Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E–12, Documents on East and Southeast Asia, 1973–1976

390. Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, October 9, 1974, 4:30 p.m.¹ ²

Washington, October 9, 1974, 4:30 p.m.

THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION

PARTICIPANTS: William R. Kintner, Ambassador to Thailand
Brent Scowcroft, Lieutenant General, USAF, Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
John A. Froebe, Jr., Staff Member, NSC

DATE, TIME, AND PLACE: October 9, 1974, 4:30 p.m.
The White House

SUBJECT: Thailand’s Political Outlook; U.S. Military Presence in Thailand; Growing Congressional Opposition to Foreign Assistance; Force Withdrawals; U. 5. Military Assistance to Thailand; U.S. Residual Force Presence in Thailand

Ambassador Kintner: I was able to get a ride back on SAC aircraft. I arrived in the States last Sunday. I spent last week in New York, and am now down here.

Thailand’s Political Outlook

General Scowcroft: What’s going on in Thailand and where is the country headed?

Ambassador Kintner: It’s not yet clear. The technical school students have been helpful in the latest round in quieting the other students down. The Constitution was passed by a resounding majority.

As to the King’s view of the new Constitution, he has gotten what he wanted: the Parliament will be bicameral, and he will have a Privy Council. His basic concern is that he doesn’t want to walk too far away from the throne. When he did so in intervening in the overthrow of the Thanom Government he was severely criticized. Thus, he feels that if he can work through a Privy Council, his position will be much better.

U.S. Military Presence in Thailand

I want to kick around two problems. First, the question of the contract to Bird and Son for air resupply to Cambodia. I wasn’t fully informed on the handling of this matter. There are quite a few things that originate in the Pentagon that I’m not fully informed on.

General Scowcroft: Jack, were we in on this and were we kept fully informed?

Mr. Froebe: For the most part we were.

Ambassador Kintner: I was also surprised by the execute order on the F-105 squadron. It came just at the time that the Secretary was sitting down with Charunphan for his bilateral at the UNGA in New York. The Secretary had told Charunphan that we would definitely consult with the Thai Government on any changes in our force levels, that we would not merely inform them of such plans. The Secretary turned to me specifically and told me to be sure that this was the case.

General Scowcroft: I’m afraid this is nothing more than a case that Defense fouled up.

Ambassador Kintner: I also understand that Clements when he was in Bangkok recently told the Thai that there would be a considerable reduction in SAC maintenance personnel at Utapao. I believe the figure involved is 650. General McGhee has told me that there would be some reduction — he mentioned a figure of 2,000 — but that he would let me know more definitely later. I understand that Clements passed this word to Chantchai.

Mr. Froebe: My understanding was that Clements had intended to pass this word to the Thai, but that he agreed with Ed Masters to let him do it, I am not aware that Ed has done so yet. [Actually, Masters consulted with the RTG during the first week in October on the withdrawal of both the F-105 squadron and the 650 personnel.]

General Scowcroft: Defense has in mind what it wants to do, and our problem is one of keeping them in line with our larger plans.

I notice that you have supported a residual force level of 7,000.

Ambassador Kintner: A level something like this.

General Scowcroft: This seems to be pretty low, one that would allow practically no combat capability.

Ambassador Kintner: I think it would depend on the composition of the package.

Also, there is a question of re-entry rights. If we could have one base in addition to Utapao, we would be in good shape, and would be able to rotate a squadron in periodically from a location such as Okinawa or even from the U.S.

General Scowcroft: There is no question about that.

Ambassador Kintner: I haven’t talked with the Thai about re-entry. If the concept gets approval back here, I could work out the details with the RTAF. Under this arrangement, the bases would clearly be theirs, and we would maintain a small group as now is the case with Ubon. A basic question is how many bases we want to keep on 24 hour notice. I believe this has to be decided in Washington.

General Scowcroft: What do you see as the chance that the Thai will agree to such re-entry rights?

Ambassador Kintner: Pretty good. But MAP will probably go down further. AID now is thinking of cutting off all concessional loans. The Thai under these circumstances may say “to hell with the Americans.” But if we can give the Thai things that they can’t get through grant MAP, then I think we have a good chance of securing these rights.

