THAILAND’S RELATIONS WITH ASIA
Some view Thailand not only as key member of Southeast Asia but also an important member of East Asia, with some going as saying it forms an essential link between Southeast Asia and East Asia. Kavi Chongkittavorn wrote in The Nation: “Situated in the centre of the Asian continent, Thailand views itself as a land-bridge between South Asia and Northeast Asia, linking the region's greatest economies and land mass. For decades, Thai policy and decision-makers were content to be in this position. They failed to reach out to all. Instead, they looked towards the North (China) and the East (Japan). [Source: Kavi Chongkittavorn, The Nation, September 14, 2009 *]
“In late 1987, Thailand was among the first Asean countries to tap India's economic potential, but it was done in superficial ways and has not been eficiently exploited. In recent years Thailand has been forging close ties with Sri Lanka. Both countries go back along way, forging Buddhist binds in the 12th century. Thailand is a member of the seven member BIMST-EC (Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand Economic Forum), which also includes Bhutan and Nepal. * Also See Separate Articles on Thailand’s Relations with Southeast Asia
Thailand Host a Chaotic Asian Summit Meeting in 2009
An Asian summit originally set to be held in Bangkok in December 2008 was was moved first to the northern city of Chiang Mai, then delayed and moved to the coast and scheduled to take place in February but was postponed again to April as political turmoil engulfed Thailand. When the summit was finally held in Pattaya angry Red shirt protesters stormed the buildings where the meeting were held and some Asian leaders had to be evacuated by helicopter.
AFP reported: “Thai protesters smashed their way into a major Asian summit, forcing the country's embattled prime minister to cancel the meeting and evacuate foreign leaders by helicopters. Premier Abhisit Vejjajiva declared a state of emergency in the resort of Pattaya after thousands of demonstrators stormed the summit, which was supposed to focus on the financial crisis and North Korea's rocket launch. Choppers airlifted dignitaries from the roof of the luxury hotel venue after the red-shirted supporters of Thaksin breached police lines, broke down glass doors and streamed into the building unopposed. [Source: AFP, April, 2009]
“The meeting grouped the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand. Protesters said they had run out of patience with Abhisit's refusal to bow to their demands for his resignation, and that they were angry at the wounding of three supporters in earlier clashes with pro-government rivals.
“Hooting horns and triumphantly chanting slogans, anti-government protesters decked out in red pushed past lines of troops who carried shields and batons but offered little resistance. They toppled metal detectors, smashed reception tables and left behind small pools of blood where some had been injured by glass. About 100 demonstrators reached the driveway of an adjacent building where the ASEAN leaders where having a luncheon. Staff were forced to bustle hotel guests — including a bikini-clad female tourist — away from restaurants and the poolside.
Several foreign leaders including Philippine President Gloria Arroyo and Abhisit himself were later airlifted to a nearby military airbase where emergency planes were on standby, AFP reporters said. The so-called Red Shirts had earlier clashed with pro-government rivals armed with sticks and bottles, forcing the morning's agenda to be scrapped, including ASEAN meetings with the leaders of China, Japan and South Korea. The three East Asian leaders remained in their hotels elsewhere in Pattaya.
There was confusion over which side the injured demonstrators came from and who attacked them. Protest leader Arismun Pongreungrong said his Red Shirts had been fired on by the rival demonstrators, whom he accused of being security forces in disguise. "We found 500 blue shirts behind army checkpoints with used bullet casings, handmade bombs and sticks," Arismun, a former pop singer, said at a press conference in the hotel lobby. Later it was revealed that Abhisit’s car was surrounded by an angry Red Shirt mob in Pattaya. He managed to escape with no harm done. A similar thing happened in Bangkok when an red shirt mob surrounded his car outside the Interior Ministry.
