US starts pullout from Thailand

Under pressure from anti-war protests in America, and an increasingly critical Congress, the US began withdrawing its 48,000 troops and B52 Strato fortress warplanes from Thailand.

A Thai-American agreement reached on September 20 specified that the first 6,000 soldiers would leave by July 1, 1970. Thai troops, meanwhile, killed around a thousand Viet Cong in six major battles in the first half of 1969. Heavy fighting carried on through much of the year. Amid the bloodshed, Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachorn said Bangkok ‘would like to withdraw its forces from South Vietnam, because we have so many burdens to carry.’

State Department Secretary William Rogers defended America’s secret military contingency agreements with Bangkok. Congress was worried, Rogers said, ‘that the US could be dragged into another land war, in Thailand.’ In December, President Nixon admitted Washington paid Bangkok for Thai troops to fight in Vietnam.