740.0011 P. W./426
Memorandum by Mr. Cecil W. Gray, Assistant to the Secretary of State
In a conversation between Acting Secretary Welles and Secretary Hull at White Sulphur Springs there was some discussion about Thailand and its relation to the latest Japanese move southward.24 On this point the Secretary commented somewhat as follows:
They (the Japanese) are talking about some big future move. There is something being planned. I think myself that if we don’t watch out a possible move toward the Burma Road will be made. I think that is all important to them. I haven’t any faith in the Siamese at all and I think the whole crowd is in the clutches of the Japanese. They just use the British or anybody in their effort to handle the Japanese more satisfactorily. I would want to know for certain whether they would stand up and, if they do, I would be disposed to give them the same help we give China. What would the Chinese position be on this? Would they have any chance to collaborate with the Siamese? I think that should be gone into from the bottom to see what can be salvaged out of that original betrayal of everybody by the Siamese to Japan. The point I make is that there is a sufficient community of interests, although it differs in degree, to justify our salvaging what we can because, if the Japs move into Thailand, they thereby gain access to the Burma Road so that they can destroy that. They would have access then down the peninsula to Singapore although they tell me that is a very rough terrain to get over. At any rate you see this point. It might seriously affect the Chinese angle of the Japanese Far Eastern situation. That doesn’t mean that we have to take the lead.
- See memorandum by the Acting Secretary of State, July 31, 1941, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. ii, p. 539.↩