Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXVII, Mainland Southeast Asia; Regional Affairs

298. Memorandum From the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Bundy) to the Presidentʼs Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)¹

Washington, July 5, 1965.

Our Thai desk officer, Laurence Pickering, a first-rate man with long experience in Thailand, recently spent over two weeks there. His report, which I attach for your personal interest, brings out the central features of the situation more clearly and succinctly than any compact document I have recently seen. I believe it would be worth your while just to look this over for a feel.

My office is already working with ISA on the possible terms of an FY ʼ66 MAP package which might be presented in return for firm Thai commitments. We hope to have something ready for high-level discussion during the course of the week.

William P. Bundy ²

Attachment

Washington, June 28, 1965.

Paper Prepared by the Officer in Charge of Thailand Affairs (Pickering)

SOME OBSERVATIONS BASED ON RECENT TRIP TO THAILAND

I was in Thailand from June 3–20. Of this time, I spent one week (June 10–16) on an up-country trip via Air America helio-courier through Chieng Rai, Chieng Mai, Udorn, Nakon Phanom, Ubon, Roi-et, and Korat. I met with provincial governors (many of whom I had known before) and other Thai officials and with Americans at our many and varied installations. While in Bangkok I had numerous opportunities for discussions with senior Thai officials whom I had known from my previous assignment there in addition to meetings with all senior officers of the U.S. diplomatic mission.

Following are the outstanding impressions of the present situation which I carried away.

1. There is evidence of considerable progress toward meeting basic problems. There is no question in my mind but that the Communists are active in Northeast Thailand. The assassination of the Kamnan (township head) of the village on which the ARD project in Nakon Phanom is centered just one day before the visit to that village of General Praphat is one more of a series of incidents which can hardly be explained otherwise. However, Communist activity is as yet not intensive, and there are a great many positive factors at work to make the most of the time we have.

A. A big payoff from our investment in roads is beginning to be evident. The Bangkok to Nong Kai highway has tied the Northeast into the rest of the country in a new and important way. Even towns well off the path of the highway, such as Rio-et, have reaped clear economic benefits from the ready access to the Capital and its markets, and travel to and from the Capital is much more frequent (witness the appearance of three new hotels in this small provincial town since the Bangkok-Nong Kai road was opened). Bill Klausner, an Asia Foundation representative who knows the Northeast about as well as any American and who is married to a Thai from a village in Ubon province, tells me that, primarily as a result of better roads plus a long period of political and economic stability, the economic lot of the average villager in the Northeast has visibly improved in recent years. The economic effects of the Northern security road, both in terms of reduced transportation costs and better prices for rice and other produce, are already a matter of record although the road is still under construction and traversing it entails bypassing many bridges still not completed.

B. The MDUs have had a valuable impact, and the ARD is just now reaching a point where it should begin to pay off. A great many problems were encountered in the first year of the ARD (e.g., inadequately trained personnel, some hold-up in delivery of certain items of equipment) but many of the bugs have been ironed out and during the coming dry season a great deal should be accomplished. ARD projects are already underway in six provinces and will begin in five more during the next dry season. The main emphasis continues to be placed on road building (which in my opinion is not a bad focus of effort) but in the provinces I visited there is adequate recognition of the importance of improvements in other fields as well.

The MDU effort is as always of greatest impact in its initial period, and the need for adequate follow-up is as great as ever. If I had to single out one weakness in this picture, I would cite the evident lack of careful coordination at all levels between the ARD and MDU. I think our side should focus hard on this one.

2. The Thai recognize the magnitude of the problem they face and are prepared to undertake reforms, even drastic reforms, in order to prepare themselves to meet it.

A. Their willingness to make unprecedented delegations of authority and budget to the provincial governors in connection with the ARD is already fully documented. In the critical province of Nakon Phanom, the Thai have assigned a tough, effective governor with a record of successful crime suppression in other areas of the country, and have given him extensive authority over the security forces in the province as well as within the traditional range of civil authority.

B. During the brief span of my visit to Thailand, the mission negotiated a program with the Thai laying the basis for critically needed reforms in the Thai National Police. Many skeptics felt that nothing meaningful could be achieved in the short period remaining between the completion of the police study and the end of the fiscal year 1965. In the event, however, the Thai not only agreed to put up the equivalent $4–1/2 million to meet local currency costs in this important program, but they also made an important break-through toward open budgeting of police expenditures instead of the traditional single figure in the budget for all police activities, and agreed to the establishment of a joint Thai/U.S. evaluatory committee to measure progress of this program, a committee which will include senior Thai civilians committed to reform as well as senior police. Ambassador Martin very carefully laid the groundwork for this negotiation in a meeting with General Praphat, a meeting which I attended. The Thai clearly understand the implications of this undertaking and are fully prepared to go through with it.

