Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, East Asia-Pacific Region; Cambodia; Laos, Volume XVI

159. Memorandum of a Conversation, Department of State, Washington, January 13, 1958, 2:30 p.m.²

Washington, January 13, 1958, 2:30 p.m.

SUBJECT

• Current Problems in U.S.-Lao Relations

PARTICIPANTS

• Laos
  • His Highness Prince Souvanna Phouma, Prime Minister of Laos
  • His Excellency Leuam Insisiengmay, Minister of Finance
  • His Excellency Ngon Sananikone, Minister of National Defense
  • His Excellency Tiao Souk, Minister of Public Works
  • His Excellency Ourot R. Souvannavong, Ambassador of Laos
  • Mr. Keo Viphakone, Counselor, Embassy of Laos
• United States
  • The Secretary of State
  • C. Douglas Dillon, Deputy Under Secretary for Economic Affairs
  • Walter S. Robertson, Assistant Secretary for Far Eastern Affairs
  • Andrew H. Berding, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs
  • Dr. D.A. FitzGerald, Deputy Director, International Cooperation Administration
  • J. Graham Parsons, The American Ambassador to Laos
  • Kenneth T. Young, Jr., Director, Office of Southeast Asian Affairs
  • William V. Turnage, Acting Director, Office of International Financial and Development Affairs
  • Eric Kocher, Deputy Director, Office of Southeast Asian Affairs
  • Patricia M. Byrne, Officer in Charge, Laos Affairs
  • Charles Sedgwick, Interpreter
  • Edmund S. Glenn, Interpreter

The Secretary opened the meeting at 2:30 p.m. with the statement that it was of great satisfaction to the President, the Secretary, and their associates that the Prime Minister was good enough to come here to talk over some of the problems of Laos, problems which were also of some concern to us. He recalled the pleasure of meeting Souvanna Phouma in Vientiane three years ago³ and earlier at San Francisco in 1951.⁴

Laos, the Secretary continued, was in terms of population and area what might be called a small country, but no independent state could really be judged small. Just as each individual has his own human dignity, so that whatever his position, rank, or class he was in his own right important, so it was that under the doctrine of sovereign equality we accepted as our guide in international dealings that the importance of a country was not judged by its population, resources, or the size of its territory, but rather by whether it was an independent member of the society of nations exercising the rights appertaining to any independent state.

The preservation of those qualities in Laos was, as the Prime Minister knew, a matter of concern, as the United States was concerned over the independence of every one of the free nations of the world. We were concerned not just as an act of charity but rather because the United States, which was itself born a relatively small nation, had always wanted to live in a world environment in which the other members were free and independent.

We did not, the Secretary said, like the concept of Communist imperialism, which attempted to bring all nations under the rule of a single party, suppressing freedom and dignity. This concept had already been applied in 18 nations, the independence of which for all intents and purposes was gone. Their governments were puppets under the manipulation of the Communist parties, which were in turn responsive to the leadership of the Soviet Communist Party.

We did not believe that all individuals should be forced to conform to a single doctrine which destroyed independence and substituted another system. Because we did not like such a system we contributed to other states to help them maintain their national independence.

To the United States this seemed the great issue of the time.

The Secretary recognized that there might be differences of opinion as to the precise nature of the Pathet Lao leadership and its political and military elements. He did not, however, think it profitable to engage in debate on the subject. The Prime Minister had certain qualifications by which to judge the matter as a result of his intimate knowledge of the situation in Laos. We also had certain qualifications from our world-wide experience in the way international Communism operates, in the subtlety of its means and the disguising of its purposes until too late. Since we each approached the problem from a different viewpoint, we perhaps reached different conclusions. We respected those of the Prime Minister and hoped he would ours, each recognizing an element of rightness in the views of the other.

The Prime Minister, continued the Secretary, had brought about a development in Laos which we all desired: The reunification of the country. He would in a sense be conducting a novel experiment. Three other countries had been divided as a result of struggles between the Communists and the non-Communists: Korea, Viet-Nam, and Germany. The armistice agreements provided for initial division and then eventual reunification. Of these divided countries, Laos was the first to be reunified; the other three had not considered they could be reunified on terms preserving their freedom and independence. The Prime Minister did consider the Kingdom of Laos could be so reunified. Our attitude would inevitably depend upon our assessment as to whether or not the Lao Government took a realistic view of the danger. Laos might not feel the danger to be so great as we did, but any effort at reunification involved certain risks and hazards.

The Secretary hoped the Prime Minister at least shared our view that there was danger in the present situation and that the new elements participating for the first time in the political life of Laos might be so astute as to end up by taking over the government. If the Prime Minister did not recognize the danger, there was a great gulf between us. If he did, then the gulf could be bridged.

