Thailand: Reciprocating a Kindness

A century ago, Abraham Lincoln received a letter from Anna's King of Siam offering a gift of elephants to "bear burdens and travel through uncleared woods and matted jungles where no carriage and cart roads have yet been made." The beasts might have served well in the Civil War's Battle of the Wilderness, but Lincoln politely declined the offer. The sentiment, however, was not forgotten.

From Bangkok to the Mekong valley last week, the $40-million-a-year U.S.-Thai military development program was proceeding apace. Two U.S. Army engineer battalions worked side by side in rising red dust with Royal Thai Army engineers, carving a broad, all-weather military highway—the Bangkok Bypass road—from the Gulf of Siam to the northeast provinces (see map). At the ocean end of the road, the U.S. is building the $11.9 million Sattahip Naval Airbase, replete with jet strips, a deepwater pier, and 70 ammunition bunkers. At the other end stands Camp Friendship, near the town of Korat, where 500 Americans and 850 Thais stand watch over $30 million worth of tanks, Jeeps, armored personnel carriers, and artillery, enough to support a U.S. brigade. The Royal Thai Air Force is soon to receive 18 Northrop-built F-5 jet fighters, while the tough Thai infantry's Garand rifles will soon be replaced with light, fast-firing Armalites, which are much better suited to the miasmic conditions of jungle warfare. Radar and reconnaissance planes will add long-range vision to the 14,000-man Thai Navy, and swift patrol boats will give the 1,500 miles of meandering coastline additional security.

Lessons from Viet Nam. The U.S. presence in Thailand has grown from 4,800 men in 1962 (when President Kennedy sent U.S. troops during the Laotian crisis) to some 12,000 or more today. In deference to Thai touchiness (the kingdom has never known colonial rule), U.S. planes in Thailand do not operate out of "American" bases; technically, they are "stopovers" and no Americans other than couriers carry arms. But the three squadrons of U.S. Thunderchief and Phantom fighter-bombers that roar daily out of Korat for raids on North Viet Nam fly armed. Indeed, most U.S. strikes at the North are mounted in Thailand: another four U.S. attack squadrons are stationed at Thai airbases near Takhli and Ubon, while sleek RF-101 Voodoos fly from Udorn on reconnaissance missions above the Laotian part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail (TIME, Dec. 17). Gaily colored Thai trucks rumble by night up the U.S.-built Friendship Highway lugging bombs and jet fuel to the bases. New, laterite-surfaced "security roads" run up to Thailand's northern borders, providing ready access for Thai counterinsurgency forces and routes for any future U.S. buildup aimed at turning North Viet Nam's western flank. From Nakhon Phanom, a U.S. air-sea rescue team flies missions to recover pilots downed over North Viet Nam.