THAILAND'S MOMENT OF TRUTH - ZENJOURNALIST
THAILAND'S MOMENT OF TRUTH - ZENJOURNALIST
THAILAND'S MOMENT OF TRUTH - ZENJOURNALIST
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
The possibility that Bhumibol shot his brother - probably by accident - was regarded as the most likely<br />
scenario by many senior Thai officials and foreign diplomats at the time. The common view was that the<br />
truth had then been suppressed to prevent Thailand sinking deeper into turmoil. Stevenson writes that<br />
Mountbatten sent an ill-informed letter to King George VI that said “King Bhumibol shot his brother<br />
to obtain the crown”; as a result, the British king refused to receive Bhumibol, declaring “Buckingham<br />
Palace does not host murderers.” It is also widely reported that during the early years of Rama IX’s reign,<br />
on several occasions the generals locked in a power struggle with the throne used the threat of publicly<br />
revealing evidence - either real or fabricated - that the king had killed his brother, in an effort to force<br />
Bhumibol to comply with their wishes. But if there was ever any genuine evidence that Bhumibol was<br />
responsible, it has never emerged.<br />
In August 1946, amid widespread concerns that Bhumibol's life was also in danger, the young king<br />
left Thailand to return to Lausanne. He was away from his homeland for almost four years. During<br />
his absence, the generals running the country tried to strip the throne of even more of its influence and<br />
establish themselves as Thailand's unquestioned rulers, while a coterie of princes fought to preserve the<br />
powers of the palace. Bhumibol went back to his studies in Switzerland.<br />
The axle around which this whole cosmic wheel spun, meanwhile, was ensconced in Lausanne,<br />
Switzerland, maybe pondering his schizophrenic life. One persona was a European university<br />
student caught up in the postwar reconstruction zeitgeist. The other, less familiar identity was the<br />
sacral dhammaraja king of Thailand, turgid, conservative, confined by an entourage of elderly<br />
men who emphasized only the old...<br />
His personalized studies left him much free time to travel, play his music, and socialize. He<br />
frequently drove himself to Paris to go shopping and pass nights in smoky jazz clubs. He helped<br />
his car-racing uncle Prince Birabongs in the pits at the Grand Prix des Nations in Geneva, and<br />
in August 1948, during a motor tour of northern Europe, he watched Birabongs take first place<br />
at Zandvoort. Bhumibol put even more time into his photography and music, fancying a second<br />
career as a jazzman. [Handley, The King Never Smiles]<br />
Rama IX was also the most eligible Thai bachelor in the world. He was encouraged to meet several blueblooded<br />
young Thai women, and one of them charmed him above all others - Sirikit Kitiyakatra, daughter<br />
of Prince Nakkhat, Thai ambassador to Paris. In an interview for the 1980 BBC documentary Soul of a<br />
Nation, Sirikit recalled their first meeting in Paris:<br />
It was hate at first sight... because he said he would arrive at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. He arrived<br />
at 7 o'clock, kept me standing there, practicing curtsey, and curtsey.<br />
But in October 1948, Bhumibol crashed his car into the back of a truck outside Lausanne. Sirikit helped<br />
care for him during his recovery in Switzerland. She told the BBC:<br />
It was love... I didn't know that he loved me, because at that time I was only 15 years old and<br />
planned to be a concert pianist. He was gravely ill in the hospital... He produced my picture out