We had no greater desire than to see the successful consummation of the experiment without danger to the future integrity and independence of the Kingdom. If it were successful, it would be of significance not only for Laos but for other countries which sought reunification but for which reunification would thus far have meant a loss of independence.

The Secretary explained that he had had prepared a paper⁵ (which he gave Souvanna Phouma) on the techniques employed by the Communists in Europe which might provide useful ideas of the kind of thing the Prime Minister and his associates should be on guard against. From its beginnings 40 years ago as a small party with no power, international Communism now controlled nearly one-third the people of the earth and 18 formerly independent nations. The experience of this revolutionary party was available to agents wherever they might be. They had immense skill in the art of subversion and internal take-over, skill to hide and then strike down the opposition. Some of the experience we gained in Europe might be helpful to Laos, where we assumed Communist influence was at work.

Turning to the matter of economic assistance, and he assumed we could find a basis to continue it, the Secretary hoped the Lao could eliminate those aspects of the present administration of the program which almost inevitably led to the undue profit of some, chiefly as a result of the artificial exchange rate. He hoped while the Lao were here, if it seemed appropriate to continue American assistance to a government vigilant and dedicated in the defense of its independence, that an agreement on monetary reform could be reached.

The Secretary again expressed appreciation for the Prime Minister’s coming here to set forth his government’s estimate of the present situation. There would be difficult days ahead, but the fact that the Lao were talking things over showed they regarded us as friends, as indeed we thought we were and wished to continue to be. He was confident that out of these talks would come fruitful understanding for the future.

After recalling his first meeting with the Secretary at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in 1951, Prince Souvanna Phouma thanked the Secretary for treating his small country on a basis of equality. In spite of this thought, however, newly independent Laos considered itself a child, especially in relation to the United States.

The Prime Minister said the problem of maintaining Laos’ independence in the present situation disturbed the United States. He agreed with us that there were problems and he did not misunderstand the Communist danger. As he had said and would continue to say in the National Assembly and before Pathet Lao representatives, he would be the first to fight the Communists if they intervened in Laos’ internal affairs and attempted to impose their ideology.

Laos always wished to be on good terms with all nations, especially its neighbors. It had long common borders with Communist China and North Viet-Nam. He felt that if these two regimes were not appeased, Laos could never solve its internal problem. He had therefore gone to Peiping and Hanoi in 1956⁶ and had received their assurances they would not interfere. He had then turned to the Pathet Lao question and the reunification of Laos.

In the past Laos had lost some western areas to Thailand, and in 1903 the French detached Stung Treng, giving it to Cambodia, and Darlac, which went to Annam. Thus territorially reduced, Laos could not accept the loss of the provinces of Sam Neua and Phong Saly, which had only been regained from Tonkin in 1932. Reunification was therefore essential.

There was another factor which many foreigners ignored; that is, although it was true the Pathet Lao felt Communist influence through direct contact with the Viet Minh, one could not accuse them all of being Communist. In 1946 the Prime Minister participated in the Lao Issara movement which could not accept the return of the French to Laos. The group emigrated to Bangkok and there worked with the Viet Minh to gain the independence of Laos. With the signature of the Accords of 1949 with France, which Souvanna Phouma witnessed in Paris, the Lao Issara decided to dissolve and did so on October 24, 1949. Most members returned to Laos. His half-brother Prince Souphanouvong, however, judged Lao independence incomplete and continued to collaborate with the Viet Minh to obtain total independence for Laos.

Since 1954, when the Pathet Lao got back to Vientiane, they had recognized their error. They wished to return to the national community, but with certain advantages. Both parties tried to settle the question between them, keeping the International Control Commission out of the discussions.

On the supposition the Pathet Lao were 100 percent Lao before they were other things, the Government concluded the accords of November 1957 which permitted it to reinstall its administration in the two provinces. In the ceremonies transferring authority, the population, which had remained faithful to the Government, welcomed its representatives as liberators. There were perhaps 100 or at most 200 Communists among the Pathet Lao; the Government could not sacrifice the rest of the 500,000 people in the two provinces for this small group.

The Government did not, however, minimize the danger and had taken precautions against subversion. Recent legislation had been modified to require the death penalty for those defying the regime. And at the next session of the Assembly (May 1958), a law would be passed making the Communist Party illegal. The Government had wished to pass such a law during the last session, but the Pathet Lao had requested a postponement on the ground that it would create dissidence. They would be ready for such a law later, however.

