Thailand's Saddest Secret

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Thailand’s saddest secretThe truth about the death of King Ananda Mahidol

On the morning of June 9, 1946, the 20-year-old Ananda Mahidol, KingRama VIII of Siam, was shot through the head and killed in his bedroom inthe Barompiman Hall building in the Grand Palace complex in Bangkok.Later that day his 18-year-old brother Bhumibol Adulyadej was proclaimedKing Rama IX. Bhumibol has reigned ever since: he is now an old and frailman, confined to Siriraj Hospital on the west bank of the Chao Phraya Riverthat weaves through the capital, but he remains Thailand’s king.

Officially, the killing is described as a mystery, one of the world’s mostextraordinary unsolved crimes of the past century. In reality, it has longbeen clear who killed Ananda. The truth has been suppressed by Thailand’sestablishment, partly through use of the draconian law of lèse majesté,Article 112 of Thailand’s criminal code, which has been used to criminalizeopen and honest discussion of Thai history and politics.

Within minutes of Ananda’s death, the crime scene was deliberatelytampered with to hide the evidence of what really happened. Those whowere in the Barompiman Hall that morning have never publicly revealed thetruth of what happened, and only one of them remains alive: KingBhumibol himself. It seems likely that he will never reveal what happened,and will take his secret to the grave. The official investigation into Ananda’sdeath considered three possibilities: that he was murdered, committedsuicide, or shot himself by accident.

The investigation deliberately excluded a fourth possibility: that Anandawas accidentally shot by somebody else. This fourth possibility is the truth.Ananda Mahidol was shot and killed by his brother Bhumibol. It seems



inconceivable that the killing was premeditated. It was a terrible tragicaccident or aberration, and it has haunted Bhumibol Adulyadej ever since.

Bhumibol is a dying, decrepit old man now. It is clear he has suffered alifetime of shame and sorrow because of what happened that morning in1946. Many Thais believe the truth should remain buried, because revealingit now will only cause more pain. But 21st century Thailand is mired in anagonizing crisis because of the refusal of powerful factions among the eliteto allow open and honest debate about the country’s past, and about itsfuture. The lèse majesté law has blighted Thailand. It is time for the truthto be told, so Thailand can move forward.

Despite the destruction of evidence, and the fact that those involved liedabout what happened, it is possible to reconstruct how Ananda died. Thefirst key point is that there is no credible possibility that an unknownassassin sneaked into the Grand Palace that morning, took Ananda’sColt .45 automatic pistol from his bedside cabinet, shot him through thehead with it, and escaped, unseen by anyone. The killer can only have beensomebody in the Barompiman Hall.

In the immediate aftermath of Ananda’s death, it was widely assumed thathe had commited suicide. The large assembly of princes and politicians whogathered downstairs in the Barompiman Hall after Ananda’s death did notspend much time debating whether he had been assassinated by an intruder — as they surely would have done if there were genuine suspicions that thishad been the case — but instead fretted over how to explain Ananda’s deathto the public. Ananda’s mother Sangwan begged Pridi Banomyong, theinspirational statesman who was prime minister at the time, to declare thatthe shooting was a self-inflicted accident rather than suicide. Partly inorder to preserve royal prestige, Pridi and the government complied.

But the story that Ananda shot himself by mistake was never remotelyplausible. The Colt is a relatively heavy handgun, weighing more than akilogram when fully loaded, and to be fired it requires considerablepressure to be placed not just on the trigger but also simultaneously on asafety panel on the back of the butt. The chances of Ananda doing this byaccident, while the gun was pointed at his forehead, were extremely slim.Furthermore, the gun was found lying beside Ananda’s left hand. But hewas right handed. Also the evidence seemed to suggest that Ananda hadbeen lying flat on his back when he was shot. And he had not been wearinghis spectacles, without which his vision was appalling. It seemed barelycredible that Ananda would have been playing with his Colt .45 while lyingon his back and without his glasses.