Thailand’s Relations with China
Thailand and China established diplomatic relations in 1976. In 1968,as the war in Vietnam began turning against the U.S., Thailand hinted at its desire to open channels of communication with China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). These channels were considered necessary by the Thai in order to solve difficulties and achieve peaceful coexistence. In late 1970, a government committee was set up to explore the possibility of normalizing relations with China. [Source: Library of Congress*]
After 1971, as the United States and China moved toward reconciliation and detente, Thai soul-searching began in earnest. In 1972 Thailand sent sports teams to China, and in 1973 Thailand made overtures to Hanoi for a dialogue shortly after the United States and North Vietnam signed a cease-fire agreement. In 1974 a Thai delegation conferred with Chinese premier Zhou Enlai in Beijing on measures to improve bilateral relations. At that time Zhou was reported to have assured the Thai delegation that China would stop aiding communist insurgents in Thailand, while underlining his concern over increasing Soviet influence in Southeast Asia. In December 1974, the Thai government lifted a fifteen-year ban on trade with China. In March 1975, a month before Saigon fell, Thailand announced its decision to recognize and normalize diplomatic relations with China. *
Relations between Thailand and China improved steadily in the 1980s, with Beijing sharing Bangkok's opposition to Vietnamese military occupation of Cambodia and affirming its support for the Thai and ASEAN stance on the Cambodian question. China sought to reassure Bangkok of its withdrawal of support for the Communist Party of Thailand and offered military assistance to Thailand in the event the latter was attacked by Vietnam. In the mid-1980s, Chinese arms and supplies for the Khmer Rouge resistance forces reportedly were being shipped through Thai territory. In 1985 a telephone hotline was established between Thailand and China in an effort to coordinate their activities in the event of a major Vietnamese incursion into Thailand. Cordiality in Thai-Chinese relations was evident in a military assistance agreement signed in Beijing in May 1987. This agreement allowed Thailand to purchase, on concessional terms, Chinese tanks, antiaircraft guns, missiles, ammunition, and armored personnel carriers. *
Thaksin visited China in July 2006. He sought refuge there for a while after he was ousted in a military coup that same year. That caused some tension between the Thai military regime and Beijing.
In a survey in 2003, 76 percent of Thai’s picked China as Thailand’s closet friend. Only 7 percent picked Japan and 9 percent picked the United States. In April 2008, the Thai government threatened to expel any foreigners that disrupted the torch relay for the Beijing Olympics when the torch made a brief appearance in Thailand. The situation in Myanmar and drug production are common concerns shared by Thailand and China.
Thailand does not share borders with China and does not view China as a military threat. Moreover, Thailand is well integrated into the global marketplace and is not as reliant economically on China as some of its neighbors.
See China, Trade, Economics, ASEAN and Southeast Asia
Thailand’s Relations with Japan
Japan and Thailand established diplomatic relations in 1887 when Japan was the first country to set up a foreign embassy in Bangkok. Since 1999 the Royal Thai Embassy has hosted the Thai festival in Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park. It features Thai cuisine, handicrafts and perfroming arts.
Through the 1980s and ‘90s Japan was Thailand's principal trading partner and largest foreign investor. The generally cordial relations between the two countries were marred in the 1970s and 1980s by a continuous imbalance of trade. In 1984 Thailand's trade deficit with Japan accounted for 62 percent of its total trade deficit for the year, up from 46 percent in the previous year. Japan's economic dominance was much criticized as exploitive and, in late 1984, was the target of a campaign against Japanese goods launched by university students. The Thai government stated that such a campaign offered little or no solution to the deficit problem. Thailand's preferred solution was for Japan to open its market to Thai products, increase its aid and loans to Thailand, set up export-oriented industries in Thailand, and enhance economic cooperation through more active transfers of technology. In 1986 Thailand's trade deficit with Japan decreased 32 percent from the 1984 figure. [Library of Congress]
Japan is still the largest source of foreign direct investment in Thailand. Many Japanese companies have factories in the industrial clusters around Bangkok, use Thailand and a hub of the region's production networks. Many of Japan’s automotive and major electronics firms have operations in Thailand.
See Trade, Economics and Japanese Culture and Western Culture in Thailand
Refugees From North Korea
Some North Koreans who escape from their homeland make risky journeys through China and Laos or Myanmar to Thailand in hopes of being granted political asylum, most likely in South Korea. In 2003 the Thai media reported there were 1,000 North Korea asylum seekers waiting to cross into Thailand from Laos.
