501.AA/12–1146
Memorandum of Conversations, by the Assistant Chief of the Division of Southeast Asian Affairs (Landon)
In the course of a conversation with His Excellency Pridi Banomyong, in reply to a question, I outlined briefly the situation in regard to Siam’s application for membership in the United Nations. I made it clear to His Excellency that as matters stood the American delegate would press for immediate consideration only if so urged by Prince Wan in New York; that the question of Siam’s application was coming up on Thursday59 at 3:00 p.m.; and that as far as I knew Prince Wan had not made his position clear to Mr. Herschel Johnson. His Excellency expressed great concern that Siam become a member of the United Nations; he asked whether there was still time to urge Mr. Johnson to support Siam’s application strongly and expressed the hope that as he himself was not in an official position to express such an opinion to Mr. Johnson that the Department would urge Mr. Johnson to give such strong support. I said that I appreciated his expression of opinion.
[December 11, 1946, 4:00 p.m.: In telephone conversation with Mr. Charles Yost60 in New York, I learned that Mr. Yost and Prince Wan had been in consultation on the subject of Siam’s application; that Prince Wan hoped that Mr. Johnson would make a strong speech in support of Siam’s membership and would press for immediate consideration of the question; that this would then require an expression [Page 459] of opinion from Mr. Gromyko; and that at that point if Prince Wan felt that Gromyko was taking a strong position which would inevitably lead to a veto that he himself would then take steps to ask for deferment of the question.]61