Suicide was a slightly more credible theory, but for many of the samereasons that ruled out Ananda accidentally shooting himself, it seemeddesperately unlikely. It is almost unheard of for somebody to commitsuicide lying on their back, and the trajectory the bullet had taken throughAnanda’s skull was also very unusual for a suicide. Within hours ofAnanda’s death, royalist politicans — in particular Seni Pramoj — beganspreading rumours that Pridi Banomyong had conspired to have Anandamurdered. This allegation was entirely bogus, and no credible evidence hasever been produced to support it. But Ananda’s death was exploited by theroyalists to smear Pridi, with disastrous consequences for Thailand.

On June 13, U.S. chargé d’affaires Charles W. Yost sent a secret cable to theSecretary of State in Washington, entitled: “Death of King of Siam”. Yostpredicted:

The death of Ananda Mahidol may well be recorded as one of the unresolvedmysteries of history.

Yost recounted a conversation with Pridi, who was shocked by the rumoursand false accusations implicating him in regicide:

The Prime Minister spoke to me very frankly about the whole situation andascribed the King’s death to an accident, but it was obvious that the possibility ofsuicide was in the back of his mind. He was violently angry at the accusations offoul play levelled against himself and most bitter at the manner in which healleged that the Royal Family and the Opposition, particularly Seni Pramoj andPhra Sudhiat, had prejudiced the King and especially the Princess Mother againsthim. He repeated several times that he had been overwhelmingly busy attemptingto rehabilitate and govern the country and had not had time to have luncheonand tea with Their Majesties every day or two as had members of theOpposition… Pridi said that the King had always behaved most correctly as aconstitutional monarch and that their relations had, in spite of the prejudiceplanted in the King’s mind, been friendly and correct. He admitted franklyhowever that his relations with the Princess Mother were hopelessly bad and hefeared greatly that his relations with the new King would be poisoned in the samemanner as had his relations with King Ananda.

Yost wrote in conclusion that Pridi “still intended to endeavor to work withthe new King and his mother”. The following day, another cable from Yost,“Footnotes on the King’s Death”, discussed the various theories aboutAnanda’s death, and recounted a conversation with Foreign Minister DirekJayanama who had just had an audience with Bhumibol. It was alsoclassified “secret”:



The Foreign Minister…informed me that he an audience this morning with thenew King in which His Majesty had inquired about rumours in regard to hisbrother’s death are still being spread about. According to Direk, he replied thatthe rumours are still being circulated widely, that some claim that the King wasmurdered by the orders of the Prime Minister, some … murdered by former aide-de-camp and some that he committed suicide under political pressure. KingPhumipol thereupon informed the Foreign Minister that he considered theserumours absurd, that he knew his brother well and that he was certain that hisdeath had been accidental… What the King said to Direk does not necessarilyrepresent what he really believes, it is nevertheless interesting that he made socategorical a statement to the Foreign Minister.

Yost also reported that Seni Pramoj was explicitly attempting to smearPridi by sending emissaries to the U.S. and British embassies claiming thatthe prime minister had plotted to kill Ananda:

The Department may also be interested to know that within 48 hours after thedeath of late King two relatives of Seni, first his nephew and later his wife, cameto the Legation and stated categorically their conviction that the King had beenassassinated at the instigation of the Prime Minister. It was of course clear thatthey had been sent by Seni. I felt it necessary to state to both of them in thestrongest terms, in order to make it perfectly clear that this Legation could not bedrawn into Siamese intrigues, that I did not believe these stories and that Iconsidered the circulation at this time of fantastic rumours unsupported by ashred of evidence to be wholly inexcusable.

The cable noted that the British Ambassador, Sir Geoffrey Thompson, toldYost he had been visited by several politicians telling a similar story.Thompson had told them he accepted the official account of Ananda’sdeath and refused to discuss the matter further.

