing off Cambodia from further infiltration. South Laos is the key to preventing Southeast Asia from being cut in two."

[Zitiert in: Conboy, Kenneth J. ; Morrison, James < - 2000>: Shadow war : the CIA’s secret war in Laos. --  Boulder, Colo. : Paladin Press, ©1995. -- 453 S. : Ill. ; 29 cm. -- ISBN 978-1-58160-535-8. -- S. 115. -- Fair use]

1961-06-22

In Zürich einigen sich die Führer der drei Bürgerkriegsparteien, Prinz Boun Oum na Champassak (... ນະ ຈຳປາສັກ, Thai: เจ้าบุญอุ้ม ณ จำปาศักดิ์, 1912 - 1980), Prinz Souvanna Phouma (1901 - 1984) und Prinz Souphanouvong (ສຸພານຸວົງ). 1909 - 1995)  über eine Koalitionsregierung und die strikte Neutralität von Laos.

1961-06-22

Die USA unterstützen das Thai Militärbudget mit weiteren $50 Mio.

1961-06-23 - 1961-07-04

Bei den Internationalen Filmfestspielen Berlin  ist erstmals ein thailändischer Film zu sehen: Phrae dam (แพรดำ - Black silk)


Abb.: Filmplakat
[Bildquelle: Wikipedia. -- Fair use]

"Black Silk (Thai: แพรดำ or Prae dum) is a 1961 Thai crime drama film written and directed by Rattana Pestonji (รัตน์ เปสตันยี, 1908 – 1970).

Considered the first Thai film noir, Black Silk was also among the first Thai films to be exhibited at overseas film festivals, screening at the 11th Berlin International Film Festival in 1961.[1]

Plot

Seni, a club owner, is under pressure by a rival, Wan, to pay an outstanding loan. Upon hearing that he has a long-lost brother named Sema, Seni sends his loyal lieutenants, Tom and Pon, to visit Sema, only to find that Sema has died. Seni decides that he can use the situation to his advantage, and buries Sema's body in a forest.

Seni and Tom orchestrate the death of Wan, by setting fire to Wan's car, pushing it off a cliff and framing Wan's assistant Sin, also dead, for the murder. Seni then assumes the identity of his dead brother, free and clear of debts and Wan's meddling.

Tom, meanwhile, has fallen in love with Phrae, a widowed mother who has worn black silk since her husband died two years before. Seni sees Phrae as a threat to his scheme and orders Tom to stop seeing her. Wan further plots to use Tom to psychologically manipulate Phrae.

Phrae then leaves Tom, shaves her head and enters a Buddhist temple. Tom tries to stand up to his boss, with disastrous consequences.

 Cast
  • Ratanavadi Ratanabhand (รัตนาวดี รัตนาพันธ์) as Phrae (แพร)
  • Senee Wisaneesarn as Senee/Sema
  • Tom Wisawachart (ทม วิศวชาติ) as Tom (ทม)
  • Seni Utsanisan (เสณี อุษณีษาณฑ์)
  • Thawin Worawiboon
  • Sarinthip Siriwan (ศรินทิพย์ ศิริวรรณ)
  • Jameunmanphonrit
  • Phichit Saliphan
  • Jurai Kasemsuwan

Production

Black Silk was the second color film made by Rattana, shot in the Cinemascope format at a time when most other Thai filmmakers were using 16-mm film.

With most of his resources put into the film stock and equipment, Rattana made sacrifices, performing most of the key jobs himself as writer, director, producer, cinematographer and editor. His daughter, Pannee Trangkasombat (using the stage name Ratanavadi Ratanabhand) was cast as Prae.[1]

The sets are very basic, and the fight sequences were made with no sound effects. Nonetheless, the performances are praised as generally good, especially Senee Wisaneesarn as Senee/Sema. There are even some musical numbers.[1]

 Release

Black Silk was a landmark of Thai cinema, being among the first Thai films to be chosen for a major international film festival, in competition at the 11th Berlin International Film Festival in 1961.[1]

In the 2000s, the film was featured in retrospective programs at the Bangkok International Film Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์นานาชาติกรุงเทพฯ), the Singapore International Film Festival and the 2005 Pusan International Film Festival (부산국제영화제).

 References
  1. Williamson, Robert (2004-01-01). "Black Silk (Prae Dum)". Review. Thai Film Foundation. Retrieved 2007-08-04."
[Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Silk. -- Zugriff am 2011-11-07]

1961-07

Memorandum from Brig. Gen. Edward G. Lansdale (1908 - 1987), Pentagon expert on guerrilla warfare, to Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor (1901 - 1987), President Kennedy's military adviser, on "Resources for Unconventional Warfare, SE. Asia":

"This memo is in response to your desire for early information on unconventional-warfare resources in Southeast Asia. The information was compiled within Defense and CIA.

[...]

B. THAILAND

1. Thai

a. Royal Thai Army Ranger Battalion (Airborne)

A Special Forces type unit, its stated mission is to organize and conduct guerrilla warfare in areas of Thailand overrun by the enemy in case of an open invasion of Thailand. It currently has the mission of supplying the Palace Guard for the Prime Minister.

Based at Lopburi, the Ranger Battalion has a MAP authorized strength of 580. It is organized into a Headquarters and Headquarters company, a Service company, and four Ranger companies. The Battalion has 4 command detachments and 26 operations detachments, trained and organized along the lines of U.S. Special Forces in strength, equipment, and rank structure.

The Ranger Battalion is loosely attached to the 1st Division. In reality, it is an independent unit of the Royal Thai Army, under the direct control of Field Marshal Sarit, the Commander in Chief, and receives preferential treatment.

Each ranger company has been assigned a region of Thailand, in which it is to be prepared to undertake guerrilla warfare in case of enemy occupation. Field training is conducted in these assigned regions, to acquaint the detachments with the people, facilities and terrain.

b. Police Aerial Resupply Unit (PARU)

The PARU has a mission of undertaking clandestine operations in denied areas. 99 PARU personnel have been introduced covertly to assist the Meos in operations in Laos, where their combat performance has been outstanding.