General Scowcroft: Is there a chance that the Thai really don’t want any U.S. presence at all?

Ambassador Kintner: No. Have you seen my message on our basic strategy toward Southeast Asia?

Mr. Froebe: We received it only today.

Ambassador Kintner: I spent a good deal of the summer writing it. (General Scowcroft received a call that Mr. Rumsfeld could see him. He suggested that Ambassador Kintner at the same time drop by Mr. Marsh’s office, since Mr. Marsh had said that he wanted to see him when he came to meet with General Scowcroft. The meeting resumed after about 15 minutes.)

Growing Congressional Opposition to Foreign Assistance

Ambassador Kintner to Mr. Froebe: I mentioned my Southeast Asia cable to Mr. Marsh, and I would appreciate it if you would send him a copy.

I think we need to conduct an educational campaign back here on the Hill and with others, and I think this kind of cable might be helpful.

General Scowcroft: Congress is being extremely difficult these days. It wants to cut off aid to Turkey. We on the other hand want to negotiate with the Turks to get something back for the Greeks, and we need an AID package to do so. The Congressional leadership understands our strategy. But with the rest of Congress, we are up against the Greek lobby. It makes no sense whatever to cut off aid to Turkey — except for spite. At this point, the situation with the foreign aid bill is just hopeless. That’s the current atmosphere. With new members after the election, we may be able to talk in serious national interest terms.

Ambassador Kintner: I have found the attitude on the Hill worse now than it was last May. I thought that Mr. Ford with his own extensive experience up there might be able to turn this around.

General Scowcroft: We have even succeeded in turning the Washington Post around on aid to Vietnam, but we can’t persuade the Hill.

U.S. Force Withdrawals

On the question of the 650 SAC maintenance personnel at Utapao, we will clarify this situation. Do we need to pull anything out right now?

Ambassador Kintner: We want to keep something in reserve to be able to announce, if necessary, during the election campaign. It was useful to have the F-105 squadron come out now. We should keep in close touch on this problem. I was told by General McGhee that he wants to reduce the maintenance personnel at Utapao by 1,000-1,500. This is fine, but...

General Scowcroft: It’s not fine. We definitely want to consult with you first. But would this 1,000-1,500 be in addition to the 650?

Ambassador Kintner: I don’t know. McGhee’s plan is to do most of the maintenance on Guam. He has been keeping me informed on this through SAC channels. I think the withdrawal of these additional personnel could be useful during the campaign.

General Scowcroft: We told Defense that it was okay on the F-105s, but absolutely no more until we receive their overall plan for a residual force level, and one that made some sense. We asked Defense why they didn’t put this F-105 squadron in the 1974 package that they sent over for the President’s approval last spring. We got a vague answer, something to the effect that they didn’t think of it at the time.

U.S. Military Assistance to Thailand

What about the question of OV–10s? (To Mr. Froebe): Didn’t Clements discuss this when he was in Bangkok recently?

Mr. Froebe: The cable report indicated that Deputy Secretary Clements brought this up with the Thai. I have learned informally, however, that he told the Thai that he would “look favorably on the transfer of 16 OV–10s when the question came up back here. You will recall that Mr. Clements told the Thai when he was there a year ago that they had a good chance of getting the OV–10s, but was overruled by Secretary Schlesinger. I hope that we are not going to mislead them twice in a row on this question.

General Scowcroft: Is there anything else?

Ambassador Kintner: I met with the Thai Defense Minister, General Khruan, for the first time about two weeks ago. He is rather elderly — in his mid 70 s — and was Army Chief of Staff about ten years ago. I talked with him and his two deputies first alone for a half an hour, and then was joined by Ed Masters and General Aderholdt. General Khruan said that they want an aircraft maintenance facility, and assistance in establishing an ammunition activity.

In response, I told them for the 55th time that we first wanted to discuss the basic internal insurgency question. Subsequently, Kriangsak gave me this paper. (General Scowcroft had a xeroxed copy of the paper made.) It is not a shopping list, and it makes sense.

