A MAN OF VISION
American newsman Alexander MacDonald used his wartime contacts to fulfil his ambition to publish a ‘real’ newspaper, writes Alan Dawson
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1941, one of the local newsmen who rushed to the scene to report the story was Alexander MacDonald. He was a journeyman, 33-year-old reporter for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, a native of Boston, with a touch of wanderlust that was about to be fulfilled.
Like many Americans, in Hawaii and elsewhere, MacDonald headed to the recruiting station during the frantic week after the Pearl Harbor attack. The United States was in World War II at last, and up to its neck. Most experienced newspapermen who joined up were quickly seconded by the US military forces to take part in the great propaganda effort that every war brings.
MacDonald, however, took a different course. The US Navy made him a combat officer and sent him along to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).
He drew a series of assignments and in late 1944 was handed orders to take command of an OSS detachment in Myanmar. Like many of his brother OSS officers including the more flamboyant Jim Thompson, MacDonald discovered that Southeast Asia was exactly what he had been seeking all along.
At the end of the war in August 1945, MacDonald was sent to Manila and ordered to report to California. The navy had every intention of trying to keep him in the service.
MacDonald had other intentions entirely, all centred on his civilian life as a newsman. He arranged to get out of the navy while in the Philippines and caught a flight to Bangkok, where he had contacts and — for a newspaper reporter — a grandiose idea. He decided he would become a newspaper publisher and owner.
Working with American friends and acquaintances from the Seri Thai (Free Thai) underground movement, MacDonald supported himself for a year by acting as a stringer for The Associated Press in Bangkok. He filed enough stories to keep food on the table, but virtually every waking minute went into establishing the Bangkok Post.
MacDonald envisioned a “real” newspaper, in English, serving the foreign community and educated Siamese who cared about getting reliable news. This was an important part of the Bangkok Post. During the time, most serious newspapers were run by academics and politicians looking for a cheap way to publish and distribute their often leftist, usually anti-establishment writings and theories. While such papers were legitimate icons of the early, rough days of Thai journalism, they were not so much interested in actual news as how to get in yet another dig at the government and bureaucracy.
In establishing the Bangkok Post, MacDonald had plenty of people, but none so valuable or loyal to the entire idea of an honest newspaper as Prasit Lulitanond.
Two years younger than MacDonald, Prasit stayed with the Post in executive positions until his death in 1997. He was an active fighter in the aggressive Thai underground against the Japanese.
There was (and is) no doubt that MacDonald had the best wishes and all the surreptitious help that the US government and mission to Bangkok was able to give.
It was MacDonald, however, who found a newspaper press. He fought, argued, bargained, traded and convinced the Southeast Asia Command to let him have the press. More awe-inspiring, however, was MacDonald’s personal success at then convincing the Command that since he had the press he also had to have the two Japanese prisoners of war who knew how to operate, maintain and repair it.
In due course, they were assigned to MacDonald, who used them for test runs of the Bangkok Post and to train Thai staff to operate the press. The machine today sits in the lobby of the newspaper’s headquarters, complete with the small wooden boxes that held the individual letters of type used to make the original four-page newspaper.
Just before the Bangkok Post published, however, MacDonald obtained a worldwide exclusive for his day-to-day employer, The Associated Press. On June 9, 1946, he reported the death of the young King Ananda Mahidol.
Two months after the royal tragedy, MacDonald edited and published the first issue of the Bangkok Post. There was no photograph on the front page. The lead story was an official denial by the Siamese government that it had sold arms and ammunition to Dutch colonial officials, with a sidebar report by “an AP man” (MacDonald) that there was gunfire along the Mekong River between Nong Khai and Vientiane. The unsigned single-column feature, “The Postman Says”, written by MacDonald until his departure from Thailand, had an extremely modest welcome to readers, all the more humble when laid against the marketing hype for even a niche magazine or internet site of the 21st century.
The price of the four-page paper was set at one baht. On its third day, the Post reported a “huge rice swindle”, a story the paper reported many times for 68 years and beyond, up to the populist rice-pledging scheme of the 2010s.
MacDonald lived his dream after Aug 1, 1946. He mixed only with high society, lived in luxury and spoke to top government and political movers and shakers. Bangkok had massive corruption, frequent changes at the top of government and violence.
As an OSS veteran, MacDonald was of course both friendly with and loyal to Pridi Banomyong, the head of the anti-Japan underground in Bangkok. He also described wartime premier Field Marshal Plaek Phibulsonggram as “one of the quislings of World War II” in his column, which was no doubt remembered when Field Marshal Plaek returned to power as prime minister in 1947.
As astounding as it now seems, Pridi, who was the father of democracy, a war hero and a brilliant mind, was no match for often brutish but relentless plotters who attacked him as a communist and — the fatal wound — an anti-monarchist.
MacDonald moved in almost every wrong circle to protect himself. In 1949, a failed coup by Pridi and the navy was crushed by the army. It was MacDonald’s last reporting hurrah.
Army officers told Prasit that the Bangkok climate was decidedly unfriendly to his publisher and editor. It was so unfriendly it was likely to become fatal. At any time, this was a chilling message.
MacDonald took the hint. He eventually left Thailand in 1954 and never returned.
MacDonald returned to his native Massachusetts, ran a resort on Cape Cod and wrote a biographical book, Bangkok Editor, published in 1950. In 1990, the Bangkok Post published My Footloose Newspaper Life, credited to MacDonald.
Army officers told Prasit that the Bangkok climate was decidedly unfriendly to his publisher and editor