This is a special police unit, supported by CIA (CIA control in the Meo operations has been reported as excellent), with a current strength of 300 being increased to 550 as rapidly as possible. All personnel are specially selected and screened, and have been rated as of high quality. Officers are selected from the ranks.

Training consists of 10 weeks' basic training, 3 weeks' jumping, 3 weeks' jungle operations, 4 weeks' police law and 3 months of refresher training yearly. Forty individuals have been trained as W/T communicators.

All personnel have adequate personal gear to be self-sustaining in the jungle. Weapons are M-1 rifles, M-3 submachine guns and BAR. In addition, personnel are trained to use other automatic weapons, 2.34 rocket launchers, and 60-mm. mortars.

There are presently 13 PARU teams, totaling 99 men, operating with the Meo guerrillas in Laos. Combat reports of these operations have included exceptionally heroic and meritorious actions by PARU personnel. The PARU teams have provided timely intelligence and have worked effectively with local tribes.

c. Thai Border Patrol (BPP)

The mission of the BPP is to counter infiltration and subversion during peacetime, in addition to normal police duties, in the event of an armed invasion of Thailand, the BPP will operate as guerrilla forces in enemy-held areas, in support of regular Thai armed forces.

The BPP has a current strength of 4,500. It was organized in 1955 as a gendarmerie patrol force (name changed to BPP in 1959), composed of 71 active and 23 reserve platoons, from existing police units. It is an element of the Thai National Police, subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior.

Although technically a police organization, the BPP is armed with infantry weapons, including light machine guns, rocket launchers and light mortars. It is trained in small-unit infantry tactics and counter-guerrilla operations. Training is currently being conducted by a 10-man U.S. Army Special Forces team from Okinawa, under ICA auspices.

This unusual police unit was created initially to cope with problems posed by foreign guerrilla elements using Thailand as a safe haven: the Vietminh in Eastern Thailand and the Chinese Communists along the Malayan border in the south. There has been some tactical liaison with Burmese Army units.

2. U.S.

a. Defense

1). A special Forces qualified officers is assigned to advise the RTA Ranger Battalion.
2). A ten-man Special Forces team from the 1st Special Forces Group in Okinawa is currently conducting training for the Thai Border Patrol Police under ICA auspices.
3). There are 5 officers and 1 enlisted man attached to MAAG as advisers to J-2 and the Thai Armed Forces Security Center.

b. CIA

1). 2 advisers with PARU.
2). 3 officers who work with the Border Patrol Police providing advice, guidance and limited training in the collection and processing of intelligence in addition to management of their communications system.

[Quelle: Pentagon Papers. -- https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon2/doc100.htm. -- Zugriff am 2013-12-04]

1961-07

Die Amerikaner Albert Lyman (1905 - 1984), William L. Nystrom, Willis Bird und andere gründen die erste Wertpapierbörse. Bird: "Thais had invariably financed their businesses with loans from uncles and aunts. But it's amazing how quickly they can adapt." [Zitiert in: Chronicle of Thailand : headline news since 1946 / ed. in chief Nicholas Grossman. -- Bangkok : Bangkok Post, 2010. -- ISBN 978-981-4217-12-5. -- S. 119]

1961-07-01

Die Polizei hebt in Bangkok ein Etablissement aus, in dem Ausländer für 100 Baht Sexfilme anschauen können.

1961-07-07

In den malaiisch-muslimischen Provinzen Südthailands werden mehr als 10 Personen wegen Aufstachelung zu Aufruhr festgenommen. Innenminister Feldmarschall  Praphas Charusathien (ประภาส จารุเสถียร, 1912 - 1997) verspricht, dass die Bevölkerung zusätzlich zu Thai auch Malaiisch lernen darf.


Abb.: Feldmarschall  Praphas Charusathien - ประภาส จารุเสถียร
[Bildquelle: th.Wikipedia. -- Fair use]

"Feldmarschall Praphas Charusathien (andere Umschrift: Praphat Charusathiara; Thai: ประภาส จารุเสถียร; * 25. November 1912 in der Provinz Udon Thani; † 18. August 1997 in Bangkok) war ein thailändischer Feldmarschall und langjähriger Innenminister unter verschiedenen Militärregierungen.

Er begann seine militärische Ausbildung 1933 an der Königlichen Militärakademie Chulachomklao (โรงเรียนนายร้อยพระจุลจอมเกล้า) in Bangkok, bald nach dem Ende der absoluten Monarchie in Siam. Praphas wurde Infanterieoffizier und wurde vom späteren Feldmarschall Sarit Thanarat gefördert. Er erreichte schnell höhere Ränge und diente seit 1957 unter dem Militärdiktator Sarit über dessen Tod (1963) hinaus bis ins Jahr 1973 als Innenminister. Nur während eines Gegencoups verlor er 1971–1972 kurzzeitig seine Stellung.

Zwischen 1963 und 1973 war Praphas zudem Oberkommandeur der Infanterie der thailändischen Armee. Während dieser Zeit war er der starke Mann, der während des Vietnamkriegs im Hintergrund der Regierung Thanom Kittikachorn (ถนอม กิตติขจร) die Fäden zog und für dunkle Finanz-Transaktionen und politische Intrigen bekannt war.

Praphas wurde 1973 durch General Krit Sivara (กฤษณ์ สีวะรา) ersetzt, was einen Bedeutungsverlust signalisierte. Immerhin war er weiterhin stellvertretender Premierminister und als solcher auch zuständig für die Arbeit an der neuen Verfassung des Landes, die aber nur sehr langsam vorankam. Deshalb kam es immer öfter zu Protesten, die sich im Oktober 1973 zu einer gewaltsamen Auseinandersetzung zwischen Studenten und Sicherheitskräften auswuchsen. Die vielen Toten unter den Zivilisten riefen den König Bhumibol Adulyadej auf den Plan, woraufhin Praphas und Thanom ins Exil gingen.

Praphas kehrte nach dem erneuten Staatsstreich vom Oktober 1976 im Januar 1977 nach Thailand zurück, doch konnte er keinen politischen Einfluss mehr ausüben.