C. My conversations with senior Thai left me with a conviction that the Thai are ready for similar basic reforms in the Armed Forces and in the civil bureaucracy as well. If given authority similar to that provided in connection with the police program, i.e., the authority to offer a specific package of assistance in return for Thai commitment to achieve certain goals on their side, I firmly believe we can obtain Thai commitments which will result relatively quickly in bringing all Thai ground forces under Project 22 to a level of manning and training that will make them capable of carrying out their missions, and transform the Thai Air Force into the kind of effective organization which the unquestioned skill of many of its individual pilots entitles it to be. This can and should be undertaken on the basis of the relatively modest requests for FY 66 program and add-ons already on the record. There is no need to wait for the completion of any further studies of the situation. In fact, to do so would run a serious risk of losing the atmosphere of readiness to accept major constructive change which clearly exists at present but which could be quickly dissipated by evidence of hesitancy or uncertainty on our part.

I understand from Rand Team members that one of their major recommendations will be for a rather thoroughgoing overhaul of the civil bureaucracy and an across-the-board salary increase of important proportions for the civil bureaucracy as well as the police and Army. (This is basic to getting at the problem of corruption at the lower levels.) Such an ambitious program will of course require an important new increment of U.S. support. If that is forthcoming, the necessary reforms on the Thai side are quite within the realm of possible achievement in the next few years.

3. Many if not most senior Thai feel a sense of uneasiness about the totality of the commitment to the United States which their government has accepted. This showed up most often in comments about Thanatʼs recent statements and speeches in the United States and Japan. Given adequate attention to this problem on our part, I do not see any real danger that this will result in an erosion of the Thai commitment. We must never forget, however, that this commitment is viewed critically and even skeptically by many Thai and that we must miss no opportunity to demonstrate the fact that it is in Thailandʼs interest in the broadest sense to continue the commitment.

4. The impact of the U.S. military build up in the Northeast is immense. When I first visited Udorn in 1961, there were seven Americans, mostly missionaries, in the community. My visit was occasioned by our plan to commit at that time a force of 300 Marines to Udorn as a helicopter support unit. We undertook that step with great trepidation about the impact of such a build-up on a sleepy provincial center such as Udorn. The number of Americans there now is approaching 1,500. In addition, there are even larger numbers committed to Ubon and Korat, plus a small force (200 plus) at Nakon Phanom. Their presence is felt not only in the inevitable frictions and occasional incidents which ordinarily come under the heading of “troop community relations.” Because of the intense air activity in and out of Thailand occasioned by the fact that practically all the land based raids on North Vietnam are being mounted from Thailand, their presence is felt quite pervasively throughout the region. Not only are U.S. planes almost constantly overhead, but the occasional crash of a U.S. aircraft (my friend the governor of Roi-et has had two in his province in recent weeks) and the sticky problem of disposition of ordnance after missions over Vietnam and Laos abort often become a major focus of attention. In the latter case, the ordnance has to be dropped in Thailand. The present area into which such ordnance is dropped is located near Korat. Although the 750 pound bombs usually involved are dropped on “safe”, they very frequently detonate on impact. Two 750s so detonated during a briefing I was receiving from the American base commander at Korat. At present there are said to be some 130 of these 750 pound bombs in the drop area near Korat, all of which will have to be detonated there according to the briefing officer. There have been other cases where it has been necessary to drop ordnance in the Mekong River and in at least one case the ordnance detonated near the Thai side and did considerable physical damage to property. The point of all this is that over the next year or so, as the build-up continues and as air activity intensifies, the government is sure to feel the pressure of complaints of its less pleasant aspects, rendering more difficult the maintenance of a favorable political climate in the country.

To my mind more important than the “troop community relations” problem, however, is the danger that, in the course of our build-up, which has only just begun in terms of construction, augmentation of staff and of aircraft assigned to the area, the role of the Thai Armed Forces, and especially of the Thai Air Force, will be relegated to a position of obvious insignificance. The Americans now assigned to senior positions in the Northeast recall the great contribution to the development of our policy made by the Thai pilots who made the first effective use of air over Laos. However, the turnover of Americans is quite rapid there and in the course of the expansion which I have just referred to there will be a strong and natural tendency to completely forget the Thai role and to come to view these bases as strictly serving U.S. unilateral objectives. Nothing could more certainly poison the atmosphere between the U.S. and the Thai Armed Forces, which in light of the political role of the Armed Forces in Thailand could have a general deleterious effect. In my judgment this cannot be overcome merely by paying deference to the Thai base commander (whose role in this respect will tend to become an almost nominal one), but requires the establishment with the Thai Air Force and with the Armed Forces generally of a truly working relationship which has as its objective preparing the Thai forces for roles that are meaningful in terms of the present situation. This can be done, I believe, through the medium of rapid implementation of Project 22 plus increased emphasis on improvement of the performance of the Thai Air Force and preparation of the Air Force for continued and expanded roles in the present action in Southeast Asia. This could best be achieved by authorizing the Mission now to go in with a specific package of assistance which will be delivered contingent upon performance by the Thai Armed Forces of specific commitments respecting field training and adequate utilization and maintenance of equipment provided.

In conclusion I want to emphasize that the American forces presently deployed to the Northeast and particularly the mission they are carrying out from there are strong plus factors in our relations with the Thai. In emphasizing potential problems related to their presence my objective is to assure that this continues to be true.

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Thailand, Vol. III, Memos, 4/65–12/65. Secret. Also sent to Rusk and McNamara.
2. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.