Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XXIV, Laos Crisis

344. Memorandum of Telephone Conversation Between President Kennedy and Acting Secretary of State Ball⁰

Washington, May 6, 1962, 10:45 a.m.

Ball called the President to bring him up to date on the Laotian situation. He said to this point we have not received anything further on the Nam Tha attack. We are getting a message to the Secretary asking him to send a strong telegram to Gromyko through Thompson, and we are also having the Britisher, MacDonald, out there see if he can’t get in touch with Souphanouvong and then in Paris we are having a contact made with Souvanna Phouma to inform him of the situation and see if he won’t move into it. The President asked that we say we have really been working them pretty hard with some hope. Now this doesn’t help.¹

Ball told the President Averell’s interpretation of it, and Ball thought there was a good deal to support it, was that this is a kind of counterproductive effort on the Communist side to give us a warning that Phoumi had better move and probably an effort to put pressure on Phoumi himself, although it certainly is going to make it much more difficult for us to take the very measures which are necessary to mount that kind of pressure. The President said it would be interesting to know whether there was any fighting. That gets to be very much of a gut issue in this thing. Ball told him the telegram would indicate that the boys put their track shoes on pretty promptly.

The President said he had noticed some Americans were evacuated. He asked if they could be interviewed right away, for if they did not get to fighting that’s one thing. If they didn’t do anything but go out of there casually, then the same old problem is you didn’t fight. You have to get that out because there will be a lot of people yelling for us to do one thing or another. Ball said we would get on that.

The President mentioned this morning’s New York Times article about the 200 Chinese involved in it—that it was reported from American sources. He asked if this was a correct story. Ball said he would get on it.² Ball asked if the President was coming back this afternoon and the President replied he was.

0. Source: Kennedy Library, Ball Papers, Laos. No classification marking. Transcribed in Ball’s office.
1. These steps were suggested to Rusk, who was in Greece, in Tosec 97 to Athens, May 6. (Department of State, Central Files, 751J.00/5–662)
2. Ball telephoned Harriman at 11:15 a.m. to inform him of the President’s questions: had there been any real fighting and were the “Communists” [Chinese?] involved in the Muong Sing attack near the Chinese border? Harriman stated that there were few Americans in the area, only a handful of defenders [in Muong Sing?] and “anybody could have gone in and taken it.” (Memorandum of telephone conversation between Ball and Harriman, May 6, 11:15 a.m.; Kennedy Library, Ball Papers, Laos)