Pote Sarasin

Who was Pote Sarasin?

Pote Sarasin was a Thai diplomat and politician from the influential Sarasin Family. He served as foreign minister from 1949 to 1951 and then served as ambassador to the United States. In September 1957 when Sarit Thanarat seized power in a military coup, he appointed Pote to be the acting prime minister. He resigned in December 1957. Pote also served as the first Secretary General of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization from September 1957 until 1964.

Pote Sarasin came from an old family of merchants and landowners. His father was a doctor and rice dealer. Pote studied law at Wilbraham Academy in Wilbraham, Massachusetts and Middle Temple in London and was admitted to the English Bar. From 1933 to 1945, he practised as an attorney in Bangkok.

A close friend of the temporarily disempowered prime minister Phibunsongkhram, Pote provided financial aid to the field marshal after his release from prison in 1946. In return Phibun had Pote appointed deputy minister of foreign affairs in 1948.

As foreign minister Pote was a willful opponent of Phibun's attempts to recognise the French-backed Bảo Đại regime of Vietnam, a stance that had the full support of parliament, the press, and much of the government. Pote recognised Bảo Đại's lack of popular appeal and doubted the playboy-emperor's chance of success, and explained to a New York Times reporter that "if they [the Thais] backed Bảo Đại and he failed, the animosity of the people of the country Vietnam would be turned against the Siamese." In the end Phibun discarded months of Foreign Ministry recommendations and on February 28 issued formal recognition of the royal governments of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Embittered, Pote resigned. It was the only time a Thai foreign minister resigned on a matter of principle. Shortly afterward, he became ambassador to Washington once again.