Thailand: Making Merit While Escaping the Law

In October of 1973, amid a storm of nationwide protest, Thanom Kittachikorn, the Thai field marshal who appointed himself the commander in chief of the army and ran a deeply repressive government from 1963, was forced to flee a student uprising.

For three years, he remained in exile in the United States, finally returning in 1976 in the robes of a novice…