ABSTRACT
The situation of monarchy on the Indochina Peninsula in late 1973 was nothing if not varied. In Cambodia, the charisma of ex-King Sihanouk was lending invaluable legitimization to the Maoist Khmer Rouge, and Sihanouk seemed unlikely to regain the political power first lost to General Lon Nol in the coup of 1970, if and when his new-found Communist allies won the civil war after the end of US bombing. The constitutional monarchy of Laos, upheld by the Laotian coalition government of 1973 as by the pro-American regime before it, was probably only as durable as the right-wing factions would prove to be if there was a Communist victory in Vietnam. But in Thailand, a remarkable, quiet transformation was proceeding, from a ‘passive’ constitutional monarchy to a more ‘active’ model. Before, during and after the month of ‘student revolution’, October 1973, the King stepped forward as patron of democratic reforms, effectively turning the tables on the military elite which had sought to exploit royal charisma in its own interest from the late 1950s.
