"The nation," cabled TIME'S censor-shy Bangkok correspondent last week, "was profoundly shocked by the doctor's verdict, proving the untrustworthiness of official statements regarding a most important matter."
The important matter was the mysterious death-by-gunshot of Siam's young King Ananda (TIME, June 17). Siamese officialdom has insisted that the death was purely accidental. Police Chief Phra Ram Indra even shot a pig before the whole Parliament to prove that the absence of powder burns on Ananda's face meant nothing.
But the pig was sacrificed in vain, and rumors of assassination were still whispered in Bangkok's dance halls, where the girls did their turns in deepest mourning. With heavy innuendo a Chinese-language newspaper suggested that Dictator Premier Pridhi had found Ananda's love for the U.S. was as dangerous as the U.S. guns Ananda collected. "Ananda fell victim of an American bullet because he played too much and too carelessly with an American gun," it said.
The editor of Bangkok's Prajatipatai (Democrat) was swiftly arrested for suggesting the immediate resignation of Pridhi. An investigation, he wrote, should be made under a government not responsible for what happened. A third editor rose to new heights of personal journalism by offering his own head for conclusive shooting tests.
To still the rumors, Siam's officials appointed a committee of 19 doctors (including two Britons, one American and one Indian) to exhume and examine the royal body. Last week the doctors reported their 18-to-1 verdict: death by assassination.
Meanwhile, Ananda's uneasy successor, his younger brother Phumiphon, prepared to leave Siam to "finish his studies" in Switzerland. Ananda had been about to leave when he was shot.