792.94/95
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Secretary of State
The British Ambassador called at his request. He handed me two aide-mémoires relative to the Thai-Japanese situation, copies of which are hereto attached.54 I thanked the Ambassador. He then said that he hoped we would give this matter consideration as he thought it was one of importance.
In the course of the conversation, the Ambassador said that the British Minister in Thailand thought that United States-Thai relations could be returned to a more friendly basis if this Government would make due compensation promptly for the airplanes which had been purchased and paid for in this country by Thailand and were intercepted by this Government in Manila and kept for its own use. I replied that, of course, this Government would return the money to Thailand. I then added that I myself am not at all convinced that the present Thai Government is a real friend of this Government or any other government except the Japanese, with whom it went into collusion for the purpose of securing Japanese aid which enabled it to obtain the annexation of a large amount of the territory of Indochina; that, in my opinion, there exists Japanese-Thai alliances of a more or less military, political and economic nature. The Ambassador referred to the views of the British Minister in Thailand, which fell short of the views I expressed.
I concluded by saying that we would give every attention to the two aide-mémoires.
- Infra. ↩