Browse Items (1015 total)

In 1953, Kenneth traveled to northeastern Thailand. He used this trip to scout out some of the areas which the Mekong River project would impact. He noted, in these areas, the great work ethic of the Vietnamese over that of the Chinese.

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Kenneth and his fellow travelers had a brief stop in Maidan, and Kenneth talked to the consul. He then flew to Singapore, and from Singapore to Bangkok. 

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In that 1946 period in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh expressed great concern about the Chinese. He badly wanted them out of the country, just as he did the French. He couldn't get rid of them. They would manufacture and print phony Vietnamese currency up in…

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In Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh arranged for Kenneth to stay longer than he initially intended, in order to give Kenneth a good opportunity to move around Hanoi and see how conditions were. He also assigned Kenneth a car with a driver.

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Ho Chi Minh knew he couldn't give Kenneth a gift, and didn't offer him one. He was a clever man, and what he did was give Kenneth a tortoiseshell vanity case for Margaret. 

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Hornbeck was the political adviser on Asia to the Secretary, but he arrogated to himself the responsibility of adviser to the Secretary on anything. He once delivered to Ballantyne and Kenneth an elaborate speech, all in indirection. Kenneth told him…

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The conversation with General Salan played out after a while. There was nothing to eat or drink on board. The plane arrived in Hanoi late in the afternoon. By this point, Kenneth was "just miserable," dehydrated, having had nothing to eat or drink…

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Kenneth and his family were in Gull Lake vacationing when the call from Washington came in. The person was inquiring about Kenneth's knowledge of Souteast Asia and the Japanese intentions for Thailand. The caller ended by promising to send Kenneth a…

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One of the reasons Margaret and Kenneth resigned from mission work had to do with the role of the national church in Thailand vis-a-vis the missionaries. They both believed the mission was absolutely backward and without vision, that the mission…

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Kenneth explains what the OCI or Office of the Coordinator of Information was. William Donovan was convinced that war was coming, and that the United States would get into it, and that we lacked intelligence information. We didn't know much about the…

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Kenneth asked a soldier if he could help Kenneth get into Hanoi, twenty miles away. The soldier answered that many soldiers would be going into town for rest and recreation, that is to eat and be merry with the girls. As a way to get to Hanoi,…

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Kenneth gave a dinner for the people in the department of religion at the end of his Haskell lectures. People came and they chatted for a while before Kenneth invited everyone to have dinner. He had prepared for it the best he could, but still he had…

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Kenneth finished his PhD at Chicago, tried to become a pastor, then to introduce the teaching of Eastern religions and Philosophy in a number of universities, but never succeeded in any of his attempts. One day he decided to go around Illinois, Ohio,…

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Kenneth explains how he obtained the classified documents of Regent Pridi Panomyong. It was through a Thai who was an aide to Pridi who wanted to marry a girl in the church at Trang, a Christian girl. He was not a Christian. He came to Kenneth to…

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Kenneth talks about his diplomacy travels to Southeast Asia. He describes his suitcase and the things he carried, whether it was for personal comfort, health, money, or documents for his meetings with people. He wrote frequently to Margaret and the…

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One outcome of the Chunking episode was that Remer, Kenneth's boss, had found someone to take Kenneth's job, on the assumption that Kenneth would be leaving them.

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Dr. Tsiang had an apartment in that area, and the woman living in the apartment under him had been married to a Chinese man and had left him because he was sexually inadequate. Her apartment caught on fire, and in the aftermath, the place was such a…

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Kenneth talks about how his temporary job became permanent. Several other men from the OCI, including a man named Gordon Bowles, who was a graduate of Earlham College, moved over with Kenneth to the BEW. Kenneth picked out bombing targets, locating…

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Prince Dhani, the minister of education at that time, came all the way down from Bangkok to read Pridi's economic plan that Kenneth had obtained when he was still a missionary. The documents were classified and could not be in the public domain. The…

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Kenneth went to work researching the questions that President Roosevelt and Col. Donovan wanted answered, and when he had his report ready, he accompanied Donovan to the President's office. Donovan had told Kenneth how he had come to seek Kenneth's…

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As the war really got going, people started coming into the State Department from the field, like John Davies, Jack Service, and fellows who were cashiered later on in the McCarthy era. John Davies was fired. Service made a fool of himself by making…

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Kenneth encountered Bill Godel once again while in Singapore. Bill had been getting involved with the gun industry there, and thought Kenneth might join in. Kenneth explained that he could not, yet spent a nice evening with Bill.

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While in Bangkok, Kenneth met a man by the name of James Thompson who had been in the town for some time and received a letter from his wife in the US that she was divorcing him because he was not coming back.  Thompson was devastated by the letter…

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Kenneth tells of Jimmy Lay. Lay was the secretary under the National Security Council and had been secretary under Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy. Kennedy got fed up with Lay, as Lay was accustomed to taking minutes of the meetings. When Kennedy…

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Kenneth recalls a story in which John Dulles is to relay a new policy to the State Department. Upon noticing the incredible amount of people gathered, he commented to Douglas MacArthur that he couldn't comprehend why they might need this many people,…

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