In the Vaccination Stage

A U.S. Air Force jet transport eased onto central Thailand's Korat airstrip from Hawaii last week and deposited 69 U.S. combat troops in battle dress. They were the advance unit of the two U.S. Army battle groups scheduled to participate in next month's SEATO maneuvers involving 25,000 troops from Thailand, the U.S., France, Britain, Pakistan and the Philippines. At SEATO headquarters in Bangkok, the purpose of the exercise was explained: "The operation supposes that out of tense conditions near the border of Thailand an enemy force crosses into this country in open aggression."

Across the Mekong. Though the SEATO battle plan was written months ago, recent events in neighboring Laos have given it pressing immediacy. Thailand today is particularly vulnerable to what U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Todd Young calls "aggression by seepage." Some 45,000 North Vietnamese, many of whom settled in Thailand during IndoChina's war against France, have been heavily infiltrated by Communist agents. Among the mountain tribes of the north, there is no sense of nationality and no loyalty to the central government in Bangkok. What is more, some 9,000,000 Thais of Lao stock live in the isolated, scrubby, and impoverished northeastern provinces just across the muddy Mekong River from their ethnic brothers in Laos.

With nearly two-thirds of Laos currently in Communist hands, the entire northeast has been exposed to Red subversion. Posing as peddlers, river boatmen and wandering troubadours. Communist infiltrators from Laos pass out clothing and medicine, improvise antigovernment verses on old folk songs. "Lao will be Lao," they say. "The people living in this area are Laos; those who live beyond Korat are Thais." Communism is never mentioned; instead, the Reds constantly harp on the theme that the government has wilfully neglected the northeast, promise villagers a salary of $150 a month (v. Thailand's per capita income of $105 a year) if they will join forces with the Laotian Reds.

Wells on Wheels. Spurred by the discovery of hidden Communist arms caches and reports of Red supply drops by parachute in the northeast, Premier Sarit Thanarat has begun a crash program to counteract Red influence in the area. Earmarking $300 million in development funds, he has already sent out two of a planned twelve mobile development units to drill fresh-water wells, bulldoze new roads, and dispense medical care. Under the guidance of Thailand's sharpest and most aggressive young civil servants, who once shunned the northeast as a kind of Siberia, schools are being built and electric generators installed to provide power. Government information teams are criss- crossing the northeast stressing the advantages of Thai unity; even jazz buff King Bhumibol Adulyadej and his beautiful wife, Queen Sirikit, are for the first time journeying into the area.

Sarit's speed has been characteristic of his rule since he seized power in 1957. "Anybody can stage a revolution," he said then. "The trick, once the revolution has been staged, is winning public approval." Sarit has succeeded admirably.

Now 54, Sarit came into prominence as a hard-drinking, hard-wenching army field marshal who once showed up at an embassy dinner party in Bangkok carrying his own liquor, with the complaint that his host's hooch was second rate. Cirrhosis of the liver and the responsibility of power calmed him down. Though he once was involved in various devious deals, he slashed corruption to the minimum. "He wants his name in the history books, not his money in a Swiss bank account," an observer explained.

Some Foreign Help. Sarit cracked down hard on the Communists, outlawed trade with Red China. Helped by more than $750 million in U.S. aid, he stabilized the economy, achieved a hefty trade balance, and socked away more than $500 million in foreign-exchange reserves that encouraged foreign investment and industrial expansion. The U.S.-built Friendship Highway, from Sara Buri to Korat, facilitated the movement of crops to market, and the government began an agricultural diversification program to lessen dependence on rice, Thailand's single cash crop.

Today, the U.S. maintains some 4,500 military personnel in Thailand. They help build roads, fly helicopters and operate U.S.-Thai radar stations. One group of Navy Seabees is building a 6000-yard jet airstrip near the frontier with Laos.

In next month's maneuvers Thailand's tough, modern-equipped, 80,000-man army will work to perfect its counterinsurgency techniques. More than its neighbors, Thailand has a motive to fight against a potential Communist takeover; of all the nations in Southeast Asia, Thailand alone has never been dominated by a colonial power, has been independent since the 13th century. Sarit is confident that his program will keep it so. "The situation was quite serious," he admits, "but since we started to move in the northeast, the danger has become less acute." Adds a top military aide: "Thailand is in the vaccination stage. We don't have the disease of Communism. If we vaccinate now, we won't fall ill."

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