Praphas Charusathien starb am 18. August 1997 in Bangkok.

Literatur
  • Michael Leifer: Dictionary of the modern politics of South-East Asia. London: Routledge 1996. Artikel: Praphas Charusathien. ISBN 0-415-13821-3."

[Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krit_Srivara. -- Zugriff am 2011-11-07]

1961-07-19

Außenminister Thanat Khoman (ถนัด คอมันตร์, 1914 - ) beklagt sich in einer Rede darüber, dass die Erfolge der Kommunisten wesentlich erleichtert werden durch das offenkundige mangelnde Interesse des Westens und der Nichtbereitschaft des Westens, direkte Verantwortung zu übernehmen. Deshalb solle Thailand weniger auf den Westen schauen, sondern auf die eigenen Mittel in Zusammenarbeit mit den asiatischen Nachbarn.

1961-07-20

Die Constituent Assembly beschließt nach ausführlicher Debatte, dass der Name Thailand statt Siam beibehalten werden soll. Befürworter von "Thailand" sagen dies fördere den Patriotismus, Befürworter von Siam sagen, dass "Siam" ethnisch neutraler und damit umfassender sei.

1961-07-31

Thailand, die Malayische Federation und die Philippinen gründen in Bangkok die Association of Southeast Asia (ASA). Dies ist eine Vorläuferorganisation zu ASEAN. Eines der ersten Projekte ist der ASA-Express-Zug zwischen Bangkok und Kuala Lumpur.

1961-08 - 1962-01

Pocken an der birmanischen Grenze in der Provinz Chiang Rai (เชียงราย): 33 Erkrankungen, 5 Tote.

1961-08-13

Beginn des Baus der Berliner Mauer durch die DDR zwischen dem russisch besetzten Ostberlin und den Westsektoren. Die Spannungen zwischen dem kommunistischen Ostblock und den westlichen Mächten verschärfen sich sehr.


Abb.: Bau der Beerliner Mauer durch die DDR, 1961-08
[Bildquelle: Helmut J. Wolf / Bundesarchiv, Bild 173-1321 / CC-BY-SA / Wikipedia]

1961-08-19

Thailand und die Malayische Federation intervenieren bei der UNO wegen Tibet.

1961-08-22

Auf seiner Reis-Versuchsfarm (4.000 m²) auf dem Boden des Chitralada-Palastes (พระตำหนักจิตรลดารโหฐาน) verwendet der König in Thailand entwickelte landwirtschaftliche Maschinen, u. a. den Iron Buffalo-Traktor (ควายเหล็ก) und Bewässerungspumpen, die MR Debbrith Devakul (หม่อมราชวงศ์ เทพฤทธิ์ เทวกุล, geb. 1914 - 1984) entwickelt hat. 1988 werden hier 40 verschiedene Reissorten angebaut.  Der König züchtet auch Lack-produzierende Insekten, die er den Bauern schenken will.


Abb.: Iron Buffalo - ควายเหล็ก, Provinz Uttaradit (อุตรดิตถ์)
[Bildquelle:
Tevaprapas Makklay / Wikimedia. -- Creative Commons Lizenz (Namensnennung, share alike)]

1961-08-23

Eröffnung des Department for Export Promotion.

1961-08-24

Die Constituent Assembly gewährt dem König zusätzliche exekutive, legislative und judikative Rechte. Der König wird auch zum Commander-in-Chief des Militärs und zum Upholder of the Buddhist Religion ernannt. Das Thronfolgerecht, das Rama VI als unveränderlich erklärt hat, wird modifiziert, um künftige Revisionen zu erleichtern. Im Dezember wird auch das Recht des Königs zu Begnadigungen, Vorsitz bei Friedensverhandlungen und bei der Auswahl von Staatsbeamten ausgeweitet.

1961-08-24 10:49

Grundsteinlegung zum Bhubing Palace (พระตำหนักภูพิงคราชนิเวศน์) in Chiang Mai (เชียงใหม่)


Abb.: Lage des Bhubing Palace (พระตำหนักภูพิงคราชนิเวศน์), Chiang Mai (เชียงใหม่
)
[Bildquelle: ©Google earth. -- Zugriff am 2012-04-06]


Abb.: Bhubing Palace (พระตำหนักภูพิงคราชนิเวศน์), 2009
[Bildquelle: Alpha. -- http://www.flickr.com/photos/avlxyz/3469784297/. -- Zugriff am 2012-04-06. -- Creative Commons Lizenz (Namensnennung, share alike)]

"Bhubing Palace (Thai: พระตำหนักภูพิงคราชนิเวศน์; also spelled Phuping or Phuphing) is a Royal Residence located Doi Buak Ha, Muang District, Chiang Mai Province (เชียงใหม่), Thailand. It was built in 1961 to accommodate the royal family during state visits to the north of the country. There is also a guesthouse for receiving foreign dignitaries. It is built in the mountains overlooking Chiang Mai, to take advantage of the cool mountain air. The rose gardens are particularly famous (Suan Suwaree), and many flowers are grown here that could not otherwise be grown in Thailand.

Phra Tamnak Bhubing Rajanives was built in central Thai architectural style called “Reun Mu” (เรือนหมู่, Group of Houses). The building sits on stilts. The upper floor is the royal residential area while the ground floor houses the royal entourage. The building master plan was designed by Prince Samaichalerm Kridagara (หม่อมเจ้าสมัยเฉลิม กฤดากร) while the building was designed by Mom Rachawongse Mitrarun Kasemsri (หม่อมราชวงศ์มิตรารุณ เกษมศรี). The construction of the Palace was undertaken by the Crown Property Bureau, under the supervision of Prince Samaichalerm Kridagara, assisted by Mom Rachawongse Mitrarun Kasemsri and Mr.Pradit Yuwapukka. General Luang Kampanath Saenyakorn (พลเอกหลวงกัมปนาทแสนยากร), the Privy Councilor was assigned to lay foundation stones on 24 August 1961 at 10:49 hrs.