North Koreans that are caught are incarcerated while officials look for a country to deport them or one that is willing to take them. If no country will take them they remain in incarcerated, In most cases they end up in South Korea. South Korea generally takes in the refugees in dribbles and drabs. It doesn’t want to take in too many and anger North Korea. In the meantime hundreds of North Korean defectors wait in an overcrowded immigration detention facility.
In August 2003, five North Korean women were charged with illegal entry and fined after entering Thailand from Laos. They were eventually granted asylum in South Korea. In September 2003, five refuges from North Korea—one man and four women—were arrested in a far northern Chiang Rai Province and charged with illegal entry.
In August 2006, 175 refugees from North Korea—37 men, 128 women and 10 children—were arrested in a house in a Bangkok suburb and charged with illegal entry. They were the largest group of North Koreans ever smuggled into Thailand. They arrested after police were tipped of by neighbors living around the house where they were found. In November 2006, 59 refuges from North Korea—50 adults and 9 children—were arrested in a Bangkok suburb and charged of illegal entry.
North Korea 'Kidnapped Thai Woman'
Two Chinese women and one Thai woman were abducted by North Korean agaents from Macau on the same night in 1978. All of them were in their early 20s. In November 2005, the BBC reported: “Thailand's government is investigating claims that a Thai woman missing since 1978 was kidnapped by North Korean agents and is now living there. Relatives of the woman, Anocha Panjoy, were alerted to her possible fate by an article written by a U.S. man who left North Korea. [Source: BBC, November 7, 2005+]
“The missing Thai woman, Anocha Panjoy, 51, lived in Sankampaeng district in northern Chiang Mai province. She has not been home since she travelled to Macao for work in 1978, according to Thailand's TNA news agency. Her relatives contacted the authorities after seeing a picture accompanying an article in a Japanese newspaper which they said resembled Ms Anocha. The article was written by Charles Jenkins, an American who moved to Japan last year after being allowed to leave North Korea - his home since 1965, when he deserted from the US military. Mr Jenkins will be asked to meet Thai officials at the Thai embassy in Tokyo to give them further information, Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkon said. +
“The North Korean charge d'affaires to Thailand, Kim Chol-nam will discuss the case with Nopadol Gunavibool, director general of the East Asia Department at the Foreign Ministry, later this week, according to the Bangkok Post. Pyongyang admitted in 2002 that it had kidnapped 13 Japanese to help train its spies. In 2005, Pyongyang also admitted for the first time that is holding 21 South Koreans. =
Thailand’s Relations with the United States
The United States and Thailand established relations in 1833, making the U.S. Thailand’s oldest ally. Thailand was a key ally of the United States in the Vietnam War and the Cold War. Thai soldiers fought alongside American soldiers in Korea and Vietnam and Thailand helped in American operations in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. American soldiers fighting in several enjoyed R and R in Thailand and gave a boost to the sex and drug industries there.
In recent years the United States and Thailand have grown a little but apart, When Thaksin was prime minister, the United States criticized Thailand over its human rights violations and Thaksin’s autocratic rule. The two countries have disagreed on how to to deal with Myanmar with the United States favoring a a hardline approach and Thailand taking a more conciliatory approach. The United States criticized the military coup in Thailand in 2006 and voiced anger over the treatment of Hmong-Laotian refugees repatriated from Thailand to Laos.
In May 2009, the host and a guest on “Red Eye with Greg Gutfield,” an American television show broadcast on Fox, characterized Thailand as place of political chaos, sexual aberrations, where child snatching and pedophilia are common and tourists are regularly shot.
