751G.92/77: Telegram
The Minister in Thailand (Grant) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 22—3:10 a.m.]
136. Referring to the Legation’s No. 135, October 21, 7 p.m.31 outlining the Prime Minister’s broadcast last night on the Indochina situation, it is my judgment that there is now no longer any doubt that the present Government, which, as indicated in previous telegrams, is dominated by a powerful military clique which is linked with the Japanese and encouraged by the Germans, has adopted a definite course of action which contemplates the use of military force if necessary in order to realize its territorial aspirations in Indochina. Luscious bait of territorial acquisition at an alleged small cost to Thailand has been successfully dangled before the eyes of the ambitious leaders of this peaceful country and, as discretion and common sense have been thrown to the winds, the handful of Liberals led by Luang Pradist, Minister of Finance, have been pushed clear off the boards and a vacillating Prime Minister has taken the militant leadership at the behest of stronger men.
The Prime Minister is now out in the open with the program. He has declared that Thailand will not take one step backward and is bound to secure her objective. He then proceeds to outline the requirements of the nation at war, states that French control cannot last [Page 190] long in Indochina and finally that the Siamese brethren in Cambodia and in Laos territories and also the Annamese will regain their independence and those in Cambodia and Laos will live again under the Thai King and constitution. He also resorts to the most dangerous sort of demagoguery which seems to be thoroughly in line with the Japanese programs of Asia for the Asiatic, in referring to the French as white, eating bread and meat and living in towns, while the Thai brethren are yellow, live in the jungle and eat rice and curry.
The speech was not written even in part by the Prime Minister, is belligerent and smells strongly of Tokyo. The matter of the two bits of frontier territory in Indochina is, as I have thought all along, only incidental, the entering wedge from the west in the long range Japanese plan to bring about the complete break up of Indochina and the involvement and subsequent control of Thailand which is in turn only a phase of the ultimate program of the Japanese sweep southward, abetted by Germany in furtherance of its battle with Great Britain. Germany is winning this war, Great Britain is destined to be beaten, the United States is impotent in the Far East and Japan is irresistible, in the eyes of the Prime Minister and his Thai prompters.
- Not printed.↩