U.S.
ESCALATES MILITARY: ACTIVITIES IN THATLAND
By Dick Roberts
An increasingly ominous side effect of the Vietnamese war . is the expansion of U.S. military activity in Thailand. In the earlier stages of the war, it was well known that Washington was using Thailand as a base for its air attacks against both north and south Vietnam.
Hanson W. Baldwin, the New York Times military specialist, reported on January 24 that "several hundred United States aircraft and more than 14,000 American servicemen are now stationed in Thailand, and the number of men is expected to more than double if the war continues.
Baldwin stated that there were five U.S. air bases in Thailand already. However he also explained that the U.S. army was "engaged on a major road construction program." One army engineer battalion, according to Baldwin, had been in Thailand since 1962. It had completed a "6l-mile, two lane, hard-surfaced road."
Two facts are worth noting in this description: First, the extensive nature of the military construction, including major roads, supply depots and ports as well‘as air bases; and second, the fact. that Washington began this construction in 1962 -- three years before the actual escalation of the Vietnamese war to include large-scale U.S. bombing of Vietnam fron foreign bases. Both facts suggest, al