Faced with this rumourmongering, Pridi’s position became increasinglydifficult. On June 18, his government up a commission of inquiry taskedwith finding out the truth about Ananda’s death. It was chaired by the chiefjudge of the supreme court, and included three senior princes; the heads ofthe army, navy and air force; the chief judges of the criminal and appealscourts; and the speakers of the upper and lower houses of parliament. Thecommission appointed a medical sub-committee of 20 doctors: 16 Thai, twoBritish, one American and one Indian. The doctors did some genuine — ifbelated — forensic work on Rama VIII’s body. On June 21 Ananda’s corpsewas removed from the funeral urn, and the head was X-rayed. But as notedearlier, the he parameters of the panel’s work were deliberately skewed. Thedoctors were told to choose from three possibilities: was Ananda murdered,



did he commit suicide, or did he accidentally shoot himself? The fourthpossibility, that Ananda was shot accidentally by somebody else, was nevermentioned.

As the doctors were carrying out their investigations, royalists spreadrumours that Bhumibol’s life was in danger too. And in their mostaudacious attempted power grab of all, they tried to use theirscaremongering to win support from the British ambassador for a palace-sponsored coup against Pridi Banomyong and his government. Yostinformed Washington of this in a June 26 cable classified “top secret”:

A member of the Royal family a few days ago sought from the British Ministersupport for a coup d’état, claiming otherwise the Dynasty would be wiped out.Thompson categorically refused to support and warned the petitioner of probablefatal consequences of any attempt of this kind.

The report of the medical panel was completed on June 27 and can beviewed in full here. Most of the doctors ruled out a self-inflicted accidentand also considered suicide highly unlikely. They believed the evidenceshowed that somebody had shot King Ananda.

Also on June 27, a secret cable from British ambassador GeoffreyThompson noted remarks from Direk suggesting there had been adeliberate cover-up in the palace after Ananda was killed. See paragraph 4:

http://www.zenjournalist.org/2012/02/medical-committee-report-on-the-death-of-rama-viii/



Bhumibol was clearly desolated by his brother’s death. He and Sangwanalso made plans to return to Lausanne, even though the 100-day mourning



period was not complete. A secret cable from Geoffrey Thompson onAugust 17 reports that he looked sick and could hardly speak:

On August 19, a date set by royal astrologers, Sangwan and Bhumibol set offfor Lausanne in a plane provided by the British. Officially, Thailand’s newking was returning to Switzerland to complete his studies at the Universityof Lausanne. But he remained profoundly depressed, rarely attendedclasses, and never completed his degree. In late 1946 he sent word that hewould not be returning to Bangkok any time soon for the traumaticcremation ceremony for Ananda. As a British cable reported in December1946, there were widespread rumours that he would abdicate the throne.

http://www.zenjournalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/August4-e1328972117221.jpg



Meanwhile, investigations into Ananda’s death were increasingly pointingto the overwhelming likelihood that Bhumibol was responsible. Thegovernment, fearing the destabilizing impact of such a revelation and



unwilling to provoke Bhumibol’s abdication and replacement by Prince

Chumbhot, suppressed the information about Bhumibol’s involvement andimposed censorship.

On November 8, 1947, Thailand’s royalists allied with the militarist clique ofPhibul Songkram overthrew the government. They used the widespreadpopular belief that Pridi was hiding crucial evidence about Ananda’s deathto legitimize their power grab. Pridi Banomyong fled Thailand in fear of hislife. The story of his escape is here.

In the days that followed, royal pages But Patamasarin and Chit Singhaseniwere arrested, along with former royal secretary Chaliew Pathumros. Thenew government alleged they had been part of a communist plotmasterminded by Pridi to murder Ananda. This story was totally untrue, asPrince Chumbhot, heir apparent to the throne, acknowledged to Britishambassador Geoffrey Thompson on November 28, 1947. The ambassadorshared Chumbhot’s remarks in a secret cable the following day:

http://www.zenjournalist.org/2012/02/pridi-banomyongs-escape-from-siam-november-1947/



In February 1948, Thompson discussed the death of Ananda with AdmiralThamrong Navaswadhi, who had been prime minister from from August1946 until he was deposed in the November 1947 coup. Thamrong droppedheavy hints that Ananda had been shot by Bhumibol and that thegovernment had felt unable to announce this:



A month later, Thamrong was even more explicit in a conversation withU.S. ambassador Edwin Stanton over tea on March 30, 1948:



Meanwhile, increasingly alarmed about Bhumibol’s refusal to return fromLausanne, and concerned that his complicity in Ananda’s death woulddisastrously weaken him as a monarch, leading royalists includingDemocrat Party leader Khuang Aphaiwong, and the Pramoj brothers Seniand Kukrit, hatched a plan to announce that Bhumibol had killed Ananda.They hoped to force him to abdicate in favour of Prince Chumbhot. Thisinconvenient piece of history is something the modern-day Democrat Partyrefuses to admit. The news was cabled to Washington by State DepartmentSoutheast Asia Division assistant chief Kenneth Landon on February 20,1948:



The most recent reports in connection with the assassination of King Ananda tothe effect that Khuang is preparing to announce that King Bhumiphol killed hisbrother accidentally; that Bhumiphol will abdicate and that Prince Chumphotwill become King inject new elements into the situation which may profoundlydisturb present political arrangements…

Phibun is antagonized by Khuang’s proposal that … Chumphot become King. Itmay be true that Bhumiphol killed his brother either intentionally or accidentally.Such a possibility was indicated by an earlier memorandum by me on thissubject… This then becomes a deliberate attempt by Khuang to restore themonarchy to some of its former power and to establish Khuang and the Pramojbrothers firmly as the leaders of a royalist party and of the nation. Theyapparently hope that they can sustain themselves with Chumphot on the thronebecause Chumphot is a mature person of considerable wealth who has had longexperience with palace politics, who has a large following among the Siamese andChinese resident in Siam, and who is driven by an ambitious wife who, as theintelligent daughter of one of Siam’s cleverest Foreign Ministers is thoroughlyfamiliar with internal and foreign political machinations…

Phibun and Pridi are political opponents within the same political party. Theyare equally opposed to any return of the monarchy to power. They do not object tothe present King because he is immature and without a following. Khuang may beforcing them into each other’s arms by the specter of Chumphot as King.

The plan was foiled by military strongman Field Marshal Pibul Songkram,who deposed the Khuang government in a coup in April 1948. Pibul wantedto keep Bhumibol on the throne, believing that the secret of his accidentalkilling of Ananda could be used to manipulate him.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, September 28, 1948, the King Anandamurder trial began. Royal pages But Patamasarin and Chit Singhaseni, andformer royal secretary Chaliew Pathumros were accused of conspiring tokill the king in a plot masterminded by Pridi. The trial and appeals were todrag on for more than six years.

Bhumibol finally returned to Thailand briefly in March 1950 for hisbrother’s cremation, his formal coronation, and his marriage to SirikitKitiyakara. He left on June 6, a few days before the anniversary of hisbrother’s death. In late 1951, he at last came back to Thailand to take up hisduties as king.

Bhumibol knew that But Patamasarin, Chit Singhaseni and ChaliewPathumros had nothing to do with his brother’s murder. Yet he did nothing



to save them. The three men were executed in February 1955 for a crime

they did not commit.

Bhumibol has changed his story about how Ananda died multiple times. Inthe days immediately after his brother’s death, he vehemently insisted thatit was an accident. But in his testimony at the regicide trial, he abandonedthis story, and shared several damaging anecdotes about Chaliew. By the1970s, the palace had quietly dropped the claim that Chit, But and Chaliew — and Pridi — were implicated. In an interview for the BBC documentarySoul of a Nation, broadcast in 1980, Bhumibol gave a curiously evasiveanswer, describing the killing as a mysterious murder that was covered upby unknown powerful figures in Thailand and abroad:

During the 1990s, Bhumibol cooperated with Canadian author WilliamStevenson in a semi-official biography that put forward yet another storyabout how Ananda died. This time, the alleged scapegoat was notoriousJapanese military officer Masanobu Tsuji, who was said to have sneakedinto the palace disguised as a monk. The tale was ridiculous, and there is

"Soul of a Nation": the death ofKing Anandafrom Andrew MacGregor Marshall PLUS

04:12

https://vimeo.com/zenjournalist

https://vimeo.com/45351381


https://vimeo.com/45351381




incontrovertible evidence that Tsuji was nowhere near Bangkok whenAnanda was killed.

