Ananda Mahidol

King Ananda Mahidol or Rama VIII (long royal name: Phrabat Somdej Phra Paramenthara Maha Ananda Mahidol Phra Athama Ramathibodinthra พระบาทสมเด็จพระปรเมนทรมหาอานันทมหิดล พระอัฐมรามาธิบดินทร (roughly "HM King Ananda Mahidol, the Eighth Ruler") (September 20, 1925 - June 9, 1946) was the eighth king of the Chakri dynasty of Thailand.

A mysterious death

On June 9, 1946, the King was found shot dead in his bedroom in the Grand Palace, only four days before he was scheduled to return to Switzerland to finish his doctoral degree in Law at the University of Lausanne. His brother Bhumibol Adulyadej succeeded him. Ananda Mahidol was never crowned as king, but his brother posthumously gave him the full royal title of the nine-fold umbrella.

Related Topics:
June 9 - 1946 - Bhumibol Adulyadej

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The King's death is still a mystery. Since this subject is never openly discussed in Thailand, the best current account is in William Stevenson's The Revolutionary King, written with the co-operation of King Bhumibol Adulyadej. This account exculpates those executed and suggests that Ananada Mahidol was murdered by Tsuji Masanobu, a former Japanese inteillgence officer who had been active in Thailand during the war.

Related Topics:
Bhumibol Adulyadej - Tsuji Masanobu

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The official explanation today is that the King shot himself accidentally while cleaning his gun. But it is clear from Stevenson's account that Ananda cannot have killed himself, either by suicide (as is sometimes suggested) or accidentally. He was found lying on his back in his bed, not wearing his glasses, without which he was almost blind. He had a small bullet wound in his forehead and a somewhat larger exit wound in the back of his head. His gun, a Colt .45 given to him as a gift by an American Army officer, was not nearby. The Colt is a heavy pistol and difficult to use by a person without training. It would have been virtually impossible for Ananda, a frail 20-year-old, to lie on his back and shoot himself in the forehead with such a pistol. If he had done so, the impact would have blown his skull apart, not caused the small wound seen by many witnesses. No cartridge casing was found, and subsequent inquiries ordered by King Bhumipol, but suppressed by later governments, found that the Colt had not been fired.

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If Ananda did not kill himself, he must have been murdered. It must therefore be asked who stood to benefit from his death. The most obvious beneficiary was his brother Bhumipol, who was next in line to the throne. The possibility that the current King murdered his brother is so shocking as to be unthinkable, let alone mentionable, in modern Thailand, but it was commonly rumoured during the 1950s. The possibility can, however, be dismissed on several grounds. First, if, as seems clear, the King's own pistol was not the murder weapon, Bhumipol would have had to obtain and use another gun, then successfully conceal it in the few seconds before other witnesses arrived on the scene. Secondly, all accounts agree that Bhumipol was summonsed to the King's bedchamber by their mother, who was first on the scene. Third and most importantly, Ananda and Bhumipol were extremely close, and Bhumipol had absolutely no desire to be King (according to some accounts, he still does not). His only desire was to return to his quiet life in Switzerland.

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The King's murderer must therefore have come from outside the Royal Palace. Here there is no shortage of suspects. Thai politics at this time was dominated by two figures who had led the 1932 revolution against the absolute monarchy, but who had subsequently fallen out. These were Field Marshal Phibun Songkram, who had been the pro-Japanese dictator of Thailand during World War II but who in 1946 was seeking to rehabilitate himself as a client of the United States, and Pridi Phanomyong, a left-wing civilian politician who had been an underground British agent during the war and was regarded as a supporter of British interests. At the time of the King's death Pridi was Prime Minister, and Britain and the U.S. were conducting a clandestine battle for influence in postwar Thailand.

Related Topics:
1932 - Phibun Songkram - 1946 - United States - Pridi Phanomyong

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The role of the monarchy was of central importance to Thai politics, and the virtual vacancy of the throne which had existed since 1932 had been of great value to Phibun's wartime regime. It is possible that he saw the re-emergence of a strong monarchy under King Ananda as a threat to his prospects of returning to power under U.S. patronage. It is therefore plausible that Phibun could have used the Japanese officer Tsuji Masanobu, who had avoided war crimes prosecution by making himself useful to the Americans, as his agent to bring about the King's death, in the hope that Bhumipol would be a more pliant King. A royal murder also served to discredit Pridi's government, to Phibun's benefit.

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Alternatively, it is possible, though less likely, that Pridi saw the re-establishment of a strong monarchy as a threat to his hopes of establishing a left-wing government in Thailand. Although he was not a communist, Pridi was strongly sympathetic to the Chinese Communists, and later lived in exile in the People's Republic of China. Since Britain had a Labour government at this time, Pridi saw no contradiction between his left-wing policies and his role as a British agent. Killing the King, according to this theory, would weaken the monarchy and make a left-wing revolution easier. In the Cold War atmosphere of the 1950s, Pridi was widely named as the man behind the King's death. According to William Stevenson, King Bhumipol has said that he does not believe that Pridi was involved in the murder.

Related Topics:
People's Republic of China - Labour - Cold War

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In February 1955 three of the late King's attendants; his secretary Senator Chaleo Patoomros and two pages, Nai Chit and Butr Paramasrin, were executed by Phibun's regime on charges of conspiracy to kill the King. Today it is acknowledged that these charges were baseless, but the truth of the matter remains a mystery. Given that it is nearly 60 years since Ananda's murder, it seems unlikely that it will be solved. It is possible, however, that King Bhumipol, the only surviving witness to these events, knows the full truth and that this will be revealed after his death.

Related Topics:
1955 - Chaleo Patoomros - Nai Chit - Butr Paramasrin

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