The Construction took 5 months to complete. The first royal visitors to stay at the Palace were King Frederick IX and Queen Ingrid of Denmark on their royal visit to Thailand in January 1962

The palace is open to the public, except when the royal family is in residence (usually January to March)."

[Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhubing_Palace. -- Zugriff am 2012-04-06]

1961-08-31

Neues Namensrecht: Namen, die gleich oder ähnlich sind wie die Namen von König und Königin, sind verboten. Zunamen dürfen höchstens 10 Silben lang sein. Namen, die die öffentliche Ordnung oder Moral stören könnten, sind verboten. Das Familienoberhaupt kann den Familiennamen beliebig anderen Thai-Bürgern geben.

1961-08-31

In Manila erhält Frau Nilawan Pintong (นิลวรรณ ปิ่นทอง, 1914 - ) den 1961 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service für "her leadership in development of constructive civic programmes that have given women a new and creative role in Thailand."


Abb.: ®Ramon Magsaysay Award
[Bildquelle: Wikipedia. -- Fair use]


Abb.: Lage von Manila
[Bildquelle: OpenStreetMap. -- Creative Commons Lizenz (Namensnennung, share alike)]

"1961 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Public Service from Thailand. Nilawan Pintong is a teacher who chose the challenge of schooling the women and youth of Thailand to become useful citizens exercising initiative in public affairs. She left the security of government service to help build a magazine that would foster a greater community consciousness among Thailand's women. From this beginning grew also a youth magazine, a news weekly and a series of radio programs—all championing a new awareness of civic needs.

From these journalistic efforts she extended the scope of her concern to creating community organizations. She stirred printers, librarians and writers to a higher conception of their professional role. She aroused women to realize that they could do something about education for the young and urgent social needs; among their achievements was a program enabling Thais in depressed areas to help themselves.

Aware that many NGOs were “homeless,” she founded the Ounakorn Center, which provides a friendly headquarters and free office services for struggling organizations of students, writers and women. And foreign visitors find there a welcome access to Thai intellectual and cultural life."

[Quelle: http://www.rmaf.org.ph/madc/collections/show/130. -- Zugriff am 2011-11-07]

1961-09-01- 1961-09-06

Belgrad (Jugoslawien): Gipfelkonferenz der Blockfreien Staaten. Teilnehmer sind u.a. Birma, ceylon, Indien, Indonesien und Kambodscha.

1961-09


Abb.: Führung der kommunistischen Partei Thailands (พรรคคอมมิวนิสต์แห่งประเทศไทย), 1961

Dritter Parteikongress der kommunistischen Partei Thailands (พรรคคอมมิวนิสต์แห่งประเทศไทย). Beschlüsse:

"So, finally, at its Third Congress, convened in September 1961, the Party tacitly decided to resolutely pursue the path of armed struggle. For the first time, the Party leadership itself went into the countryside. In the words of the CPT’s only public, official history:

[The Party] grasped the revolutionary line of encircling the cities from the countryside and better realized the important role played by the farmers in the national-democratic revolution. The party was coming into full maturity.

In retrospect, this fateful decision had far-reaching repercussions for the Party itself in ways that were probably not fully anticipated or recognized at the time. Among the more salient of them were the following:

  1. Ruralization: It would transform the CPT from an urban party into a rural and even jungle one in terms of its sociopolitical locus and environment. Meanwhile, urbanization and capitalist economic development were proceeding apace in Thai society at large.
  2. Peasantization and minority ethnicization: It would shift the mass base of the CPT and consequently the class composition of its membership from Chinese workers and petty bourgeoisie plus a number of Thai intellectuals to Thai peasants and ethnic minority hill tribes. Meanwhile, in Thai society at large, rural peasant communities were undergoing clearer class differentiation. Landless or impoverished peasants were migrating to the cities in droves while students, professionals, and the middle class in general were rapidly expanding in both number and kind.
  3. Militarization·. It would change the CPT from a civilian albeit militant political party to a clandestine, underground guerrilla organization in terms of organizational form and culture. In other words, the Party would gradually lose its former character of a mass political organization and assume a new militarized one. Meanwhile, wars, weapons, military mentality, and a culture of violence were spreading like wildfire in Thailand and Indochina.
  4. Re-sinicization: At its founding in 1942, the CPT was an overwhelmingly ethnic Chinese party. However, by the end of the post-war decade, with the recruitment of a significant number of bright, young, energetic, capable, and articulate Thai students and intellectuals to its ranks, it managed ethnically and culturally to Thaify itself to a certain extent. The decision of the Third Party Congress to follow Mao’s theory of armed struggle would strongly and irresistibly reorient it toward the Red East or China in terms of ideology, theory, and political culture as evident in the early revolutionary songs produced and broadcast by the Voice of the People of Thailand, which were completely under the intoxicating influence of the Chinese Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Meanwhile, the Thai state and society were also undergoing profound and extensive Americanization.
  5. Localization: The pursuing of guerrilla warfare in various scattered rural areas around the country would fragment the CPT and turn it from a once nationally unified and substantially uniform party into one with internally different and regionally varying cultures and styles under the diverse influence of neighboring fraternal Communist parties and states. Thus, the Thai Communists in the North would be strongly influenced by Red China while those in the Upper Northeast would be subject to the seeping influence of Laotian Communists. The Thai comrades in the Lower Northeast would copy many practices and policies from the Khmer Rouge, whereas those in the South would apparently go native and those in the East would turn into copycat local mafia bosses. Meanwhile, the Thai economy and society were being increasingly integrated at the national level and linked more closely with the global economy."

[Quelle: Kasian Tejapira [เกษียร เตชะพีระ] <1957 - >. -- In: Traveling nation-makers : transnational flows and movements in the making of modern Southeast Asia / ed. by Caroline S. Hau [1969 - ] and Kasian Tejapira [เกษียร เตชะพีระ, 1957 - ]. -- Singapore : NUS, 2011. -- 310 S. : Ill. ; 23 cm. -- (Kyoto CSEAS series on Asian studies ; 3). -- ISBN 9-789971-695477. -- S. 196f. -- Fair use]

1961-09-02

Princess Consort Laksamilawan (พระนางเธอลักษมีลาวัณ, 1891 - 1961), Gattin von Rama VI.,  wird ermordet im Garten ihres Palastes aufgefunden. Der Täter ist der Gärtner.


