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

309. Telegram From the Embassy in Pakistan to the Department of State¹

Karachi, February 16, 1966.

1618. Eyes only the President from the Vice President. Dept pass White House.

1. My meeting with His Majesty the King of Thailand on the same day as my meeting with the Prime Minister reported to you earlier (Bangkok Embtel unn DTG 141920Z)² also brought home from a completely different source the same sense of grinding urgency and concern felt by the Thai about the Communist threat to their country. The King wasted no time at all over pleasantries and went straight to the point. He is deeply worried about the Communist killings and terroristic threats in the northeast particularly and determined to see something done about it. For this, however, he was frank to say his people need further help from US.

2. His Majesty has been studying the situation in Viet Nam very carefully and pointed to a number of things which has been done there which could be applied here. He specifically mentioned river craft and light helicopters equipped with radio and radar to control Communist infiltration across the Mekong. Other things such as transportation and communications to enable the police to provide basic security in threatened up-country areas were also of vital importance. I told him I too was concerned by the clear parallel between what was going on now in Thailand and what had happened in South Viet Nam and that the time to act was now, before it became too late. I said we were willing to assist with technical equipment and the best advice we could provide, but it was up to the Thai to provide the manpower. With this His Majesty readily agreed.

3. The King was concerned also about the broader question of the fight for menʼs minds, pointing out a number of examples of Communist trickery which had taken in the naive and gullible people living in the rural up-country areas principally threatened. I replied that we could meet this type of unconventional warfare if we could organize ourselves properly to meet it, and one of the most important things was to let the people know that their government was really concerned about them and willing to help in a whole variety of ways, besides providing basic security, in such fields as health, education, and assistance to the basic economy. His Majesty agreed completely (I understand he has been doing a lot of this himself out of his own pocket) but went on to say that we couldnʼt at the same time wait for technical perfection and to meet all the technical standards set up by the professional economists as preconditions to future U.S. assistance. He appreciated our problems with the Congress but the time to move in Thailand was now. An example of this, supplied by Amb. Martin, was our insistence on applying here rigid criteria for the establishment of up-country rural electrification cooperatives demanding proof of sufficient customers to provide immediate economic returns on the investment. I said this was something you would particularly appreciate with your own early experience in Texas, where application of such criteria would have meant that there never would have been a start on the Texas cooperatives.

I found most moving the Kingʼs genuine worry and concern and his great desire himself to help. It was an impressive plea which he made, and I did my best to reassure him both as to our own intentions in SE Asia as brought out in Honolulu and on our specific concern with the situation here in Thailand. Taken in conjunction with my conversation with the Prime Minister and members of his Cabinet and my own brief observations in my short stopover yesterday in the northeast, I believe the Kingʼs remarks serve to add further impetus to the need of cutting bureaucratic red tape at home and moving as fast as we can to implement the recommendations already made by Ambassador Martin and all his principal advisors here on the ground.

McConaughy

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 7 US/HUMPHREY. Secret; Exdis. There was no time of transmission on the source text, which was received in the Department of State at 3:44 a.m. on February 16. A memorandum of this conversation between Humphrey and the King, 3 p.m., February 12, prepared by Deputy Chief of Mission Wilson in Bangkok, is ibid., POL THAI–US.
2. Document 308.