569. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Thailand1
706. Embtel 849.2 Department deeply gratified by Prime Minister’s affirmative response to President’s message and hopes immediate beneficial effect on our relations with Thailand can be translated into longer range political gains. We fully realize to what extent release of letter would contribute to this goal but after careful consideration of advantages and disadvantages of publication we have concluded latter outweigh former and therefore no recommendation for publication will be transmitted to White House. Principal factors motivating this decision are (1) desire to avoid invidious public comparison of FY 61 aid levels as between Thailand and other countries, notably SEATO partner Philippines; and (2) concern over possible disastrously adverse Cambodian reaction following our rather meager response to RKG arms proposals, in midst current Thai-Cambodian talks at UN, and on eve Sihanouk’s bloc visits.
We consider it on balance unwise to incur these risks and prefer to concentrate future efforts on maximizing political advantages inherent in proposals contained in letter re promotion of economic development in Thailand and RTG response thereto. Recommend you therefore tactfully inform Prime Minister it will not be possible to comply with his request for release of letter, as President prefers to preserve privileged character of communications containing references to third countries which might be susceptible to misinterpretation if published. Observe Presidential Handling.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 792.11/11–1860. Secret; Priority; Presidential Handling. Drafted by Swezey, cleared in FE, and approved by Parsons.↩
- Document 566.↩