Abb.: Princess Consort Laksamilawan - พระนางเธอลักษมีลาวัณ
[Bildquelle: th.Wikipedia. -- Public domain]

1961-09-04

Foreign Assistance Act: trennt die militärische und die nichtmilitärische Hilfe der USA.  Schaffung der United States Agency for International Development (USAID) 1961-11-03

1961-09-06

Der US-amerikanische Folk- und Rockmusiker und Lyriker Bob Dylan (1941 - ) beginnt seine Karriere in New York. Dylan gilt als einer der einflussreichsten Musiker des 20. Jahrhunderts.

Künstlerlink auf Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/74ASZWbe4lXaubB36ztrGX

Abb.: Joan Baez und Bob Dylan auf dem Civil Rights March nach Washington, D.C., 1963-08-28
[Bildquelle: U.S. Information Agency. Press and Publications Service / Wikimedia. -- Public domain]


Abb.: Bob-Dylan-Nachahmer, Bangkok, 2007
[Bildquelle: Mikhail Esteves. -- http://www.flickr.com/photos/44124329962@N01/1807007359. -- Zugriff am 2013-10-03. -- Creative Commons Lizenz (Namensnennung, keine kommerzielle Nutzung)]

1961-09-16

Die Filmaufnahmen in Thailand für den Film "The ugly American" sind beendet. Es spielen u.a. Marlon Brando (1924 - 2204) und MR Kukrit Pramoj (คึกฤทธิ์ ปราโมช, 1911 - 1995).


Abb.: Filmplakat
[Bildquelle: Wikipedia. -- Fair use]

"The Ugly American is the title of a 1958 political novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer. The novel became a bestseller, was influential at the time, and is still in print. The book is a quasi-roman à clef; that is, it presents, in a fictionalized guise, the experience of Americans in Southeast Asia (Vietnam) and allegedly portrays several real people who are represented by pseudonyms.

The novel, taking place in a fictional nation called Sarkhan (an imaginary country in Southeast Asia that somewhat resembles Burma or Thailand, but which is meant to allude to Vietnam) as its setting and includes several real people, most of whose names have been changed. The book describes the United State's losing struggle against Communism—what was later to be called the battle for hearts and minds in Southeast Asia, because of innate arrogance and the failure to understand the local culture. The title is actually a double entendre, referring both to the physically unattractive hero, Homer Atkins, in contrast with the ugly behavior of the American government employees.

In the novel, a Burmese journalist says "For some reason, the [American] people I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They're loud and ostentatious."

The "ugly American" of the book title fundamentally refers to the plain-looking engineer Atkins, who lives with the local people, who comes to understand their needs, and who offers genuinely useful assistance with small-scale projects such as the development of a simple bicycle-powered water pump. It is argued in the book that the Communists are successful because they practice tactics similar to those of Atkins.

According to an article published in Newsweek in May 1959, the "real" "Ugly American" was identified as an International Cooperative Agency technician named Otto Hunerwadel, who, with his wife Helen, served in Burma from 1949 until his death in 1952. They lived in the villages, where they taught farming techniques and helped start home canning industries.[1]

Another of the book's heroes, Colonel Hillandale, appears to have been modeled on the real-life U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Edward Lansdale, an expert in counter-guerrilla operations.

After the book had gained wide readership, the term "Ugly American" came to be used to refer to the "loud and ostentatious" type of visitor in another country, rather than the "plain looking folks, who are not afraid to 'get their hands dirty' like Homer Atkins" to whom the book itself referred.

 1963 film

The story of this novel was made into a film in 1963 starring Marlon Brando as Ambassador Harrison Carter MacWhite. Its screenplay was written by Stewart Stern, and the film was produced and directed by George Englund. The film was shot mainly in Hollywood, with Thailand serving as the inspiration for the background sceneries. Parts of the film were also shot on locations in Bangkok, Thailand, including at Chulalongkorn University, one of the leading institutes of higher learning of the country.

The late Kukrit Pramoj, a Thai politician and scholar, was hired as a cultural expert/advisor to the film and later played the role of Sarkhan's Prime Minister "Kwen Sai". Later on, in 1975, he really did become the 13th Prime Minister of Thailand. Probably because of this, the word "Sarkhan" (สารขัณฑ์) has entered the Thai language as a nickname of Thailand itself, often with a slight self-depreciating or mocking tone.

 Notes
  1. Clifford, Robert L.; Hunerwadel, Helen B. (1996) [1993]. "Chapter 1: Burma Beginnings and Point Four". In Arndt, Richard T.; David Lee, Rubin. The Fulbright Difference. Fulbright Association series. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. pp. 20–24. ISBN 1560000856. Retrieved 18 July 2011."
[Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ugly_American. -- Zugriff am 2011-11-07]

1961-09-17

MR Thanadsri Svasti beginnt mit seiner Gastronomiekolumne in der Zeitung Siam Rath. Später kommen Radios- und TV-Sendungen dazu. Er gilt als "Godfather of gastronomy".

1961-09-24

Weil Ministerpräsident Sarit Kambodscha beschuldigt hat, eine geheime Base für Kommunisten zu sein, bricht Kambodscha die diplomatischen Beziehungen zu Thailand ab. Thailand schließt seine Grenzen nach Kambodscha.

1961-10 - 1962-05

Der österreichische Völkerkundler Hans Manndorff (1928 - ) macht in Nordthailand eine Feldforschung "The socio-economic survey of selected hill tribes in Norther Thailand". Das Projekt geschieht im Auftrag der UNO und wird vom Public Welfare Departement organisert. Finanziert wird es u.a. von der vom CIA finazierten Asia Foundation. Das Projekt soll Grundlagen für die Tätigkeiten entsprechender staatlicher Institutionen bieten.

