Siddhi Savetsila
Siddhi Savetsila ( Thai สิทธิ เศวต ศิลา, RTGS: Sitthi Sawetsila, pronunciation: [ Sitt ʰ ː ìʔ sàʔwè tsìʔla ː ]; born January 7, 1919 in Bangkok ) is a Thai retired air force officer and politician. He was between 1980 and 1990 Foreign Minister of Thailand. Since 1991 he is a member of the Privy Council of King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
Siddhi Savetsila comes from an aristocratic background. His father was a high official in the royal government. His paternal grandfather was Henry Alabaster, who during the reign of King Mongkut (Rama IV ) British Consul in Siam and then advisor of King Chulalongkorn ( Rama V ) was. His mother came from the influential Bunnag family.
Siddhi studied at Chulalongkorn University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During the Second World War he joined the Seri Thai movement, which resisted the de facto occupation of Thailand by Japan. He collected data for the former U.S. foreign intelligence OSS ( forerunner of the CIA) and was briefly imprisoned by the Japanese. From siddhis sisters was married to the former OSS agents Willis Bird and one with the CIA agent William Lair.
He began his career in the Royal Thai Air Force and rose to become a general. At the time of the invasion of Vietnamese forces in Cambodia 1978/79 he was the General Secretary of the National Security and worked in this position, the Prime Minister Kriangsak Chomanan to.
1980 Siddhi Savetsila was appointed as Foreign Minister under Kriangsak. He retained the office even after the government takeover by Prem Tinsulanonda few months later. In the ASEAN and the UN, he took a hard line against Vietnam, which invaded Cambodia in 1979 and this had occupied. In 1983 he was elected to Parliament in late 1985 and took over the chairmanship of the Social Action Party, which did well in the elections in July 1986. In 1986, he was also Deputy Prime Minister for a short time. In August 1990, Siddhi was replaced as foreign minister because of the Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan sought a more pragmatic relationship with the communist countries of Southeast Asia. End of the eighties, the Social Action Party was in difficulty and in September 1990 Siddhi also resigned from the party chairmanship. For a month he gave up his parliamentary seat and his party membership. He claimed to be tired of politics. 1991 appointed him King Bhumibol Adulyadej in his Privy Council.
On 8 May 2000 was one of five Siddhi Thai veterans who received the Agency Seal Medallion of CIA Director George Tenet.