Wan Waithayakon

Prince Wan Waithayakon (1891-1976) was elected President of the Eleventh Session of the United Nations General Assembly, while serving as Thailand's Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

He is a graduate of Oxford University and the Paris Institute of Political Studies (best known as Sciences Po), and began his vocational career as a foreign service officer in 1917. He was appointed advisor to King Rama VI in 1922. In 1924, he was promoted to the rank of Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and was responsible for negotiating several important amendments to political and commercial treaties with Western powers.

He was sent to Europe again in 1926 as Minister accredited to the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Belgium. During that period, he also served as head of the Thai delegation to the League of Nations, where he was active in a number of important commissions as member, vice-president and president. Prince Wan returned to Thailand in 1930, to accept a professorial chair at the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University.

For the next 30 years, Prince Wan continued to serve his country in a number of important diplomatic missions, some of the notable milestones being negotiations with Japan in 1943, participation in the SEATO Council and the Bandung Conference, where he was elected Rapporteur, and negotiations leading to Thailand's admission to the United Nations.

In 1947, Prince Wan was appointed Ambassador to the United States and served concurrently as Ambassador to the United Nations. He is regarded as one of the founding fathers of philology criticism in Thailand.