Bangkok Embassy files, lot 57 F 139
No. 413
The Under Secretary of State (Smith) to the Ambassador in Thailand
(Donovan)
Dear Bill: The question that you raised in your letter of January 8,1 after talking with the President, regarding assurances which we might give the Government and the King of Thailand in the event of an invasion by the Communists is essentially the common question of what our Government will do when a friendly nation is attacked by Communists. The Secretary expressed the views of our Government on this subject in an address (copy enclosed) before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City on January 12,2 following your departure for Bangkok.
When we attempt to put out every fire built by the enemy at a time and place chosen by him we proceed from emergency to emergency with the initiative in the enemy’s hands. In the Secretary’s address he stated, “The way to deter aggression is for the free community to be willing and able to respond vigorously at places and with means of its own choosing”. He also said, “Local defense will always be important. But there is no local defense which alone will contain the mighty land power of the Communist world. Local defense must be reinforced by the further deterrent of massive retaliatory power”.
In connection with Thailand, it is important in your conversations with the Government and the King to point out that aggression at some particular place by the Communists, such as at Thailand, [Page 705] need not necessarily be met only or even principally at that point. In the Secretary’s address he referred to two areas of conflict, Korea and Indochina, and what he said there has illustrative value which you might use in encouraging the Thai: “This change (that is, a change of policy from fighting the enemy on an emergency basis, letting the enemy pick his time and place of warfare, to a policy of responding vigorously to aggression at times and places of our own choosing) gives added authority to the warning of the members of the United Nations which fought in Korea that if the Communists renew the aggression, the United Nations’ response would not necessarily be confined to Korea.”
“I have said, in relation to Indochina, that if there were open Red Chinese Army aggression there, that would have ‘grave consequences which might not be confined to Indochina’”
“All of this is summed up in President Eisenhower’s important statement of December 26.3 He announced the progressive reduction of the United States ground forces in Korea. He pointed out that United States military forces in the Far East will now feature ‘highly mobile naval, air and amphibious units’; and he said in this way, despite some withdrawal of land forces, the United States will have a capacity to oppose aggression ‘with even greater effect than heretofore’”.
In your conversations with the Thai on this subject, after outlining our policy of developing massive retaliatory power as a deterrent to aggressors, it is equally important to underscore Thailand’s need to reinforce its local defense as a further deterrent. The Thai should not regard our policy and preparations as an opportunity to relax their own efforts.
I am interested in your proposed trip to Indonesia and will look forward to your comments.
Faithfully,
- Donovan’s letter of Jan. 8, addressed to Secretary Dulles, reads in part as follows: “I talked with the President the other day and he suggested that I talk with you as to a question I raised. It concerned the request for assurances by the government and the Crown of Thailand in the event of an invasion. Our outpost lines in various parts of the world may be looking for that now. I would be very grateful if you would give me your views on such a question.” (792.5/1–854)↩
- For text of Secretary Dulles’ address, see Department of State Bulletin, Jan. 25, 1954, pp. 107–110.↩
- For text, see Department of State Bulletin, Jan. 4, 1954, p. 14.↩