The repeated changes in Bhumibol’s story are another clue about whatreally happened on June 9, 1946. He has never been able to give a credibleexplanation for his brother’s death.

One of the curious things about the secret of how King Ananda died is that,in establishment circles in Thailand, it has never been a secret at all. Inprivate, members of the extended royal family routinely acknowledge totrusted friends that Bhumibol killed his brother, probably by accident.

One account of Ananda’s death from royal sources was written in a privatehandwritten note in 1971 by Margaret Landon, wife of U.S. diplomatKenneth Landon, and can be found in the couple’s archives at WheatonCollege in the United States. The Landons were college sweethearts whomarried in 1926 and set off for Siam in 1927 as Presbyterian missionaries.After a year in Bangkok learning Thai, they moved to the southern provinceof Trang where they ran a Christian school for a decade before returning tothe United States. Kenneth Landon studied for a PhD at the University ofChicago, and in 1941, with the threat of war with Japan looming, he washired by Colonel “Wild Bill” Donovan as a Southeast Asia expert for a newU.S. intelligence agency, the Office of Co-ordinator of Information, later tobecome the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and later still the CentralIntelligence Agency (CIA). In 1943 he joined the State Department aspolitical desk officer for Thailand, later becoming assistant chief of theSoutheast Asia Division.

During their years in Siam, Margaret Landon had become fascinated by thelife of Anna Leonowens, a woman of British and Indian descent who hadbeen a tutor to the many wives and children of Mongkut, King Rama IV, inthe 1860s. She published a semi-fictionalized account of Leonowens’ timein Bangkok, Anna and the King of Siam, in 1944. It was to become asensation, selling more than a million copies around the world, and wasadapted into a famous musical, The King and I, by Richard Rodgers andOscar Hammerstein II. A 1956 film of the musical also became a global hit.

When World War II ended, Kenneth Landon was sent to Southeast Asia tojoin tense negotiations with the Thais and British over the postwar statusof Siam. He spent months in the region, from late 1945 until mid-1946, andmet most of Thailand’s key political leaders, plus King Ananda, recentlyreturned from Switzerland. With excellent contacts and fluency in thelanguage, Landon was to remain the primary State Department point-man

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Hammerstein_II

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_and_I

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_and_I_%281956_film%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rodgers



for Thailand for years, working from his desk in Washington and makingseveral trips to Southeast Asia. As Daniel Fineman observes in his book ASpecial Relationship: The United States and Military Government in Thailand,Landon “remained the department’s premier Thai specialist into the early1950s”. Professor Clark Neher has described Landon as “the fulcrum figurein Thai-American relations in the late 1940s”.

In two previous articles, here and here, I shared the private comments ofKenneth Landon on the death of King Ananda.

The handwritten note by his wife Margaret was based on conversationswith her friend Lydia na Ranong, a woman born into China’s aristocracywho married a Thai and became a confidante of senior royals in Bangkok.

The version Lydia na Ranong heard from Prince Rangsit’s circle isextraordinary for several reasons. It totally rewrites the official story of thelife of Sangwan Talapat, mother of Bhumibol and Ananda. It says that thekilling of Ananda was witnessed by both royal pages, But Patamasarin andChit Singhaseni. And it suggests that former royal secretary ChaliewPathumros was having an affair with Sangwan, and was in her bedroomwhen the fatal shot was fired.

The story is hearsay, and some of the details are suspect — Margaret Landonclearly jotted it down in haste. The account is infused with contempt forSangwan, the mother of Ananda and Bhumibol, who was born a commonerand was never liked by much of the royal family. It cannot be considered adefinitive account, by any means, but it may give a glimpse of whathappened on that tragic morning that changed Thailand forever.

Below is a transcript of Margaret Landon’s account of the death of KingAnanda. The original document can be viewed here.

