391. Minutes of the Secretary of State’s Staff Meeting, Washington, November 14, 1974, 8:11 a.m.1 2
In Attendance (Thurs., 11/14/74)
Secretary of State Kissinger (presiding as Chairman)
D - Mr. Ingersoll
P - Mr. Sisco
T - Mr. Maw
M - Mr.
Brown
C - Mr. Sonnenfeldt
AP - Mr. Mulcahy (Acting)
ARA -
Mr. Rogers
EA - Mr. Habib
EUR - Mr. Hartman
NEA - Mr.
Atherton
INR - Mr. Hyland
S/P - Mr. Lord
EB - Mr.
Enders
S/PRS - Mr. Anderson
S/AM - Mr. McCloskey
PM - Mr.
Stern (Acting)
IO - Mr. Buffum
H - Mr. Holton
L - Mr.
Aldrich (Acting)
S/S - Mr. Springsteen
[Omitted is material unrelated to Thailand.]
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Phil?
MR. HABIB: Thanom, the former Prime Minister [Page 3] of Thailand, is in the United States in Boston.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: But we should call him —
MR. HABIB: But the Thai Government approached us on a most urgent basis - the Thai Government, at their request.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: I understand. I thought he came — I understand the problem.
MR. HABIB: Of course, the fact that he’s not going back at this time is significant enough. I thought we ought to transmit the message to him. I think this may have some impact — I think, given the attitude of the Thai Government and the formal request they made of us —
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Yes, but given the fact that Thanom was a close friend of ours for 10 years—
MR. HABIB: If he’s still a close friend of ours he wouldn’t go back to Thailand at this time because the Embassy and his following are absolutely convinced that Thanom would be extremely disturbing.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Then why is he going back?
MR. HABIB: The reason he gives is his father is ill; he wants to pay his respects to his father.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: And for what reason do you [Page 4] think he’s going back?
MR. HABIB: I think it’s because of this hiatus between the previous government and the elections of next month. I mean there are elections in Thailand in January. The campaign will soon be beginning.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: I mean why should we keep him out?
MR. HABIB: I was suggesting —
SECRETARY KISSINGER: We don’t suggest anything. We’re going to transmit the request of the Thai Government and we’ll stay out of it.
MR. HABIB: Well, we’ll transmit the request, but supposing he asks what you think.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, look, he knows. The next thing we know, we’re going to have an anti-American government which is going to ask us to keep all persons out on the basis that it’s going to be highly disturbing to him should we do that too.
MR. HABIB: No. It’s not in our interest for him to go back. The government with whom we’ve working closely with —
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, wait a minute. It’s one thing to say we shouldn’t bring him back — no question [Page 5] about it. The next question is whether a man who’s a close ally of ours for 10 years, or whatever period it was — certainly for the period I was here — he was in office a few years before — we shouldn’t tell him to go back to his own country. That’s a totally different proposition; we should never have initiated it. I wouldn’t bet my —
MR. HABIB: At least from the cable traffic I can’t determine — we didn’t initiate it, no. The cable traffic makes it quite clear this came to us first, and then they came to us very formally at cabinet request.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: And we will transmit that request.
MR. HABIB: Well, we’re trying to do two things. We’re trying to get them to do part of their own business also, but as usual in these cases — and it’s true they know that, the fact that we transmit the request for them that’s why they asked us to. It has a certain impact on Thanom himself.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Look, they’ve got an Embassy. Their Ambassador could easily call on Thanom himself to do it. We’re already getting ourselves involved by acting as intermediary. I do not believe this is something we should —
[Page 6]MR. HABIB: We have a definite interest in him not going back.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Why?
MR. HABIB: Because it would be a very disturbing factor at a time when you’re going through a very touchy process of trying to re-establish a government.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Why does he think then he’s got something to gain?
MR. HABIB: Because he wants to go back. There’s constant talk about the army being dissatisfied with the process laid down with this new constitution — that the army might step in and do this. He still has his supporters, his cohorts.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, we were one of his supporters. Let’s have a little minimum of decency about the relationship here. For 10 years we were his supporters.
MR. HABIB: We today are firm on that — the opposition to his coming here for 10 years. I don’t think it’s a question —
SECRETARY KISSINGER: For God sakes, here’s a government that let us use the country when we were fighting a war in North Viet-Nam — with less conditions than almost anyone else. I mean you can’t be nice to a leader of such [Page 7] a country that exposed himself for us by letting him come to the United states.
MR. HABIB: I said there was a great deal of opposition to his coming. I think we’re also dealing with a government which is still providing facilities that we require and will continue to do so if we develop and maintain the kind of relationship with him that we need to. And, as I say, this is a very, very shaky period, in my opinion — the idea of going from what you now have to elections and to some form of constitutional —
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, they’re clearly going to neutralism, which, under the present conditions of Southeast Asia, is probably not the best.
MR. HABIB: Not quickly, because of their recognition of their dependence upon us.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, you better let me know what you’re doing with Thanom.
MR. HABIB: Well, that’s what we’re doing today — just to pass the message, if he asks our opinion. If you want to leave the latter part of the instruction off, we’ll cancel it. We have somebody who knows him very well.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Who? How about giving me the [Page 8] the name?
MR. HABIB: I don’t know him.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: My inclination is to pass the message and not to add our opinion. I don’t think he’ll ask our opinion.
MR. HABIB: It will make more of a difference if we answer his question — yes.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: He hasn’t asked it yet.
MR. HABIB: Well, the presumption is he will.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: The presumption is if I authorize it we’ll have it before he asks the question.
