892.24/83½
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The British Ambassador called to see me this evening at his request.
The Ambassador said he wished to discuss with me an urgent instruction he had received from his Government concerning Thailand. A message received by the British Foreign Office from Sir Josiah Crosby, the British Minister in Bangkok, gave as the opinion of the latter that the Thai Government was again becoming very shaky and that unless some practical action were taken by Great Britain and the United States, the Japanese influence would again become preponderant.
The Ambassador said that the aviation gasoline and the artillery given to the Thai Government by the British had been regarded by the former as completely insufficient and had had no appreciably beneficial effect. He stated that the Thai Government was urgently desirous of obtaining airplanes. I replied that if that was the case it would seem to me that the British might use some of the planes allocated by the United States to Great Britain which are now in [Page 349] Singapore and make these available to the Thai Government without publicity by flying them in at night. The Ambassador said that the trouble was that the British Government urgently needed all the airplanes they could get from us for use in Singapore. I said that that was the situation with respect to the United States since, as the Ambassador knew, we were building up as rapidly as possible our air strength in the Philippines, and I had been informed by both General Marshall42 and Admiral Stark that the planes that we had in the Philippines are infinitely more valuable to us there than they would be in Thailand.
The Ambassador then suggested on behalf of his Government that the situation might be ameliorated by a credit of $10,000,000 to Thailand by the United States. I said that this matter would be given immediate consideration.
- Gen. George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff, U. S. A.↩