In 1956, Bangkok-based writer Jorges Orgibet co-founded the FCCT with a handful of friends so international correspondents could count on a congenial community of writers, intellectuals, and insiders whenever they passed through Bangkok.

Fifty years later, FCCT has grown to become one of the most important foreign correspondents' clubs in Asia and by far the biggest in Southeast Asia. It has hosted ambassadors, prime ministers, Nobel Prize winners, and even the Dalai Lama. It has also been the site of a number of long nights of drinking, debating, and trouble-making.

In expanding over the years, the Club has widened its appeal so that its membership now contains not only Thai and foreign correspondents and journalists but also many business people, diplomats, non-governmental workers, and retirees.

The great Oriental Hotel, a one-time home to FCCT, graciously offered to host a celebratory luncheon for the club last October as a gesture of recognition for its contributions to a free and vibrant press in Thailand.

On hand were some of the biggest luminaries in the annals of Southeast Asian journalism, including Associated Press Bangkok bureau chief Denis Gray, Vietnam war correspondent James Pringle, and Emmy Award-winning cameraman, Derek Williams.