Not all the Pathet Lao were Communist, as was proven by their having taken an oath to King, Constitution, and Buddha in a pagoda after the investiture of the coalition government. Another example was that Thao Ma, an important Pathet Lao leader, had knelt before the Prime Minister in Sam Neua in full view of the people whom heretofore he had commanded. Some indeed had been won over by Communism, but so small a fraction did not justify the sacrifice of the majority of the population and the young people who had been forced into the Pathet Lao army.

The Prime Minister agreed that Laos had undertaken an experiment; the reason it had succeeded, however, was because the Pathet Lao were not Communist. If they had been, they would have remained masters of the two provinces; instead they had abdicated their position and submitted to the Government’s authority. Furthermore, the integration of the Pathet Lao into the national community had taken place without a single incident.

The Pathet Lao had always propagandized against the Royal Government as the “slave of the imperialists” and so forth, but now those propaganda themes were worthless because the Pathet Lao were themselves in the government.

Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma said he had always thought the problem in Laos could not be settled until Viet-Nam was reunified, but he had been wrong. The fact that a settlement had been achieved proved the Pathet Lao had no secret accord with the Viet Minh, as his half-brother Prince Souphanouvong had sworn they did not. Souphanouvong had, moreover, told him that everything must be done to consolidate the throne. In reply the Prime Minister had said to the Pathet Lao leader that he must prove his words by deeds before the Lao would believe him.

Laos, continued the Prime Minister, was not in the same situation as Korea, Viet-Nam, and Germany. And so far as Central Europe was concerned, he had the impression that Rumania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia had become Communist because of the presence of the Soviet Army. The Soviet Army had left Finland, however, and Finland had remained free. He thought Laos could be compared to Finland.

Today Laos’ National Army totaled 25,000, and, including the auto-defense forces, there were 40,000 men under arms. Souvanna Phouma was certain that the 1,500 Pathet Lao troops to be integrated could not undermine the Army and that the 200 Pathet Lao civil servants could not triumph over the 5,000–6,000 of the Royal Government.

Nevertheless, the necessary precautions had to be taken, and he had done so. Propaganda and intelligence organizations were going into the countryside to inform the people of their duty, and for the May elections the two conservative parties, the Nationalists and Independents, had in Saigon signed an agreement to cooperate.

The Prime Minister, because of special conditions obtaining in Laos, did not believe that a minority party, which had perhaps employed Marxist methods but was not dominated by Marxism, could absorb the majority. By birth he had much influence in the country, as did the Crown Prince. It was necessary to see the situation through Lao eyes. Dr. Dooley (head of a privately financed medical project), who had lived in the villages, could tell the United States that Laos could not become Communist because of its faith in the old traditions.

Souvanna Phouma asked the United States to have confidence, and to allow a three-to-four months’ period to see whether he had been wrong in his judgment. He had not been wrong yet; many people, for example, thought the Pathet Lao would not respect the accords, but they had. Since 1956 he had considered the Pathet Lao true Lao. Laos did not wish to become Communist and would be the first to combat such a system.

The Secretary said one could not take much comfort from the fact that the Communist element in Laos might be a small minority, since the Communists always preferred to operate from a minority position. Stalin, in his discussions of Leninism, had stated the revolutionary party must always remain a minority because only a minority could be highly trained, disciplined, and efficient. A majority group became incompetent and the slave of mass opinion. Never in the world had the Communist Party become a majority; in the Soviet Union, for example, only 3 percent of the population belonged to the Party.

Finland, the Secretary continued, was the outstanding example of a nation which existed in close proximity to overwhelming Communist force and yet managed to preserve its freedom and independence, and all of us recognized the Finns’ performance as one of the great achievements of modern times. They had long experience in dealing with the Russians, for even before the advent of the Communists they had had trouble. There was a quality about the Finns which we all greatly admired and respected. If Laos, without the experience of Finland, could match its performance, it would also be highly respected. He hoped Laos could do so, but thus far Finland was the exception rather than the rule.

The Secretary said that according to our information, only 4,000 Pathet Lao troops had presented themselves at the Assembly centers rather than the 7,500 expected.⁷ This might not be correct and perhaps did not justify drawing unfavorable conclusions, but it seemed to indicate that the Pathet Lao were not respecting the accords. The Communists were notorious violators of international agreements.

He then requested the correct interpretation of Article 2 of the Nationalist-Independent agreement on election tactics, which gave the impression the two parties would present more candidates than the number of available seats, thus splitting the conservative vote to the benefit of the leftists.