Thailand’s Relations with the U.S. in the Vietnam War Era
On March 6, 1962, in an attempt to allay Thai apprehensions, the United States and Thailand reached a new understanding under what came to be known as the Rusk-Thanat agreement (named after then-Secretary of State Dean Rusk and then-Minister of Foreign Affairs Thanat Khoman). Under the agreement, the United States pledged that, in the event of aggression it would help Thailand unilaterally without prior agreement of all other parties to the Manila Pact (agreements between the U.S. and Southeast Asia nations). [Library of Congress *]
During the 1960s, Thailand maintained close economic and security ties with the United States, while at the same time striving to foster regional cooperation with its noncommunist neighbors. The Thai response to the external uncertainties of the 1970s was a graphic demonstration of the flexibility of its foreign policy. The external catalyst was an apparent shift in American strategic thinking with regard to China and the Vietnam conflict. The shift was sensed in Bangkok in the late 1960s--in March 1968, when President Lyndon B. Johnson expressed his intention to seek a negotiated peace in Vietnam and again in July 1969, when President Richard M. Nixon told Thai leaders in Bangkok of his intention to lower the future American military profile in Asia without undertaking any new security obligations. At that time, Nixon reaffirmed the United States resolve to "honor its present commitments in Southeast Asia" and to continue its support of Thai efforts in the areas of security and economic development. *
In the wake of communist takeovers in Phnom Penh and Saigon in April 1975, Thailand moved expeditiously to realign its foreign policy. Thailand's security ties with the United States-- the pillar of Bangkok's foreign relations for nearly three decades--were downplayed as part of accentuating a policy of friendship with all nations. In July 1975, the Thai revoked a military accord with the United States under which American troops had been allowed on Thai soil. Thailand also agreed with the Philippines in principle that SEATO, having outlived its usefulness, should be phased out as early as possible. The crowning moment of the policy of readjustment came in July 1975, when Thailand and China signed a formal agreement on establishing diplomatic relations. Noteworthy was the absence of a Chinese demand for the prior removal of American troops from Thailand, in striking contrast to Hanoi's insistence that Thailand should first renounce its policy of "collusion" with the United States before any reconciliation could take place. *
Thailand’s Relations with the United States in the 1980s
The United States withdrew its forces from Thailand in 1976 at the direction of the Thai government. In the 1980s, the United States and Thailand resumed gradual military cooperation.
Despite some friction over trade issues, Thai relations with the United States were very close, especially from 1979 onward. The United States reassured its commitment to Thai security under the Rusk-Thanat agreement of 1962 as well as the Manila Pact of 1954. In addition to backing the ASEAN position on Cambodia, Washington steadily increased its security assistance to Thailand and also took part in a series of annual bilateral military exercises. Spurred by Vietnamese incursions in 1985 and the arrival in Vietnam of Soviet-piloted MiG-23s, Thailand decided to buy twelve F-16 fighter-bombers from General Dynamics in the United States. Moreover, under an accord reached in October 1985, the two countries began to set up a war reserve weapons stockpile on Thai soil, making Thailand the first country without a United States military base to have such a stockpile. The stockpile, subject to approval by the United States Congress, was to be used only in a "nation-threatening emergency" or to repulse possible armed invasion by Soviet-supported Vietnamese and other forces from Cambodia. [Library of Congress*]
Trade was an irritant in Thai-American relations, but many observers agreed that the trade problems would not likely affect the long-standing friendship and cooperation between the two countries. The United States was a major trading partner and by 1985 had become the largest and most important export market for Thai goods. Thailand enjoyed a trade surplus with the United States, which grew from a modest US$100 million in 1983 to about US$1 billion in 1986. Meanwhile, there was growing Thai criticism that the United States had become protectionist in trade relations with Thailand. By 1987, however, many informed Thai had come to believe that problems in Thai-American trade relations would be temporary. *
U.S. -Thai Relations Under the Bush Administration
U.S. President George W. Bush visited Thailand for 21 hours in 2008. The primary focus of the trip was human rights abuses in Myanmar. He gave a speech condemning Myanmar’s military junta while his wife Laura visited a refugee camp in Thailand, with 38,000 Karens that had fled Myanmar.
Thailand supported the United States in the Iraq war. It didn’t send any troops during the combat stage of the Iraq war but it sent 451 medical and engineering peacekeeping troops to Iraq in October 2003 and the helped in the reconstruction of Karbala in central Iraq. Two days after Christmas in 2003 two Thai soldiers were in killed in a car bomb attack in Karabala. The blast killed 17 others, including Iraqis and troops from other countries. Thailand was granted the status of a “major non-NATO ally” by the United States after sending troops to Iraq.
