B-52 in Thailand┬╗The best solution was to base the B-52's in South Vietnam or in Thailand. The cost to upgrade an existing Vietnamese Air Base was high, and the security questions were also troubling. U-Tapao had an existing runway suitable for the bombers and the cost for upgrades to the base was minimal.
In January 1967, negotiations between the Americans and Thai government started to base them at U-Tapao. The agreement, reached on 2 March 1967 allowed 15 bombers and their support personnel to be based at U-Tapao, with the provision that missions flown from Thailand would not over fly Laos or Cambodia on their way to their targets in Vietnam.
The first B-52's arrived on 10 April 1967. The very next day, B-52 operations were initiated at U-Tapao.┬л
http://vdha.us/stuff/contentmgr/file...ical_brief.pdf
Peaceful Buddhists help peaceful Christians, or vice versa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd9Zb8JVXCg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wiJMc5Z3_M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o8exLFWUy4
[youtube:31eb2nul]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKG_f9_C5-8[/youtube:31eb2nul]
Helpful natives, helpful tourists
┬╗[...] until Thailand was host to 45,000 US army and air force personnel in 1969. The first air strike on North Vietnam was flown from Thailand in December 1964. Three-quarters of the bomb tonnage dropped on North Vietnam and Laos in 1965-1968 was flown out of seven US bases in eastern Thailand. Thai troops were secretly hired as virtual mercenaries to fight in Laos from 1960. Some 11,000 Thai troops went to fight alongside the US in South Vietnam in 1967.
Bangkok was chosen for the GIs' R&R ('rest and recreation tours'), with 45,000 visiting by 1967. New Phetchaburi Road became an 'American strip' lined with bars, night clubs, brothels, and massage parlours. Similar clusters mushroomed around the US air bases. The sex industry was not new; the public garishness was.
Estimates of the number of prostitutes in Bangkok ranged up to 300,000. The interior minister, General Praphat Charusathian, wanted even more because they attracted tourists and boosted the economy. Until the late 1950s, Thailand had no organized tourism industry, only 871 tourist-standard rooms, and only 40,000 foreign visitors a year. In 1959, a tourist authority was formed as part of development planning. In the early 1960s, a new runway was built at Don Muang airport to accommodate jets. Total foreign visitors grew rapidly to over 600,000 by 1970, when tourism was ranked as the fifth largest earner of foreign exchange. The largest group of visitors was American. The mid-1969s saw a frenzy of hotel building which added over 7000 rooms.┬л Chris Baker, Pasuk Phongpaichit.
A History of Thailand. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Justin Hall: Prostitution in Thailand and Southeast Asia
http://www.links.net/vita/swat/course/prosthai.html