Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, East Asia and the Pacific, Volume XII, Part 2

Bangkok Embassy files, lot 57 F 139

No. 422
The Officer in Charge of Thai and Malayan Affairs (Landon) to the Ambassador in Thailand (Donovan)

top secret

Washington, May 14, 1954.

Dear General Donovan: Although our exchanges of telegrams and letters have not been numerous since your return to Bangkok I am sure that we have both been very active in pushing forward our various projects. I just had a telephone call from Mrs. Catherine Savage and told her that I had had two telegrams¹ from you mentioning her name and had written her a letter explaining the present status of the Chennault proposal.² She appeared to be satisfied.

You asked about the navigational aids costing $600,000. FOA informs me that they have almost completed the technical arrangements and studies necessary and are now in the process of designating the funds so that apparently these aids should be arriving shortly.

I have been in frequent touch with Bill Godell³ in regard to your numerous projects and some new ones. The suggestion which you made in your No. 2242⁴ came at a most timely moment. I arranged the material and provided the background on this for Robert Murphy to discuss with Under [Deputy] Secretary Anderson of Defense in an OCB meeting last Wednesday, May 12. At that meeting Anderson and Murphy reached general agreement to sound out the Thai Government. I drafted a telegram to you and to Geneva and then went to Defense to get Anderson’s initial of approval. I spent two hours with General Erskine,⁵ Bill Godell, about forty minutes with Admiral Radford and another half hour with Under [Deputy] Secretary Anderson on this subject and on the general subject of military assistance to Thailand. It seemed to me that Anderson was ahead of his Joint Chiefs in willingness to provide assistance as you requested to Thailand. Admiral Radford had strong personal reservations in desiring not to “immobilize” essential military equipment which he feels will be necessary for the kind of war which he thinks we are heading into. While I was in Anderson’s office he got Bob Murphy on the phone and we agreed on the telegram which I then drafted to Bedell Smith at Geneva and to you “Eyes only” on this subject.⁶

I have before me Bedell Smith’s reply⁷ which, as you could guess, is in hearty support of your recommendation, pointing out the importance of having a base and maintenance facilities in Thailand, not only for practical but for morale purposes. I am arranging to have this telegram repeated to you “Eyes only” so that you will have it before this letter. You will note Eden’s remark regarding Burma which seems to be the first optimistic note on the position of that country.

You doubtless also noted the telegram I sent when your recommendation first came in,⁸ in which I wrote that it was urgently desired to move ahead on the highway and suggesting the desirability of shaking the Thai loose and getting them to make their formal request with any further substantive specifications necessary. The Secretary himself raised this point. He further has asked the Thai Chargé as to what is holding up the Thai Government’s request for an enlarged Army.⁹ The Joint Chiefs are currently studying these questions and it is my impression that they feel that the Thai Army cannot be increased because of the lack of trained commissioned and non-commissioned officers. I suppose, therefore, that the emphasis in General Gillmore’s recommendations and in the Thai Government’s requests should bear on this aspect of the problem. I have just received a letter addressed to Mr. Murphy from the Deputy Secretary of Defense¹⁰ indicating lack of funds for any large-scale build-up but adding that the Joint Chiefs are studying the question. As you know, anything can be done in Government if you have to do it if the world situation and national policy demands that it be done, so I suppose that even though there are no funds for some of these Thai projects they can be discovered when the urgency is fully realized.

In Washington the Secretary has had several rounds of conversations with the nine Ambassadors of the countries in Southeast Asia whom he hopes to draw into his projected “united action”. So he is working with patience on this project.

The question of action regarding Indochina at the United Nations is very active right now and yesterday afternoon there was a large meeting in the Secretary’s office to discuss this question. The Secretary is reluctant to have Cambodia take the question before the United Nations because he does not believe that Cambodia is fully independent and, therefore, would lack popular and public appeal. He instructed that the Thai Foreign Minister be sounded out on this question and a telegram went off last night on this subject.¹¹ As far as I know it was not repeated to Bangkok as it was purely a tentative approach to get the Foreign Minister’s personal reaction. If he indicates his willingness to do so, and I doubt whether he would make any such indication before securing the views of the Prime Minister, the next move would be for us once again to sound out the French. In this connection Ambassador Lodge at the United Nations in New York has sent in a very strong and very good telegram¹² pointing up the desirability of bringing the Indochina situation into the United Nations. This telegram may have a decisive effect. At any rate, that is the direction in which we seem to be moving; that is, not depending on Geneva but trying to push ahead with some sort of collective action, first of a political nature, and then probably going to the United Nations. Your telegram in relation to Laos and Cambodia¹³ was very helpful and I participated in drafting the reply to you.¹⁴

I will write you again in a few days to keep you up to date on the news behind the news. One more thing—the Secretary seems to prefer initially a leased base agreement with Thailand rather than a mutual security treaty, as the former would be an executive agreement while the latter would have to run the gauntlet of the Senate and has much greater implication and involvement inherent in it.

My regards to Howard Parsons.¹⁵ With best personal regards.

Sincerely yours,

Kenneth

1. Neither printed.
2. The reference is not clear, but it may be to a proposal for an International Volunteer Air Group. The letter has not been found in Department of State files.
3. William H. Godell, Deputy Director of the Office of Special Operations, Department of Defense.
4. Document 417.
5. Gen. G.B. Erskine, USMC (ret.), Director of the Office of Special Operations, Department of Defense.
6. Document 419.
7. Document 420.
8. See footnote 3, Document 418.
9. Reference is to the Chargé’s May 10 conversation with Secretary Dulles; see Part 1, p. 468.
10. Document 416.
11. Telegram 761 to Geneva, May 13; for text, see vol. xvi, p. 790.
12. Telegram 721 from New York, May 13; for text, see vol. xiii, Part 2, p. 1554.
13. Telegram 2255 from Bangkok, May 11, not printed.
14. Telegram 2229 to Bangkok, May 13, not printed.
15. Howard L. Parsons, Counselor of Embassy in Bangkok.