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

330. Telegram From the Ambassador to Thailand (Martin) to William Jorden of the National Security Council Staff¹

Bangkok, October 14, 1966, 1303Z.

733. Literally Eyes Only for Bill Jorden. Subject: Joint Rusk-McNamara memorandum on FY 1967 MAP level for Thailand.

1. When Bill Moyers sent you Bangkok 0654,² he also asked that I forward my comments on any factors, additional to those covered in Rusk-McNamara memorandum and covering Rusk memorandum,³ which in my judgment should be considered by the President in reaching a decision.

2. I have only a few comments on the joint memorandum. I make these in the interests of factual accuracy. The agreed statement in para 3 under discussion that “the resulting U.S. construction program in Thailand will provide the Thais a new deep water port, a countrywide communications system, new and improved roads, POL pipelines and new and improved airfields, all costing more than $250 million over the last four years is misleading. I am told funds for 1965 and 1966 total $210 million. But even under the cited $250 million U.S. military construction program, the Sattahip port will not be developed to point where it will be useful to Thai in the medium-range future as commercial port due to its distance from Bangkok. The U.S. countrywide communications system is Tropo, not compatible with Thai microwave system and not adaptable for future commercial use without great cost to Thai. Thai are now using World Bank loan at commercial interest rates to finance their own countrywide system. The POL pipeline has been eliminated from current funding. The new and improved airfields, with one exception, will be of minimal use to Thai. It is true that the highways will be of great use. In sum, it is just not credible to argue that the expenditure of this $250 million is of much more permanent use to the Thai than the $500 million of airfields in Morocco which now provide acres of concrete which cannot be farmed and on which sheep cannot graze. We needed them for our purposes. And with exception of one airfield and the highways, the $250 million military construction program is similarly of minimal long-range economic benefit to Thai. They are under construction because we need them now. Similarly, in para 5 b, it is said that program recommended by Stilwell, endorsed by CINCPAC and the JCS, called for increase in “size and equipment of Thai forces.” This is accurate on “equipment.” It is inaccurate on “size.” Program only recommended Thai bring forces up to present authorized strength—a recommendation consistently made by DOD. Finally, with respect to the last sentence of para 6, I am quite genuinely appreciative of Secretary McNamaraʼs confidence. However, as I have previously stated, I do not believe the most imaginative and resourceful diplomacy will be able to prevent a cost to the U.S. far greater than the amount in question if the $35 million level is approved.

3. Bill Bundy has been consistently opposed to my “rehashing the past.” During part of this period he was in ISA and he may well be right. I do think the following has a relevance and pertinence to the decision the President is now asked to make. The principal factor, touched upon only obliquely in para 8b, that should be added is feeling the Thai have of an intense personal identification of President Johnson with Thailand, with Thai affairs generally but very specifically with MAP level for Thailand.

4. Over and over I have heard the refrain that President Johnson, during his 1961 visit, was the only senior American visitor who ever took time to explore Thai problems deeply and understand them. Moreover, he was the only one who after such close and detailed action, actually followed through, kept his promises, and secured the raising of the military assistance level.

5. As I have been able to reconstruct this visit, the President did conduct a searching review of the needs of the military establishment. He accepted the political realism of the absolute necessity here of a small, highly efficient, conventional military force structure, with maximum emphasis on mobility and a counterinsurgency capability. He examined the uses to which the Thai internal resources were being devoted, and concluded that the incredibly high concentration of more than 60 percent on the social and economic infrastructure was right and that it was very much in our interest that it be continued. He then obtained a very large increase in the MAP level to achieve the required modernization of the military force structure.

6. The following year, 1962, the aid level rose to $81 million. Had we been able to continue at a somewhat lower level for the next five years, we could not accept a $35 million level, and look forward to progressively reducing that figure. Instead, the bureaucratic mattress mice had a field day in nibbling away at a soundly conceived program until it was so distorted that Thai ability to plan commitment of their own resources, including training programs, in tandem with expected deliveries, was almost destroyed. Then, in a weird inversion of logic, American investigators of various sorts, turned in critical reports on “lack of Thai performance” (inevitable under the circumstances of our own performance) which are now cited by those who opposed the Johnson program, as reasons for cutting the program further (para 8b last phrase penultimate sentence para 7a, etc.).

7. The aid levels for years after 1962 are cited in the joint memorandum. Usually we were never able to tell the Thai until the last month or two in any fiscal year the details of the program for that year. Constant shifting, arbitrary cancellations of items by DOD, substitutions of others, cancellation of agreed programs on which Thai had spent considerable sums to put in their share of resources—all these factors had gone a long way to degrading Thai confidence in the performance of promises of the U.S. military establishment in Thailand. The fact remains that my ability in August of 1965 to inform Thai for first time of level in advance of their budget year, commencing October 1, resulted in “dramatic improvements.)