Thailand’s troops withdrew for Iraq in August and September 2004 after more or less fulfilling their promise to provide humanitarian assistance for one year. The Thai troops were under Polish command. They helped construct roads and buildings and sent out medical teams into the countryside. At the peak there were 523 Thai troops in Iraq.
Thailand was ally in Bush’s war on terrorism in Southeast Asia, participating in the rendition of terrorist suspects and arresting the terrorist leader of Hambali. After the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center in New York the relationship between Thailand and the United States was described as a “strategic partnership.”
In October 2003, at the APEC meeting, U.S. President George W. Bush authorized the start began negotiations for a free trade agreement with Thailand. The harsh crackdown on drug suspects and the crackdown on freedom of expression under Thaksin prompted the U.S. Congress in 2003 to allocate several million dollars to promote democracy in Thailand. Unrest in southern Thailand worried the United States that its might fuel expanding terrorism and Islamic extremism in Southeast Asia. In 2006, after the military coup. The United States suspended $35 million in funds, most of it military aid, and free trade negations were suspended, Both were resumed after the election in December 2007.
See Trade, Economics, Military
U.S. -Thai Relations Under the Obama Administration
After years of paying little attention to Thailand, the began showing more interest in the country in the early 2010s. With a relatively short period of time, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff and U.S. President Barack Obama all made visits. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Thai leaders several times.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Thailand in November 2011 as the country was recovering from the devastating floods. She announced the U.S. would provide $10 million in aid and visited with flood victims seeking shelter in a gymnasium at a national stadium complex.
The U.S. government criticized Thailand for involuntarily repatriating Hmong refugees back to Laos. See Hmong
U.S. -Thai Military Cooperation Under the Obama Administration
In June 2012, Craig Whitlock wrote in the Washington Post: “The two countries are discussing whether to run a joint military hub for responding to the devastating cyclones, tsunamis and other natural disasters that frequently strike the region. The center would be located at the Royal Thai Navy Air Field at U-Tapao, about 90 miles south of Bangkok. The U.S. military is well-acquainted with U-Tapao (OOH-ta-pow), where it built the two-mile-long runway — one of the longest in Asia — in the 1960s. The Pentagon relied on the airfield as a major staging and refueling base during the Vietnam War. [Source: Craig Whitlock, Washington Post, June 22, 2012~]
“The Thai government has allowed the U.S. Air Force to use U-Tapao as a stopover for troop transit flights to the Middle East. The base is also the center for the annual Cobra Gold military exercises, which started out as a U.S.-Thai training program but now involves more than 20 countries. U.S. officials have been vague in public about how many troops they might send to U-Tapao or what missions they might perform if the disaster-relief center comes to fruition. The lack of information has bred suspicion in the Thai media and among opposition lawmakers, who have held up a separate project that would allow NASA to operate climate-change surveillance flights from U-Tapao this fall. Chinese officials have also expressed skepticism about an expanded U.S. military presence. ~
“Catharin Dalpino, a former State Department official and Southeast Asia expert, said any new U.S.-Thai military accords were likely to be “modest.” She noted that Thailand has a history of working closely with both superpowers and would be unlikely to sign any agreements that would alienate either Washington or Beijing. “The Thais have a long relationship with China and a positive relationship with China, but they do not see this as contradictory with maintaining a treaty alliance with the United States and a strong economic relationship with the United States,” she said. ~
“Some U.S. military officials said they also would like to upgrade naval access to Thai ports. The U.S. Navy is preparing to base four of its newest warships — known as Littoral Combat Ships — in Singapore and would like to rotate them periodically to Thailand and other southeast Asian countries. The Navy is also pursuing options to conduct joint airborne surveillance missions from Thailand, the Philippines and Australia, officials said. Pentagon leaders said one of their highest strategic priorities is to improve their surveillance of shipping traffic and military movements throughout Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean, home to some of the busiest trade routes in the world. ~
“In 2014, for instance, the Navy is scheduled to begin deploying new P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance and anti-submarine aircraft to the Pacific, replacing the Cold War-era P-3C Orion surveillance planes. The Navy is preparing to deploy new high-altitude surveillance drones to the Asia-Pacific region around the same time. Under current plans, the drones will be based on Guam, but U.S. officials are also searching for Asian partners willing to host the aircraft. ~
Obama Visits Thailand in 2012 and Flirts with the Thai Prime
U.S. President Barack Obama visited Thailand in November 2012, Associated Press and the Daily Mail reported: “ Obama said it is 'no accident' that he planned his first foreign trip to Asia after winning re-election. Speaking at a news conference on Sunday in Bangkok, Obama emphasized that the U.S. is a 'Pacific nation. 'He said the Asia-Pacific region will be crucial for creating jobs in the U.S. and shaping its security and prosperity. Obama's praised Thailand for being a supporter of democracy in Myanmar, the once-pariah state that is rapidly reforming. He said he appreciated the Thai prime minister's insights into Myanmar during their meetings. [Source: Thanyarat Doksone, AP, November 18, 2012]
“The president's visit made quite an impression on Thailand, and adoring crowds gathered around him and chanted ‘Obama, Obama’ as he visited the Temple of Reclining Buddha just after arriving in Bangkok. The Temple of Reclining Buddha, formally known as Wat Pho, was the first stop on President Barack Obama's Asian tour that will also take him to Myanmar and Cambodia.