My basic approach is that, if MAP goes to zero, and if we have excess defense equipment that would be useful to the Thai, this would be of considerable assistance on the problems raised in this paper. I wonder if Dick Kennedy can do anything on this? I have discussed this with Todd, the Inspector General of Foreign Assistance He seems to have been quite effective in finding excess defense equipment in various locations in the Pacific. For example, he located approximately 400 tanks in Japan recently. (To Mr. Froebe): Does this ring a bell?

Mr. Froebe: These may have been the tanks that created something of a political furor about 10-12 months ago when, after rehabbing in Japan, our Army tried to move them out back to Vietnam again. But I’m not sure whether these are the same ones you are talking about.

General Scowcroft: My general feeling is that we are at the bottom of the barrel on excess defense equipment. In the new foreign aid bill as it now stands, there is even a provision prohibiting all further transfers of excess equipment.

Ambassador Kintner: What do they want us to do — quit worldwide?

General Scowcroft: We have some hope for after the election. But our excess defense equipment is vanishing rapidly.

Ambassador Kintner: I am deeply concerned about the situation in Southeast Asia, with Vietnam in trouble and the situation in Laos looking darker.

Mr. Froebe: What do you think the chances are for turning over a substantial part of the equipment belonging to our units departing Thailand?

Ambassador Kintner: Very poor, given the statutory and regulatory prohibitions on DOD’s parting with its equipment under these circumstances.

What about the transfer of the Army communications facility that I wrote you about recently?

General Scowcroft: We arc working on this.

Ambassador Kintner: This operation contains much equipment that would be useful to the Thai.

General Scowcroft to Mr. Froebe): Do you know where this stands?

Mr. Froebe: No sir, but I will check. We received the Ambassador’s letter only very recently.

Ambassador Kintner: Someone told me that this has been in the NSC Staff since last January,

Mr. Froebe: I know that this is definitely not the case.

U.S. Residual Force Presence in Thailand

General Scowcroft: We are supposed to get the long-range residual force level plan shortly.

Ambassador Kintner: I talked with Habib about this today. He told me that state is sending the plan back to Defense. I believe the level should be somewhere between 7,000 and 10,000 If we are to make the deterrent more effective, we should keep at least one base such as Udorn operational and rotate units in and out.

I hope we can be more successful on the foreign aid problem.

General Scowcroft: It doesn’t look too hopeful. We may not even get an aid bill.

Ambassador Kintner: Has Haig packed up for departure to his new post?

General Scowcroft: He is now on two weeks vacation. When he comes back, he will have briefings. November 1 is his reporting date. (There followed a discussion on General Goodpaster’s quick retirement.)

Ambassador Kintner: When you get the final version of the long-range force plan over here, would you send me a backchannel informing me?

General Scowcroft: Yes.

What do you see as the prospect for the elections?

Ambassador Kintner: They will stay on schedule. Krit will help keep the situation on track.

General Scowcroft: Is it a working system?

Ambassador Kintner: I don’t know at this point. They must get someone who can keep the country on an even keel. Dawee may run. Krit doesn’t want to become a political leader now. We have others who are interested, however, such as Kasem, head of the Committee of 99, and Seni, although he is too old.

General Scowcroft: What is the attitude of the Thai military toward us?

Ambassador Kintner: Very good. But they don’t think that we are giving them enough to enable them to stick their necks out for us. They think that they’re doing more for us than we are for them. We must continue supporting them, now is not the time to try to wean them away from the level of support that we are currently furnishing.

(After a final exchange of amenities, Ambassador Kintner took his leave of General Scowcroft.)

1. Source: Library of Congress, Memoranda of Conversations, Container CL 284, Staff and Others, 1974. Secret; Sensitive. On September 27, in telegram 15626 from Bangkok, Kintner expostulated on “Southeast Asia in a Global Context.” (National Archives, Record Group 59, Central Foreign Policy Files)
2. Kintner and Scowcroft described the situation in Thailand, U.S. force levels, and foreign aid.