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

311. Memorandum From Director of Central Intelligence Raborn to the Executive Chairman of the Senior Interdepartmental Group (Ball)¹

Washington, March 11, 1966.

SUBJECT

• A Suggestion Concerning the Present Insurgency in Thailand

1. At the last Senior Interdepartmental Group (SIG) meeting, Mr. Vance proposed we defer making concrete recommendations regarding specific proposals presented by our Embassy in Bangkok, stating that we should take a more comprehensive look at the entire problem and our response to it, to make sure we would start off on the right track. It is in connection with our starting off correctly and effectively on this problem that I wish to make certain observations and recommendations to you and to the other members of the SIG.

2. Much of what I shall say here will be based on our experiences in Vietnam over the past few years. I know that we should all like to avoid some of the faulty courses which we pursued there, and should at the same time like to apply some of the hard-won lessons of that experience.

3. In the first place, we should adopt a mental approach to the Thai problem which gives full recognition to the fact that at least the initial stages such as we see today, are distinctly civil (as opposed to military) in character, and should be approached from a civil standpoint, with military capabilities playing an important but supporting role. We should avoid at all cost a gradually hardening view that the Thai subversive problem is one that will essentially respond to military suppression. Rather, we should recognize it as a fact that the present purposes of the Communist insurgency in Thailand are to intimidate segments of the rural population and detach them from their government. Their purpose here is to carve out a popular base on which their program can grow in terms of capability to develop terror, subversion and armed insurgency.

4. Thus, our response to this challenge, and our advice and support to the Thais, should be principally directed at these tactics and activities of the Communists, to prevent their creating such a base. Suppression and the military punishment of armed bands of insurgents indeed play a role in such an effort, but we have learned it should be a supporting role, and not the dominant one. I therefore feel most strongly that our American support of and advice to the Thais should start from a civil premise, with our military playing a contributory role. In this field, I feel that the Central Intelligence Agency has in Vietnam developed unique and valuable doctrine of immediate significance to the situation in Thailand, and I believe that this doctrine should basically be adopted as our starting point.

5. Attached you will find a copy of a telegram from the AID Mission in Bangkok to its headquarters in Washington.² This telegram is self-explanatory, but it may be useful to observe that the Thais are showing a good instinct in recognizing a need for advisory help. What seems to me to be missing, however, is the expansion of this thought to the degree necessary to deal with the kind of insurgency they face now and in the near future. The Thais request in effect a technician. I think it would be an error to respond in such a narrow fashion. I think rather that we in the SIG should recognize that an American of seniority, experience, and practical background in this field should be added to Ambassador Martinʼs staff, responsible directly to the Ambassador, who would exercise positive guidance and coordination of our total effort to assist the Thais against their insurgency in the military, civil and intelligence sectors. This position should be roughly analogous to the position of Ambassador Porter in Saigon but in Thailand this person need not be in the Embassy chain of command as such, although he must have some authority, in the Ambassadorʼs name, over our military and civilian agencies, certainly as their work relates to counterinsurgency. He should be the Ambassadorʼs assistant for driving forward and shaping all of our American effort, both military and civil, in helping the Thais combat their insurgency. The raising of this function to this level would not only insure effective and constant coordination of the Ambassadorʼs effort, but would also emphasize to the Thais the gravity and importance we attach to the really massive problem facing them and against which they have asked our help.

6. If you and the other members of the SIG generally concur in the observations contained in this memorandum, and should like to adopt them for implementation, I would be happy to offer for this post my Special Assistant for Vietnamese Affairs, Mr. Peer de Silva, who, as you know, has had recent and detailed experience in Vietnam in the field under discussion. To avoid any possible misunderstanding, I am offering Mr. De Silva for the specific assignment described in this memorandum.

W.F. Raborn ³

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Agency File, SIG, Memos & Misc. [IV]. Confidential. The Senior Review Group (SIG) was created in early March 1966 and chaired by Under Secretary of State Ball. Under the SIG were Interdepartmental Regional Groups chaired by the appropriate Assistant Secretary of State. The idea was to return to the Department of State primary responsibility for foreign policy and the supervision of interdepartmental activities abroad. Copies also sent to the other members of the SIG.
2. Not further identified.
3. Printed from a copy that indicates Raborn signed the original.