Die Forschung besteht in ausführlichen Studien zu 18 Dörfern und Kurzuntersuchungen von 20 - 30 weiteren Dörfern. Die Bergvölker sind:

Manndorff beschreibt das Vorgehen so:

"The field-survey personnel were grouped into five teams, each consisting of one official from the Department of Public Welfare, one official from the Ministry of Agriculture, and an associate from the Border Patrol Police, who gave medical assistance and was dressed in civilian clothes. The survey teams were stationed in sample villages, usually for a period of from one

to three months, and were constantly advised and guided by the social anthropologist. Great pains were taken in the beginning to establish a friendly relationship with the tribesmen and to gather information in a casual way through "participant observation." More systematic interviews were started only after a good amount of mutual confidence and amicability had been developed."

[Zitiert in: Kwanchewan Buadeng: The rise and fall of the Tribal Research Institute (TRI) : "hill tribe" policy and studies in Thailand. -- In: Southeast Asian Studies. -- Vol. 44, no. 3 (2006-12). -- S. 359f.]

1961-10

Das Kabinett erklärt, dass Geburtenkontrolle eine Privatangelegenheit ist und verbietet öffentliche Propaganda für Geburtenkontrolle.

1961-10-05

Memorandum From the Under Secretary of State (Chester Bliss Bowles, 1901 - 1986) to the Secretary of State

"The Situation in Southeast Asia

Averell Harriman [1891 - 1986] is striving with great patience and skill to negotiate a settlement for “neutral and independent Laos.”

Yet even if an agreement is reached on this difficult question, our position throughout Southeast Asia may grow steadily more precarious with a deteriorating military situation in Viet-Nam and a highly volatile political position in Thailand.

We should, therefore, look beyond whatever agreements may be achieved in Geneva to the broader implications of the rapidly deteriorating Southeast Asia power balance.

A direct military response to increased Communist pressure has the supreme disadvantage of involving our prestige and power in a remote area under the most adverse circumstances. There is no reason to assume that the Communists would limit their efforts to what we could contain with whatever conventional forces could be spared from other areas.

Therefore, we need an alternative political approach which may save us from having to choose between diplomatic humiliation or a major military operation,…

Let us briefly consider the existing situation.

In Viet-Nam the government position is steadily weakening. An effective political base appears to be lacking and the Communists are in a position rapidly to increase their military pressure with every prospect for success.

As the situation in Viet-Nam deteriorates, we face the probability of a sharp reorientation of Thai policy and the strong possibility of a sudden switch in governments.

Such a development is strictly in the Thai tradition. For centuries successive generations of Thais have prided themselves on their ability to assure their security by skilled negotiation. Each powerful new Chinese dynasty in its turn has brought pressure to bear on Thailand, and on each occasion the Thais have managed to preserve their sovereignty by paying some form of political tribute.

In the last part of the 19th Century and the early part of this one, the Thais played the French against the British. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the Thai response was promptly to declare war on the United States the following day.

In view of the power position of their Chinese neighbor, the weakness of SEATO, and the deteriorating situation in Vietnam, it would be sheer folly to assume that history will not repeat itself.

Under present circumstances an upset in Thailand would be viewed as a major American defeat with grave implications both overseas and at home for our position in Germany and elsewhere.

In this complex situation I believe we should urgently consider what may be the only feasible political alternative: to expand the concept of a “neutral and independent Laos” to a proposal for an independent belt in Southeast Asia to include Laos, Burma, Thailand, South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaya. Such an arrangement might ultimately be guaranteed by the U.S.S.R., Communist China, India, Japan, and the SEATO powers minus Thailand.

It may already be too late in the day to achieve agreement on a proposal of this magnitude and complexity. In view of the situation in Vietnam, the Vietminh and the Chinese Communists may now feel themselves strong enough to reject any agreement, de jure or de facto, which does not leave Laos and Viet-Nam and ultimately Thailand, Cambodia, and Malaya, ripe for takeover.

However, it is not inconceivable that the Soviet Union may be prepared to accept and to impose on its allies a neutral Southeast Asian belt with a cease fire in Vietnam. In the absence of a stabilizing development of this kind, a massive Chinese intrusion into this area is likely sooner or later with the strong possibility of a major war into which the Soviet Union might be drawn.

It will be argued persuasively that the Communists would simply use such an arrangement as a screen behind which to maneuver a takeover of the whole area from within. No one can deny this possibility.

However, if the worst occurs and the Communists should proceed with their infiltration program in the face of an agreement for a neutral area, the responsibility would be squarely on their shoulders. We could then take whatever steps were indicated with the reasonable prospect not only of United Nations, but, even more important, of Indian and Japanese support.

Moreover, there is some comfort in the fact that Burma for the last fifteen years, with a weak government, a wobbly economy, and a thousand miles of border with Communist China has maintained an extraordinary degree of independence while refusing to align herself with either side.

The approach might be along the following lines:

1. Averell Harriman is already in touch with Pushkin at Geneva on matters implicating Vietnam. He has already broached to Pushkin the question of U.S.S.R. taking responsibility for preventing North Viet-Nam infiltration through Laos into South Vietnam.

These preliminary probes should be pursued. If they seem productive, Ambassador Harriman could be authorized, through fairly general instructions, to explore the possibility with Pushkin of reaching an over-all negotiated settlement involving the entire Southeast Asian area.

It has been suggested that the divided situation in Viet-Nam might be compared in general terms to that in Germany. We and the Soviets recognize that unification under present circumstances is not feasible. Our joint objective, therefore, should be to eliminate the fighting which could quickly spread and involve not only the United States and Viet-Nam but ultimately the U.S.S.R. and Peking.

Under the circumstances our common interest may best be served by looking beyond not only Laos but Viet-Nam and to the possibility of a neutral and independent Southeast Asia.

An alternative may be for you to open the subject in its broad implications in your next discussion with Gromyko [Andrei Andrejewitsch Gromyko - Андрэй Андрэевіч Грамыка, 1909 - 1989, UdSSR-Außenminister].