June 6, 1971

Lydia — The King’s death

When she arrived in Thailand with Chok, she was received as royalty, and theKing granted her the immunity from arrest without his consent that the RoyalFamily enjoys. She came to know leading members of the Royal Family andmentioned especially Prince Wan and Prince Rangsit. Also several others. She saidthat from a member of the RF she learned their version of King Ananda’s death. Isurmise that the source of her [knowledge?] was Prince Rangsit, probably throughmembers of his family.

http://www.zenjournalist.org/2012/12/26/look-at-me-id-make-a-better-king-than-my-brother/

http://www.zenjournalist.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Lydia.pdf

http://www.zenjournalist.org/2012/10/25/king-anandas-death-testimony-of-kenneth-landon/



The story begins in America where Mahidol’s mother, Phra Pan Wassa (askWinit about use of this word. Is it grandmother of a king?) sent two girls from herentourage to study (ostensibly) but also to serve as mia noi to the prince. The oldQueen was always strongly anti-foreign and was afraid of possible involvementwith a foreign woman.

Mahidol fell in love with Sangwan and decided to marry her. When he wrote ofhis intention, his letter was not correctly interpreted, his mother thought that hewas coming home to marry and, in the meantime, was taking Sangwan as mianoi.

There was consternation in the RF when the two reached Bangkok and the realpurpose was discovered. I believe the old Queen was irreconcilable and that theKing refused to perform the marriage but that M tricked a prince (Nagor Svarga)into doing so.

The dowager Queen’s palace was Pathumwan, and she never permitted Sangwanto cross the threshold. After her death Phumiphol conferred the palace on hismother, as compensation, but the dislike of Sangwan was continued in the RF.

Many of the details in The Devil’s Discus are correct. The OSS gave Ananda thegun with which he was killed. He had not been feeling well June 8. Both boys likedguns. (Kenneth’s story of jeep.) On the morning of June 9, Ananda was stillunwell. He lay in his bed playing with the gun. Phumiphol came in. Ananda heldgun to P’s head and said, “I could kill you.”

P then took it and held it to A’s head and said, “I could kill you, too.”

A said, “Pull it! Pull it!”

P did and killed Ananda.

Lydia believes the killing was accidental. This is the point that would never becleared up.

P was appalled, horrified. The map of the palace is in the Discus, and the roomwhere the King died is now part of the palace used to greet visiting VIPs. Lydiahad a chance to see it as one of the party of a South American diplomat and theguide taking them through showed her the room & location of the bed on whichthe King died. The two pages later executed for the “crime” saw the killing takeplace since, as soon as the King awoke, they had to be in attendance.



Phumiphol ran from the room into the corridor and to his mother’s room. As hereached it a man came out of the bedroom. This, Lydia said from the versiongiven her by the RF, was a terrible shock to P. And yet, if his mother had aparamour it seems unlikely that he did not know it. The man Lydia calls “thatsecretary,” obviously thinking we would know whom she meant.

P poured out his terrible story, and events began to take a course for which the RFblames Sangwan. They say that she was proud to be the mother of a King andinstantly decided to suppress the truth in order to protect Phumihol and guard hisright to succeed his brother, and of her determination, they say, to retain her ownposition.

The RF believes that she should have insisted that the truth be told. They believethe death was truly an accident, not murder, and that the people should have beenso informed. After that, they say, Phumiphol should have gone into the priesthoodfor life and allowed the Crown to pass to some other member of the RF. Thiswould have been an honorable course as well as an honest one. Lydia thought theRF believed the Crown would have passed to Chula. I doubt it since he wasspecifically excluded by King Chulalongkorn because his mother was Russian.Furthermore he had married an Englishwoman and had only one child, adaughter, whom [?] says is not his child at all but the child of a young protégé, amember of the RF who lived with Chula and [?] and who committed suicide afterthe birth of Chula’s “daughter”. Chula acknowledged the child.

Curiously enough, the logical candidate would have been Prince Chumphot, buthe, too, had no sons and only a daughter, who married a Frenchman.

Lydia says that Luang Pradit now has in his possession a letter from LuangPibul, written a year before his death, acknowledging that the charge ofcomplicity made against Pradit in the King’s death was false and that he, LuangPibul, always knew this.

Originally published at www.zenjournalist.com on March 7, 2013.

http://www.zenjournalist.com/2013/03/thailands-saddest-secret/



Andrew MacGregor MarshallJournalist and author

Published on Mar 6. All rights reserved by the author.

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