Thailand: Holder of the Kingdom, Strength of the Land

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standing on the world's best-dressed-women list. One recent visit required walking five miles each way to reach a remote village, where the couple presented gifts of food and medicine to the primitive, opium-growing hill people, frequent targets of Red subversion campaigns. Their tribal leaders value nothing more than the tiny silver medals distributed by the King, and increasingly these days refer to themselves, thanks to the King's and Queen's evangelism, as "the children of the Thai."

After such arduous tasks, the King repairs to his equally strenuous hobbies. Not long ago he built a 13-ft. sailboat and sailed it across the Gulf of Siam, a 16-hour crossing. He was accompanied by a small flotilla escort of the Royal Thai Navy, and a motorboat using a new design of jet propulsion that Bhumibol himself had conceived. His current project: a do-it-yourself helicopter (see MODERN LIVING). Last week, as the King and Queen were enjoying the first of the monsoon rains, breaking the most torrid weather in years, news of the discovery of a new royal white elephant reached the summer palace at Hua Hin. It was the third one found in his reign.

Jowly & Jolly. "Our strength lies in our nationalistic feeling," asserts King Bhumibol, and the men who run Thailand are well aware that their youthful King is their—and the nation's—greatest living asset. Among the most important, military and civilian, members of Thailand's ruling oligarchy:

> Thanom Kittikachorn, 54, who was Sarit's deputy and took over after him in 1963 as Premier. Field Marshal Thanom has continued Sarit's basic policies of national development, anti-Communism and friendship with the free world. But his personal style is a bit different: a quiet homebody with no taste for nightclubs, he resigned from all his private businesses when word of Sarit's indiscretions leaked out. His greatest problem, he says, is "how to safeguard and ensure the security of Thailand" against Red insurgency.

> Praphas Charusathien, 54, the jowly and jolly commander in chief of the army, Deputy Premier, Interior Minister and most visibly active and outspoken man in government. Given to bow ties and dark glasses, Praphas bridles when his extensive business dealings are mentioned. Since he controls both army and police forces, gossips whisper that Praphas (pronounced Pra-pat) could conceivably oust Thanom. But that would likely produce an ugly family quarrel: Praphas' daughter is married to Thanom's son, and in fact the parents are close friends.

>-Thanat Khoman, 52, the brilliant civilian Foreign Minister, who has represented the Thais for 20 years around the world, notably in Washington and at the U.N. Of Chinese ancestry, Thanat (pronounced Tah-not) speaks five languages, has played a key role in mediating the Malaysian-Indonesian dispute in recent weeks, ranks as anti-Communist as any statesman in Asia.

> Pote Sarasin, 59, the U.S.-educated (Wilbraham Academy) lawyer who is Minister for National Development. Briefly Premier, onetime secretary-general of SEATO, Pote, more than any man, has presided over Thailand's orderly growth in recent years. He is unabashedly pro-American—and notably popular at home.

Thailand's critics sometimes carp about the slowness with which the military are delivering on their