Thailand: Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat (1908-1963), Prime Minister of Thailand 1959-1963

Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat (June 16, 1908 Ð December 8, 1963) was a Thai career soldier who staged a coup in 1957, thereafter serving as Thailand's Prime Minister until his death in 1963. He was born in Bangkok, but grew up in his mother's home town in Lao-speaking northeastern Thailand and considered himself a northeasterner. During his years as Prime Minister Sarit was a patron of the Lao strongman General Phoumi Nosavan against the communist Pathet Lao guerrillas in the neighboring Kingdom of Laos. Sarit's regime was the most repressive and authoritarian in modern Thai history, abrogating the constitution, dissolving parliament, and vesting all power in his newly-formed Revolutionary Party. Sarit banned all other political parties, imposing very strict censorship of the press after the coup. After Sarit's death, his reputation took a heavy blow when Sarit was discovered to have owned a trust company, a brewery, 51 cars, and some 30 plots of land, most of which he gave to the dozens of mistresses he was found to have had. Thai language newspapers published the names of 100 women who claimed to have shared his bed, shocking the public when it was learnt how corrupt he had actually been. (Photo by: Pictures From History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)