Office of the Historian

160. Editorial Note

At 10 p.m. on January 13, Souvanna Phouma and Deputy Under Secretary of State Dillon met at the Lao Embassy in Washington for a private discussion. No memorandum of conversation of the meeting was made, but Dillon gave a report on the discussion at the Secretary’s Staff Meeting on January 14, 9:15 a.m. as follows: [Page 420]

“Mr. Dillon said that he had had quite a satisfactory meeting yesterday with the Laotian Prime Minister at the latter’s request. Mr. Dillon surmised that the Prime Minister wanted to talk to him privately about monetary abuses in Laos out of earshot of his colleagues. The Prime Minister said he was strongly in favor of some currency revaluation and indicated that he was aware of the serious monetary abuses and wanted to do something to correct them.” (SM N–601; Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 62 D 181, CF 957)

At 10:30 a.m. on January 14, Souvanna Phouma and his party met with President Eisenhower and Department of State officials. Souvanna thanked Eisenhower for U.S. aid and the President congratulated him on the “Lao decision to defend their liberty.” According to the account of the meeting, the conversation was short and dealt only with generalities. (Memorandum of conversation by Charles Sedgwick and Byrne, January 14; Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, International Series, Laos)

Also on January 14, Souvanna called on Vice President Nixon at the Senate office building at 11:15 a.m. The conversation was more substantive than that with Eisenhower. Nixon stressed that while Laos had friends in the U.S. Congress, the inefficient use of U.S. aid and past abuses in Vientiane made it difficult to sell a program of Lao aid to Congress. (Memorandum of conversation by Sedgwick and Byrne, January 14; Department of State, Central Files, 033.51J11/1–1458)

At 3:30 p.m. on January 14, Souvanna Phouma and his party returned to the Department of State for substantive discussions on monetary reform. Assistant Secretary Robertson informed the Lao officials that future aid to Laos depended on reform of the unrealistic official Lao exchange rate of 35 kip to the dollar and elimination of the system of import licensing which led to diversion of U.S. aid goods to Thailand. Souvanna Phouma and Minister of Finance Leaum Insisiengmay expressed concern that the United States was asking for devaluation, which would have serious political, social, and economic consequences just before the upcoming Lao elections. Both sides expressed willingness to work out a solution during subsequent meetings of experts in Washington. (Memorandum of conversation by William H. Price, January 14; ibid.) A summary paper of February 28 by Jan Mladek, the U.S. expert on the question, contains an account of the subsequent experts’ discussions. (Ibid., 851J.13/2–2558)

On the next day, January 15, at 10:30 a.m., Souvanna and his party met with Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald Quarles and Assistant Secretary of Defense Mansfield Sprague as well as other U.S. officials. According to a brief memorandum of conversation by Kocher, dated January 15, apart from amenities and “a most general discussion” [Page 421] of the Pathet Lao and their integration into the Lao National Army, Souvanna Phouma made three requests of Deputy Secretary Quarles as follows:

  • “1. A squadron of American helicopters under French control, which were formerly used in Saigon, will apparently be taken out of service in a short time. The Prime Minister indicated that these helicopters could be extremely useful in the forthcoming election campaign for propaganda leaflets and other political purposes.
  • “2. The material at the disposition of the Laos Army was very old, clothing, ordnance, vehicles—many of them thrice rebuilt. It would be much appreciated if the possibility of providing newer material could be studied. (Captain Robbins confirmed in general the age and condition of ANL equipment.)

  • “3. The Prime Minister emphasized the inconvenience of army planning under the present system of supplying credits month-by-month. Deputy Secretary Quarles indicated his understanding of the ineffectiveness of planning on such a haphazard basis.

    “Deputy Secretary Quarles promised to have his people look into these questions and to provide answers as soon as possible for the Prime Minister. The meeting broke up after the Deputy Secretary had given a general briefing of the world situation in military terms.” (Ibid., 751J.00/1–1558)

At noon, Souvanna Phouma met with Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles prior to a 1 p.m. lunch with him at the Alibi Club in Washington. No record of the meeting with Allen Dulles has been found.

There was a final formal meeting between Souvanna and Secretary Dulles to discuss the issuing of a joint communiqué of the visit. (Memorandum of conversation by Byrne, January 15; ibid., 611.51J/1–1558) The communiqué is printed in Department of State Bulletin, February 3, 1958, page 168.

The documents described here are included in the microfiche supplement.