Re-ordering the Cold War Cosmos: King Bhumibol's 1960 U.S. Tour

Abstract

From the early Cold War, U.S. aid poured into Thailand. This flow of money, people, and expertise had a profound impact on the country’s social, political, and economic development. Payments and support to the Thai military proved instrumental in securing the power of Thailand’s authoritarian military leaders, while the proliferation of U.S.-funded road and infrastructure programs helped expand the control of the Thai state from the capital into rural areas.1 More broadly, U.S. support laid the foundations for a development trajectory that, while furnishing the country with impressive economic growth, hugely benefitted Thailand’s capitalist and royalist elite.2 Despite the implications of such payments, this article argues that during the 1960s, U.S. aid was subtlety recast into gifts of tribute that increased the legitimacy of the young King Bhumibol in the eyes of the Thai public. The focus of this article is the royal visit of King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit to the United States in 1960. During the trip, U.S. media portrayed King Bhumibol as a humble Buddhist leader and friend of the free world. However, over time, palace officials imposed new meaning onto the interactions between the royal couple and their American hosts. By drawing on existing notions of Thai-Buddhist space and inter-state relations, King Bhumibol was presented to Thai audiences as a universal monarch in the Theravada tradition.3 Moreover, by casting the United States as a distant but abundant and modern society, the trip helped reorder the known world within a new moral hierarchy that elevated the capitalist “free” world while discounting more radical alternatives.