Souvanna Phouma, taking the Secretary’s points in order, said he agreed the Communist minority could eventually dominate, but until the contrary was proven, he would not believe the Pathet Lao were really Communist. They used Communist methods, just as he had for three years in the Lao Issara movement in Bangkok, but this had not made him a Communist. During the pre-election period Pathet Lao propaganda could be scrutinized, but thus far it had not been of the Communist variety.

Laos had not had so much experience in dealing with Communism as had Finland, but conditions in Laos were different. Laos was the only country in Asia not providing fertile ground for Communism. Its Buddhism was strong, and it was underpopulated. Its population of 5,000,000⁸ meant a density of only 20 per square kilometer. Moreover, the people lived in the traditions of the past; the women wove their own skirts, there was no industry, and the regime could be described as feudal. Laos was therefore impermeable to Communism.

In answering the Secretary’s comment on the progress of integration, Ngon Sananikone, Minister of National Defense, said that of the 7,500 Pathet Lao to be integrated, 4,200 had been demobilized, and 1,500 were to be taken into the National Army, leaving 2,000 to be integrated by January 20. Many of the 2,000 were probably natives of the two provinces who would be demobilized on the spot.

On the Nationalist-Independent agreement, the Prime Minister said that each party would submit a list of candidates equal to the number of available seats in a district. A special committee would then examine the list to determine which candidates had the greatest chance of success, and by this process the number would be reduced.

Concerning monetary reform, the Prime Minister said that a priori he would not refuse to devalue, but a sudden devaluation would cause a rise in the cost of living, create conditions exploitable by Pathet Lao propagandists, and jeopardize the conservative cause in the May elections. He therefore wished to postpone monetary reform until after the elections in order not to give the adversary a weapon to use against the Government.

Mr. Dillon responded that there was one element in the monetary situation which worried us so far as the elections were concerned. Any situation in which the currency was set at a rate far from its true value favored black-market conditions leading to scandals. We felt that such conditions might lend themselves to exploitation by the Pathet Lao during the campaign, and hoped something could be done before the elections to minimize this danger.

We did not, continued Mr. Dillon, foresee devaluation as causing a rise in prices, and we all agreed that such a result must be avoided. In the next day’s talks we could discuss whether a price rise necessarily followed devaluation. Since the Prime Minister agreed to the idea of devaluation, only the principle needed to be mentioned here.

There was one other immediate problem for us in connection with monetary reform: Aid to Laos interested the Congress, which had the power of appropriation. Unless we could give assurances to the legislature, we would have a difficult time of it. The matter of timing was important, for the hearings on the aid program would be held in April and May. We must convince the Congress, which was an independent branch of the Government, that our proposal for aid to Laos was right. And the Congress was very concerned about Laos.

Concluding the meeting, the Secretary said that, since discussions were to continue the next day, perhaps all that had to be said here was that from our standpoint it was indispensable that something be done to remedy the situation, to meet our problem and at the same time minimize the difficulties in Laos. The Secretary hoped that some progress could be achieved while the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance were in Washington.

The meeting ended at 4:00 p.m.

2. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611.51J/1–1358. Secret. Drafted by Patricia M. Byrne and concurred in by Kocher and Robertson. Souvanna Phouma was visiting Washington on an unofficial basis, January 13–16. Prior to his arrival, the Embassy in Vientiane sent an analysis of the general situation in Laos and background information on the military and political agreements between the Royal Lao Government and the Pathet Lao. (Telegrams 1114 and 1165 from Vientiane, January 3 and 10; Ibid., 033.51J11/1–358 and 033.51J11/1–1058) The Department of State prepared a briefing paper for Secretary Dulles, January 11. (Ibid., Conference Files: Lot 62 D 181, CF 956) The telegrams and briefing paper are included in the microfiche supplement.
3. See Foreign Relations, 1955–1957, vol. xxi, pp. 610 ff.
4. Both Dulles and Souvanna Phouma were participants at the Conference for the Conclusion and Signature of the Treaty of Peace with Japan, September 4–8, 1951.
5. Entitled “The Communist Seizure of Power in Eastern Europe.” It has not been found. Dulles requested the paper from Robertson on January 6. (Memorandum from Dulles to Robertson, January 6; Department of State, Central Files, 033.51J11/1–658; included in the microfiche supplement)
6. Souvanna Phouma visited Peiping August 21-26, 1956, and then traveled to Hanoi.
7. Reported in telegram 1165 from Vientiane, January 10. (Department of State, Central Files, 033.51J11/1–1058; included in the microfiche supplement)
8. No complete census has ever been taken in Laos, but U.S. Government agencies use 2,000,000, the Lao Statistical Service estimate. Top Lao officials are given to exaggeration on the population figure. [Footnote in the source text.]