When soldiers and tanks rolled onto the streets of Bangkok last week and the king appeared on television with the generals, it was not the first time Thailand's wildly popular monarch had given his blessing to a military takeover.
A new and comprehensive history of the Thai modern monarchy, written by a US journalist, Paul Handley, and banned in Thailand, argues that in his 60-year reign King Bhumibol Adulyadej has generally exercised a preference for order over democracy.
In doing so, Handley said, the king has put the preservation of the institution of the monarchy ahead of a democratic Thailand.
The book, The King Never Smiles, presents a direct counterpoint to years of methodical royal image-making that projects a king beyond politics, a man of peace, good works and Buddhist humility. It also runs counter to how most Thais see their king, as a man of mystique and charisma but also as a bastion of Thailand's moves to modernity.
The book's publisher, Yale University Press, said it came under heavy pressure from the Thai government not to publish.
The press' director, John Donatich, said the pressure included a visit to New Haven by a delegation of Thai officials, including the Cabinet Secretary-General Bowornsak Uwanno and Ambassador to the US Virasakdi Futrakul.
Donatich said he ruled out canceling publication of the book. But he did agree, he said, to their request that publication be delayed until July, a month after the June 9 celebrations in Bangkok of King Bhumibol's 60th anniversary on the throne and his 80th birthday.
"We didn't want to be accused of exploiting the event," he said.
The televised coverage of the gala provided an unusual look at the court's unyielding protocol that emphasizes a godly king above ordinary mortals. In one live segment, white-liveried attaches could be seen running ahead of the king to open an elevator door, and then lying prostrate on the floor as the king and his wife passed by.
Handley, who worked for 13 years as a journalist in Thailand, does not argue with the king's unequalled status among the people or his dedication to rural development projects. He writes that Bhumibol's prestige has "survived unscathed by the virtue of his sheer longevity and his personality -- earnest, hardworking, gentle, with an impeccably simple lifestyle."
But his book does note that the king sided with a brutal army takeover in 1976, and in 1992 waited three days before stopping a four-star general from ordering troops to fire on demonstrators.
Much of what Handley writes is not new, and most of the facts are not in dispute, reviewers and Thai historians say.
It is the book's interpretation of the facts that can be disputed, said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, the director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. He disagreed, he said, with the argument that the trouble with Thailand's democracy lay with the king.
"That Thai democracy is weak because of the king -- I don't think so," Thitinan said.
In fact, he said, the king had approved the 1997 Constitution, the most democratic so far.
The Yale press agreed to consider some factual errors that the Thais said were of concern. In the end, Donatich said the Thais submitted only three or four minor corrections, like the correct title of a royal daughter's thesis.
A portion of a document from the Thai Cabinet that appeared on a Thai Web site and appearing, by all accounts, to be authentic, listed the ways the Thais tried to prevent publication, and if it went ahead, how to block the book's distribution in Thailand. The book has been banned on the grounds that it was a threat to stability.
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