BANGKOK -- Among the list of military strongmen who have held Thailand in their grip over decades, Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat remains peerless -- not just for his strategic achievements or ability to defeat foreign foes in battle. Rather, his fame, or notoriety, rests on his reputation as a lady-killer and the wealth he amassed as military leader in a country that was still a semifeudal agricultural backwater.
Sarit's colorful life was laid bare in the wake of his death in 1963 following six years of autocratic rule that began in 1957 after a coup. A wide range of accounts revealed that Sarit had married four times, collected up to 100 long-term lovers, and had fathered numerous children, only six of which were borne by his wives. His personal wealth was estimated at $100 million -- an astronomical sum for someone who grew up in an ordinary household in Thailand's rural northeast. He also owned 51 cars, 30 plots of land and a personal brewery.
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