2. As soon as our negotiations or our planning have advanced to the appropriate stage, we should begin preliminary consultation with interested governments. This will not be easy. A United States policy for an independent and neutral Southeast Asia launched without careful preparation would deeply disturb our relations with Vietnam, the Philippines, and Taiwan (although most Thais might secretly welcome it, their public protests would be vigorous).

Yet in view of the ugly nature of the alternatives, I believe that this risk should be run, since the likely course of events under present circumstances may lead them and us into a setback with the gravest world-wide implications. If this setback should coincide with an intensification of the Berlin crisis, the impact on American public opinion and on our relations with the world would be grave indeed.

3. There is a very real possibility that the situation will deteriorate too fast to permit these negotiations to be brought to a conclusion. If this occurs, a political contingency plan should be available which would enable us to move publicly for an independent neutral belt in Southeast Asia. The contingency planning should also study the ways in which the United Nations might be quickly involved if the situation begins to come apart precipitately.

I believe that time is of the essence. I suggest, therefore, that we meet with George Ball [1909 - 1994, Under Secretary for Economic Affairs], Averell Harriman, and Alexis Johnson [1908 - 1997, Deputy Under Secretary for Political Affairs] as soon as possible to discuss the implications of this approach."

[Quelle: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v01/d145. -- Zugriff am 2016-09-09]

1961-10-08

In Laos einigen sich die drei Bürgerkriegsparteien auf Prinz Souvanna Phouma (1901 - 1984) als Ministerpräsidenten.


Abb.: Prinz Souvanna Phouma
[Bildquelle: Wikipedia. -- Public domain]

1961-10-09

Die US Joint Chiefs of Staff:

"As stated in your [Gilpatric's] memorandum, the proposed concept set forth must be analyzed in the total context of the defense of Southeast Asia. Any concept which deals with the defense of Southeast Asia that does not include all or a substantial portion of Laos is, from a military standpoint, unsound. To concede the majority of northern and central Laos would leave three-quarters of the border of Thailand exposed and thus invite an expansion of communist military action. To concede southern Laos would open the flanks of both Thailand and South Vietnam as well as expose Cambodia. Any attempt to combat insurgency in South Vietnam, while holding areas in Laos essential to the defense of Thailand and South Vietnam and, at the same time, putting troops in Thailand, would require an effort on the part of the United States alone on the order of magnitude of at least three divisions plus supporting units. This would require an additional two divisions from the United States.

What is needed is not the spreading out of our forces throughout Southeast Asia, but rather a concentrated effort in Laos where a firm stand can be taken saving all or substantially all of Laos which would, at the same time, protect Thailand and protect the borders of South Vietnam."

[Quelel: The Pentagon Papers. -- https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon2/pent2.htm. -- Zugriff am 2013-12-04]

1961-11-03 - 1971-12-31

Der Birmane Sithu U Thant (သန့်၊ ဦး, 1909 - 1974) ist Generalsekretär der Vereinten Nationen (UNO).


Abb.: Sithu U Thant (သန့်၊ ဦး) mit Familie, 1957
[Bildquelle: Wikipedia. -- Public domain]

1961-11-03

Schaffung der United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Ist zuständig für die nichtmilitärische Entwicklungshilfe der USA.


Abb.: ®Logo


Abb.: ökonomische Hilfe / USAID im Vergleich zur militärischen Hilfe der USA an Thailand 1950 - 2011 (zum konstanten Dollarwert 2011)
[Datenquelle: http://gbk.eads.usaidallnet.gov/. -- Zugriff am 2013-11-06]

1961-11-03

Paper Prepared by the Members of the Taylor Mission für Präsident J. F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963):

"Communist Strategy in Southeast Asia

At the present time, the Communists are pursuing a clear and systematic strategy in Southeast Asia. It is a strategy of extending Communist power and influence in ways which bypass U.S. nuclear strength, U.S. conventional naval, air, and ground forces, and the conventional strength of indigenous forces in the area. Their strategy is rooted in the fact that international law and practice does not yet recognize the mounting of guerrilla war across borders as aggression justifying counter-attack at the source.

The strategy is a variant on Mao's classic three-stage offensive. First, a political base for guerrilla war, subversion, and dissidence is established in each country in the area, exploiting its unique vulnerabilities via trained local or introduced cadres. Second, guerrilla war is begun. Third, a maximum effort is made to translate the Communist position achieved on the ground, plus the weakness and cross-purposes in the non-Communist camp, to induce a neutralist interim solution, blocking the U.S. military presence, as with the proposed renunciation by Laos of SEATO protection. Complete Communist take-over, by whatever means may appear feasible, is the evident ultimate objective.

Mao's third stage-overt conventional warfare, with guerrillas in an ancillary role-is apparently now judged too dangerous to pursue, on the grounds that it is likely to trigger U.S. (or SEATO) intervention.

This modified Mao strategy is actually underway in Laos and South Vietnam. Cambodia, with Sihanouk's anticipatory collaboration, has already adjusted to the likelihood (in his view) that the Communist strategy will succeed. The strategy is clearly foreshadowed in Thailand. The initial bases for such a program have been laid in Malaya, Indonesia, and Burma; but they will probably not be exploited to the full until the South Viet-Nam struggle is favorably resolved. The Communists undoubtedly believe-and with good reason-that if the strategy succeeds in Laos and South Viet-Nam the enterprise will rapidly gather momentum throughout Southeast Asia.

This is not the only possible Communist strategy in Southeast Asia. An overt use of Viet-Minh and ChiCom divisions is conceivable, although the terrain and logistical structure of Southeast Asia sets a relatively low limit on the scale of conventional engagement in that theater. And it is in the range of possible contingencies that such a direct attack might be backed by some Soviet nuclear power. But current strategy is as described.

[...]

It is evident that morale in Viet-Nam will rapidly crumble-and in Southeast Asia only slightly less quickly-if the sequence of expectations set in motion by Vice President Johnson's visit and climaxed by General Taylor's mission are not soon followed by a hard U.S. commitment to the ground in Vietnam."

