Now that more than half a century has passed, how has the “tangled skein” of Thailand's secret war come to be viewed? Given the sharp clashes of interest between the Allies, and the fact that Thai politics quickly polarized, leaving the two most prominent Free Thai leaders, Pridi and Seni, in opposing camps, it is hardly surprising that much controversy remains.

John Haseman, author of the only previous English-language, book-length scholarly study of the Free Thai, published in 1978 before American and British intelligence documents were declassified, credited the Free Thai movement with the preservation of Thailand's postwar sovereignty, but had little to say about inter-Allied competition, Free Thai internal conflicts, or the postwar consequences. In regard to the latter, he blandly commented that the movement “provided the power base of individuals who were to become major Thai leaders.” Historian Thamsook Numnonda, in a 1977 study of wartime Thailand, better captured the political fallout of the secret war, commenting that “The deep-seated distrust and jealousy among the leading Free Thais resulted in mutual suspicion and irreconcilable differences among their supporters. Effects of these have permeated through postwar Thai politics until today.”

Even the size of the Free Thai movement has become a bone of contention. In his Thai-language study, summarized in an English booklet published in 1991, Sorasak Ngamcachonkulkid questioned figures used by Haseman, Thamsook, and others crediting the Free Thai with mobilizing a force of 50,000–90,000, arguing that the total Free Thai guerrilla force amounted to only about 8,000.