8. Some of these Thai attitudes I have been able to change. We at least make no more promises until funds have been approved. And when we do make a promise, I insist the commitment be fulfilled, unless we negotiate our way out of it. Gradually, some respect for the integrity of our given word is returning. I have personally kept control of matters affecting actual U.S. military operations conducted from Thailand. And I have meticulously cleared in advance each new operational phase. Therefore, on the basis of the actual record of performance, we have been able to contain Thanatʼs recent attempts to exert a larger control over our operations. Our only remaining serious vulnerability is the present inadequacy in level and the prior erratic administration of the military aid program. Thanat will use this on his return, as he did before his departure, to attack the credibility of our commitment.

9. And, intuitively sensitive to American thinking, he may be right in doing so from the point of view of his responsibilities for the future safety of his nation. No Thai will accept the premise on which the $35 million level is based—that only a light constabulary force is needed for counterinsurgency and internal security—that if more is needed the U.S. will automatically be there with the additional force needed. The Thai have never placed their future that completely in the hands of any foreign power. And they never will. They fully intend to have a modern though small military force structure capable of giving a potential aggressor at least cause to hesitate. When Thanat talks of Fulbright, Morse, John Oakes, et al., he is also talking about senior level people on both sides of the Potomac who, he senses, would be delighted to seize the first faintly plausible pretext to disengage from Southeast Asia. He develops this theme from the inordinate delay in answering the request of February to the Vice President for the temporary rotary airlift assistance until they could provide a part of what they need in January 1967.

10. The “terrible reluctance” to risk becoming “engaged” was not lost on Thanat. Nor the fact that this reluctance came at a time when I was asking them daily to permit us to do more things that enormously increased their own “engagement”. That is why Wayne Morseʼs savage indictment that Thai insurgency is automatic outcome of their assistance to us (particularly validated incidentally by documents captured by Thai intelligence) can be used by Thanat with devastating effect when he returns.

11. Now, the monumental irony in all this is that the Thai desperately wish to avoid any American troop engagement whatever in their handling of their own insurgency problem. Their desire to avoid this is far greater than the similar desire in either the Pentagon or the Department of State. It would, therefore, seem highly desirable to assist them as rapidly as possible to gain the capability to do this with their own manpower. This can only be achieved by two courses. Get back to the program the President outlined in 1961, which will require $60–$70 million for next two years at least. The second is to tell them plainly that we cannot do this and tell them now what we will do, so they can begin to cut back their “nation-building” program to provide the difference. I think if we encourage the latter course, future historians will record it as a monumental error. So much of what is constructive in Asian development has bubbled up out of Bangkok in the last two years, it seems a pity to risk the arresting of this progress for an amount which, relatively, would gain enormous returns on the investment. I do not believe Thai will cease cooperation with us if this is not done. They are not that kind of people. Having always been free, they have not acquired the habit of other Asians of psychologically substituting the U.S. for the former colonial power who was supposed to be blackmailed or cheated at every opportunity. Never once in my three years here has there been an association between the countless requests I have made of them and their requests for our assistance. The granting of our requests was their contribution, as equal partners in meeting their SEATO obligations. Their requests to us are for what they wish to get them over the gap between their resources and their current requirements. What will happen is the end of the unlimited freedom we have had to use this real estate as we please.

12. If, rather than my usual relaxed posture, I seem intense about this, it is because I deeply believe that the surge of events in Asia, and the catalytic interaction of these events, is creating a momentum which most Asians obviously believe has almost assured the achievement of the immediate objective of the denial of Southeast Asia to Chinese hegemony.

13. But it can also accelerate the increasing cohesion of the free nations of Asia into an interdependent grouping which will be politically viable, largely economically self-sufficient, with indigenous military forces evolving patterns of association and interchange that can insure region against all threats except overt aggression from a major power. As I think you will discover at Manila, this process is moving faster than is realized in Washington. In short, we are on the verge of a major achievement, historically no less important than our European success in the fifties. I want this administration and this President to be credited with this achievement which is well within our capabilities. And continued full cooperation of Thai can make task vastly easier to accomplish.

14. I apologize for the length but I do believe these comments to be relevant.⁴

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Thailand, Vol. V, Cables, 10/66–2/67. Secret. [text not declassified]
2. Not found.
3. See Document 329 and the attachment thereto.
4. Printed from an unsigned copy.