Office of the Historian

UNP files, lot 59 D 237, “Slates”

Memorandum by the Deputy Under Secretary of State (Murphy) to the Secretary of State1

confidential
[Washington,] June 30, 1954.
  • Subject:
  • Presidency of Ninth General Assembly

Pursuant to your request, a meeting was held in my office yesterday for the purpose of a further discussion of Prince Wan’s possible candidacy for the Presidency of the Ninth General Assembly. The meeting was attended by Assistant Secretaries Key and Robertson, Mr. Barbour vice Mr. Merchant, and Mr. Kennedy vice Mr. Byroade. The following conclusions and recommendations were reached unanimously:

1.
We recommend that Prince Wan should be sounded out as to whether he is a candidate for the Presidency and that, if he is, we should give him our full support. The principal reasons are:
(a)
Prince Wan is a staunch friend of ours and a very able parliamentarian. Thailand’s continued support is of key significance to us in the development of our Southeast Asian policy. Since Asian problems will be the center of attention at the Ninth General Assembly, it would be very desirable to have a friendly individual from that area of the world elected President.
(b)
Prince Wan was a candidate for the Presidency last year, but we supported Madame Pandit instead, and she was elected. This was a matter of great disappointment to Prince Wan. We have heard through the British and French that Prince Wan is a candidate again this year.
2.
We recommend that the decision to support Prince Wan be reached as quickly as possible since Van Kleffens has been actively campaigning for some time past, and the opening of the Ninth General Assembly is only a little over two and a half months away. This amount of time would be required to conduct an effective campaign for Prince Wan.
3.
We believe that if his candidacy is put forward in the near future, and vigorously pushed, the prospects for his election are quite favorable. He would probably be able to count on a fairly solid group of votes from the so-called Asian-African bloc as well as from most of the Latin American group. In addition, he would perhaps get votes from Turkey, Greece, and Yugoslavia, although most of the European countries would vote for Van Kleffens. Ambassador Lodge feels that Prince Wan would have a good fighting chance of being elected if he and we conduct an active campaign.
4.
For the above reasons we recommend that you give your approval to sounding out Prince Wan as to his candidacy and, if he is a candidate, [Page 552] to assuring him of our support. We suggest that you raise the matter with Prince Wan when he meets with you on Thursday, July 1, at 2 p.m. However, if you would prefer, arrangements could be made for Ambassador Lodge, Mr. Key, or me to do this.

  1. Drafted by Assistant Secretary Key.↩