MR. HABIB; Well, I don’t think you ought to do things halfway. If you pass the message, you ought to be willing to indicate the very process of passing the message, associate yourself with the content of the message — and, given the complete unanimity of the feeling, that if he returns it will be an extremely disturbing factor and could undo the very careful step-by-step process over one whole year that this thing has been working out in Thailand. For a year —
SECRETARY KISSINGER How do we know he’s coming back at all — or is that another —
[Page 9]MR. HABIB: No, that is not. That’s a firm report that he’s thinking seriously of returning — immediately.
MR. LORD: Is there a chance his father is sick, I mean?
MR. HABIB: Yes, his father is sick. I mean that’s one problem: His father is sick.
There’s a major issue at stake: It’s the stability of a system that you carefully constructed for over a year. I mean now everything — no decision is easy in these matters; it’s a tough decision. But the decision — everybody agrees, from the Thais to the Embassy to the people who have been following this and Thanom’s career — is if he goes back, it’s going to put the cat among the birds. Now, if you want to put the cat among the birds, O.K. It’s their country; let it happen. But if that happens, you then go back to a chaotic situation.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Let’s put it this way.
MR. HABIB: Now, that’s the estimate. I don’t know what your people (addressing Mr. Hyland) estimate.
MR. HYLAND: I don’t know either.
SECRETARY KISSINGER Well, why don’t we see what you people estimate?
[Page 10]MR. HABIB: Well, the CIA estimates the same thing. That guy’s an operator.
MR. ATHERTON: He’s an operator.
MR. HABIB: Well, everybody who worked in that place is an operator! (Laughter.)
SECRETARY KISSINGER: If it would drag the students right out in the street, how much stability have we constructed?
MR. HABIB: it’s an inherently unstable situation. You have the army sitting, waiting to see what happens. The assumption is the army will continue to sit in the wings and see what happens. Let the elections take place; let the new government be installed. And then if the new government fails over a period of time, then presumably other arrangements will be made. But nobody wants the army to decide that they’re going to short-circuit.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Why is it so violently against the American interests to have the army take over?
MR. HABIB: I don’t think they can govern.
SECRETARY KISSINGER Well, have we seen if anyone else can govern?
MR. HABIB: Yes — for over a year.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, how do you know the army [Page 11] can’t govern? They governed for 10 years and more.
MR. HABIB: The careful arrangement was it would not deteriorate —
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Which government in Southeast Asia hasn’t been overthrown in a 10-year period?
MR. HABIB: Plus the fact if the army takes over, you may get a period of short-term stability, in which you apparently discover you’ve got a situation in which there’s constant pressure against it. We’ve been thrown once again with the position — what do we do with our own requirements, our own relations with that country?
SECRETARY KISSINGER: We’ll have trouble in Congress.
MR. HABIB: More than trouble in Congress. Trouble in Thailand.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, we’ll apparently have trouble in Thailand either way, because if the army is out —
MR. HABIB: You’ve got to have some direction in which you try to go — some objectivity. The best hope would be for this constitution process, which so far has moved along rather well. As a matter of fact, it exceeded [Page 12] the expectations of those who expected it to flounder a year ago, had the army taken over. What has happened is it has not floundered, but it’s in that crucial transitional period between that appointed government and the successor elected government.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: I think it’s too early to tell.
MR. HABIB: Well, you’d like us then not to follow the second part of the scenario.
SECRETARY KISSINGER Yes. I’d just as soon not have him go back.
MR. HABIB: I don’t like to go halfway and then have him go back.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, I’d like to talk to you at some point about that whole perception of the problem. I just don’t think we’re in the business of installing governments around the world; it is just not our job. We’re in the business of conducting foreign policy; we’re not a social reform school.
MR. HABIB: Yes, but we have certain objectives in Thailand. And those objectives would include at least the motive of a stable government with which we could deal —
SECRETARY KISSINGER: That’s right.
[Page 13]MR. HABIB: — and which pursues objectives synonymous with our own, or coincident to our own.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: I have never heard the argument, through our associations with Thailand, that this was better achieved by a civilian government — never. That’s a new argument that came up within a year after they got a civilian government.
MR. HABIB: On the contrary. The people would say the best way to achieve it would be to deal with the government they had. That government was no longer able to govern. There’s a new evolution in Thailand which could fit our objectives just as well.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, the new evolution is going to go to neutralism, to which I have no objection. I mean it’s obvious what the Thais are doing. They’re going to go towards neutralism.
MR. HABIB: Within certain structures, that’s not necessarily the worst thing that could happen.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: No. I’m not saying it is. And we certainly shouldn’t resist it. But we shouldn’t kid ourselves either.
MR. HABIB: They’re cautious.
[Page 14]SECRETARY KISSINGER: They’re always cautious. They’re going to have ties with others before they break their ties with us. But they’re inevitably moving in that direction.
MR. HABIB: No — we’re no longer interested in a long-term presence in Thailand.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Then we shouldn’t kid ourselves as to what’s happening. What’s happening is a Southeast Asian neutralist regime that will move into the general —
MR. HABIB: Well, I think you get kind of upset with what people are predicting. We could get an accelerated move, which would be more than neutralism.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: The only dispute is how much arm we should put on him to keep him out.
MR. HABIB: You ought to make it a little lighter.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: But I don’t think it going to be so light when we get through with him! (Laughter.)
MR. HABIB: Well, let me control the heaviness of the arm. If you want it to be a light arm, it would be a light arm.
[Page 15]SECRETARY KISSINGER: I would like to see first what happens after we transmit the message —
MR. HABIB: All right.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: — and maybe on that basis alone, after transmitting the message — he’s not stupid —
MR. HABIB: No. A light message. It appeals to his patriotism; it’s for his own government.
[Omitted is material unrelated to Thailand.]