“Observing traditional custom, Obama took off his shoes as a saffron-robed monk led him and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton through the 18th century temple's stoned paved compound of multi-colored spires and chapels with hundreds of gilded Buddha images. But the main attraction is the reclining Buddha statue that at 150 feet long, and 50 feet high, stretches half the length of a football field. The statue is made of bricks and plaster and covered in gold leaf with mother-of-pearl inlay decorating the feet. Obama joked with a monk at the monastery that he hoped praying would help his administration reach a deal on the budget. At his news conference with PM Shinawatra, Obama said: 'I always believe in prayer. If a Buddhist monk is wishing me well, I’m going to take whatever good vibes he can give me to try to deal with some challenges back home.'
“The visit to Thailand, less than 18 hours long, is a gesture of friendship to a long-standing partner and major non-NATO ally. It was the first stop on President Barack Obama's Asian tour that also took him to Myanmar and Cambodia. Obama arrived at the Wat Pho temple straight from the airport after landing in Bangkok...The visit was meant to give Obama a taste of Bangkok. But one thing Obama did not get to see as he sped through Bangkok was the city's infamous traffic jams. All roads leading to Wat Pho and his other destinations were blocked and cleared of cars as part of security measures that included bomb squads and shutting the temple to the public hours in advance.
“Camera-clad tourists who came to visit the temple or glimpse the American leader were initially dismayed. They were kept hundreds of meters (yards) away as his armored Cadillac pulled to a stop inside a white tent erected at the temple's entrance, which obscured him from sight. But those who waited an hour for his temple tour to end were elated. A smiling Obama waved from the backseat of his car, which drove slowly alongside cheering crowds as he headed to a royal audience with Thailand's revered, ailing monarch, 84-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
"It's meaningful that Obama came straight to Wat Pho," said Pradab Supradit, a 67-year-old Thai grandmother who took a bus, a river ferry and then walked up roads closed for security hoping to glimpse the man or just see his convoy. "It will bring him blessings because temples are at the center of Thai people's hearts." "I want to see him with my own eyes," she said. "I like Obama because of his charisma and personality. He's a smart guy. I love the way he talks."
On Obama’s time with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, the Daily Mail reported: “President Obama is practicing a new brand of foreign relations, appearing to flirt with Thailand’s attractive prime minister on his first stop of his three-day tour of Southeast Asia. The president and Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra could be seen laughing together and exchanging playful glances through a state dinner at the Government House in Bangkok. And just hours later, Obama jetted to Myanmar, where he was pictured lavishing affection on Aung San Suu Kyi. [Source: Daily Mail, November 18, 2012]
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Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, Tourist Authority of Thailand, Thailand Foreign Office, The Government Public Relations Department, CIA World Factbook, Compton’s Encyclopedia, The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, AFP, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, Global Viewpoint (Christian Science Monitor), Foreign Policy, Wikipedia, BBC, CNN, NBC News, Fox News and various books and other publications.
Last updated May 2014