363. Letter From the Chargé in Laos (Blancké) to the Ambassador-Designate to Laos (Parsons)1
Dear Mr. Ambassador: I promised a classified letter for your expected arrival in D.C. on or about the 19th, and here it is. I haven’t much to say that has not been in the past week’s cables, …
I must say right now, though, that even if you or Charlie Yost had been here I doubt we could have stopped Pal Chou-ey. I may not be a very persuasive con-man, but I studied my lines carefully and Max and I spent a tireless week peddling our position high and low. Unfortunately, we must recognize that Uncle Chou has had the power to do this to us any time he felt like it, and the Lao were stampeded. They have never been able to forget Chou’s remark to Phoui (then Lao FonMin) at Geneva in 1954: if these PL give you any trouble, just come see me and I’ll fix it up pronto. With the successive frustrations of the following two years, I guess they were just a pushover. Even so, I must say Souvanna Phouma has been a sad disappointment. Undoubtedly the bleeding Indians, and a host of other ineffables, have been getting at him in all sorts of underhanded ways, but I do think he could have been franker with his friends.
I also fear the Crown Prince is increasingly losing his grip, a thing I’ve been noticing more and more. I’m sure he could have swung the invitation business into proper lines if he’d had the guts.
Another thing that didn’t help was the failure of London and Paris to give their representatives any solid instructions, despite urgent requests from here. The British Chargé and French representatives were good enough to expound what they called “the Blancke [Page 777] Doctrine,” but I gather they didn’t support it very forcefully (as I had thought they were) because they weren’t told to do so. So much for post-mortems.
[Here follows a paragraph on administrative matters.] Sincerely,
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 751J.00/6-1156. Secret; Official-Informal. J. Graham Parsons was appointed Ambassador to Laos on May 29. He arrived in Vientiane in late July, but did not present his credentials until October 12.↩