Pote Sarasin

Pote Sarasin (25 March 1905 – 28 September 2000) served as the Prime Minister of Thailand from September 1957 to December 1957. He belonged to the influential Sarasin family, and also served as foreign minister from 1949 to 1950, as well as ambassador to the United States. In September 1957, when Sarit Thanarat seized power in a military coup, he appointed Pote as the Prime Minister of Thailand. He resigned in December 1957. Pote also served as the first Secretary General of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization from September 1957 until 1963.

Early life and education Pote Sarasin was born in 1905 to a Hainanese Pote attended Bangkok Christian College before being sent to Wilbraham Academy, a boarding school in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, United States. He later studied law in the United Kingdom and was called to the bar at Middle Temple in London. From 1933 to 1945, he practised as an attorney in Bangkok.

Political career A close friend of the temporarily disempowered prime minister Plaek 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 wilful opponent of Phibun's attempts to recognise the French-backed Bảo Đại 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, doubted any chance of success, and suspected that the Vietnamese might turn hostile, explaining 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 28 February 1950, 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.

On 21 September 1957, Sarit chose Pote to head the coup-installed government, mainly because the American-educated diplomat had good relations with the Americans. Under him, largely free and fair elections were held in December. He resigned from the premiership that same month to resume his post as Secretary General of SEATO.

Family Pote was a scion of the Sarasin family, one of Bangkok's oldest and wealthiest assimilated Chinese families. The Sarasins had always cultivated good relations with the bureaucratic elite of the 19th century, and by the early 1950s held substantial interests in real estate and rice trading. His father, Wee Thian Hee, was the son of a Hainanese doctor and pharmacist who had immigrated to Bangkok in the early 19th century.

Pote had three sons: Pong, deputy prime minister of Thailand and a leading businessman, Police General Pao, who once served as the Chief of the Royal Thai Police, and Arsa, who, like his father, was the foreign ministers of Thailand and also served as the late King Bhumibol's Principal Private Secretary. All three sons—Pong, Arsa and Pao—have served as Deputy Prime Ministers of Thailand.