[Quelle: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v01/d210. -- Zugriff am 2016-08-31]

1961-11-08

Auf der Don Muang Royal Thai Air Force Base in Bangkok treffen vier zweistrahlige Jagdflugzeuge McDonnell F-101 Voodoo ein des in Japan stationierten US Air Force 45th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron.  Sie führen Spionageflüge  über Laos und Südvietnam aus. Diese Operation "Able Mable" dauert bis 1962-07. Die Besatzung und Flugzeuge sind unter Temporary Duty (TDY).

 
Abb.: ®Patch
[Bildquelle: Wikipedia. -- Public domain]


Abb.: Erste Able Mable Task Force vor RFC-101 "Vodoo"
[Bildquelle: USAF. -- Public domain]


Abb.: "U.S. Air Force technicians prepare a McDonald RF-101 Voodoo 1960's -- On the flight line, U.S. Air Force technicians prepare a McDonald RF-101 Voodoo for a photo reconnaissance mission. Overhead, a Fairchild C-123 Provider takes off on another assault airlift sortie, providing an air bridge to an outpost in South Vietnam. High above, a Cessna O-1E "Bird Dog" returns after pointing out Viet Cong targets to pilots of strike aircraft.", 1967-01-06
[Bildquelle: USAF / Wikimedia. -- Public domain]

1961-11-08

Memorandum von Verteidigungsminister Robert McNamara (1916 - 2009) an Präsident J. F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963):

"The Joint Chiefs, Mr. [Roswell] Gilpatric [1906 - 1996, Deputy Secretary of Defense], and I have reached the following conclusions:

1. The fall of South Viet-Nam to Communism would lead to the fairly rapid extension of Communist control, or complete accommodation to Communism, in the rest of mainland Southeast Asia and in Indonesia. The strategic implications worldwide, particularly in the Orient, would be extremely serious."

[Quelle: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v01/d227. -- Zugriff am 2016-08-31]

1961-11-11

Thailand wird Mitglied der International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

1961-11-26 - 1961-11-29

Besuch des japanischen Premierministers Hayato Ikeda (池田 勇人, 1899 - 1965)  in Thailand. Japan sagt zu seine Schulden aus dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (570 Mio. Baht) an Thailand zurückzuzahlen.


Abb.: Denkmal für Hayato Ikeda (池田 勇人)
[Bildquelle: Bakkai / ja.Wikipedia. -- GNU FDLicense]

1961-11-29  - 1965-04-28

John A. McCone (1902 - 1991) Ist Direktor des CIA.


Abb.: John A. McCone
[Bildquelle: CIA / Wikipedia. -- Public domain]

1961-12

Die Polizei veranstaltet in Nordostthailand Hexenjagden nach angeblichen Kommunisten. Sarit ordnet an, Kommunistenführer einfach zu erschießen. Es werden über 100 angebliche Kommunisten festgenommen. Der Abgeordnete von Sakon Nakhon (สกลนคร), der der Regierungspartei angehört, wird als angeblicher Kommunistenführer hingerichtet.


Abb.: Lage von Sakon Nakhon (สกลนคร)
[Bildquelle: CIA. -- Public domain]

1961-12-02

Eröffnung des UNESCO Regional Bureau for Education in Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok.

1961-12-06

Ministerpräsident Sarit lehnt den Vorschlag der Sowjetunion für Handelsvertrag ab, besonders lehnt er einen Kulturaustausch mit der Sowjetunion ab.

1961-12-08 - 1961-12-11

Staatsbesuch des Präsidenten von Argentinien, Arturo Frondizi Ercoli (1908 - 1955) mit Gattin Elena Faggionato.


Abb.: Familie Frondizi, 1960
[Bildquelle: Wikimedia. -- Public domain]

1961-12-11 - 1961-12-16

2. Southeast Asian Peninsular (SEAP) Games in Rangoon (ရန်ကုန်, Burma). Thailand nimmt mit 149 Sportlern und 41 Funktionären teil. Thailand gewinnt 21 mal Gold, 18 mal Silber, 22 mal Bronze.

1961-12-12

Die USA beginnt offiziell, in Vietnam mit eigenen Streitkräften (32 Pisaseki H-21 Helikopter und 400 Militärs) einzugreifen. Damit beginnt der eigentliche Vietnamkrieg.


Abb.: Pisaseki H-21 Shawnee über Vietnam, o. J.
[Bildquelle: Wikipedia. -- Public domain]

1961-12-13

Unterschrift des Abkommens mit der Bundesrepublik Deutschland  über den gegenseitigen Schutz von Investitionen, wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit, technische und finanzielle Unterstützung sowie Handel. Ratifiziert 1965-04-10.

1961-12-18

Die Indochinakonferenz in Genf einigt sich über den Entwurf einer Neutralitätserklärung für Laos. Die Vertreter der drei Bürgerkriegspartei kommen aber zu keiner Einigung.

1961-12-22

Es wird angekündigt, dass die Straßenbahnen Bangkoks schrittweise eingestellt werden.


Abb.: Einer der ersten Straßenbahnwagen Bangkoks, 1892, jetzt im Museum
[Bildquelle: Ian Fuller. -- http://www.flickr.com/photos/ianfuller/2400548144/. -- Creative Commons Lizenz (Namensnennung, keine kommerzielle Nutzung)]

1961-12-22

Erster Kampf-Einsatz von US-Helikoptern in Südvietnam: Dreißig Piasecki H-21 Workhorse/Shawnee Hubschrauber der US-Armee fliegen einen Luftlande-Sturmangriff mit unbekanntem Erfolg.


Abb.: Piasecki H-21 Workhorse/Shawnee über Vietnam
[Bildquelle: DoD / Wikimedia. -- Public domain]

1961-12-26

Handelsabkommen mit Burma (Meistbegünstigungsklausel).

1961-12-28

Eröffnung von Narayana Phand (นารายณ์ภัณฑ์) in Bangkok. Es ist das größte Verkaufshaus für Kunsthandwerk in Thailand. Baukosten: 355.000 Baht.

1961-12-31

Die Nachfrage nach Teakholz auf dem Weltmarkt steigt.


Verwendete Ressourcen

ausführlich: http://www.payer.de/thailandchronik/ressourcen.htm


Zu Chronik 1962