The whole mob of them would go down the stairs to the floor below where the coffee bar was. Half way down the stairs, there was a huge firehose all coiled up and ready to go in case of an emergency. There was a wheel that you whirled to turn the…
Kenneth remembers the first time he went to the theater, at age eight or nine. Mr. Jenkins, a printer for The Evening Republican, and Bobby Jenkins took him there. He recalls being photographed wearing the dress of Alice Jenkins after a party and…
Kenneth tells of a lovely arrangement of flowers. This was during the time of the recordings. The flowers were from Phil Bonsal's wife Margaret, who had sent the flowers to Margaret Landon.
Kenneth tells of the Landon's different career spurts. He describes them as quite fortuitous, as Margaret wrote her book, and the war spurred great interest in Southeast Asia. Kenneth was also fortunate in that he was the only one in the Foreign…
Kenneth gives a detailed description of the fourth day of the Seminar. He describes his daily routine, involving introducing speakers, a staff meeting, and other meetings he might have.
The Free Thai movement developed simultaneously among Thai students in Britain and the United States. It was under the direction of the Thai Legation in Washington and probably under the principal military attachés in Britain. Kenneth explains how…
Kenneth speaks of what an informal situation it was in Washington at the time. One could freewheel around the town in all the government agencies. He had his own phone book that he made up of all the people who were useful to him. So often he could…
Kenneth gives a detailed description of the golf game he arranged for the Prime Minister and the President of the United States. Originally planned as simply a lunch, Kenneth decided that, because they were both interested in golf, he would set up a…
Kenneth's mother, Mae, was anemic and was told by her doctor that she should have a stout or dark beer that would help her overcome her anemia. This was standard procedure in those days. The father, Brad, was preaching against alcohol consumption and…
One of the subjects Kenneth talked to Ho about was the many people he saw dying of smallpox. He saw people with pox all over them. People were emaciated. Ho told him that the starvation in Vietnam was terrible. He said that during the war the dykes…
In 1947 Kenneth was invited to give the Haskell lectures at the University of Chicago. It was one of the six most prestigious lectures in religion and philosophy in all of the US. A week before the lectures he loaded his material and came to Chicago…
Kenneth goes into detail on the last day before the seminar teams would give their presentations. They had all worked quite hard, and were putting in many hour to make their presentations completely professional in quality. This was also the first…
Kenneth tells of the latter part of the Country Team Seminar. He, as part of running the seminar, has some housekeeping to do with dealing with staff and scheduling lecturers. General Maxwell Taylor, special assistant to the President, was to be…
Kip remembers an article in the newspaper about the Landons working to put in a special new kind of grass on their terraces. When the Landons moved to 4711 Fulton Street in late 1944, there was no grass, no shrubbery, and no trees. The Landons…
While traveling, Kenneth came upon a seller of peacock feather hats. The seller required the buyer to provide the pheasants which might be used in the making of the hat. Kenneth, however, found a premade hat in the house, tried it on and, finding…
Kenneth elaborates on the purpose and function of the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB). He explains that it was set up under presidential directive, and how exactly it came to exist from the Psychological Strategy Board.
The overall purpose of Kenneth's trip was initially to be a political adviser on the negotiations between the English and the Thai. The British had made twenty-one demands on the Thai, which would have made Thailand virtually a British colony. the…
At the Thai celebration dinner, Dr. Thongpleo delivered an eloquent speech of gratitude to the Americans. He was one of Thailand’s "senators," and was quite an orator. He expressed elaborate appreciation to Kenneth for all he had done, and to the…
Kenneth explains how the OCB worked, emphasizing the two different sides--that of policy and that of operations. He goes on to indicate that he was on the operations side and goes into how exactly that played out with his time on the OCB.
When Harry Truman became President, the Potsdam conference changed the war theater for MacArthur. This brought Lord Louis Mountbatten's command into Thailand and the Indochinese states south of the 16th parallel, with Chiang Kai Shek north of that.…
Kenneth tells of the firebug problem which Sarit deals with. People were lighting fires in order to collect the insurance on the properties and Sarit needed to deal with the problem. Televised, he shot a firebug which had been caught, teaching a…
Kenneth's book based on his Haskell lectures, Southeast Asia: Crossroad of Religions, was published not only by Chicago University Press but also by Oxford University Press, as his two previous books had been.
Kenneth recounts the rest of his 1960 tour through Southeast Asia. He hears of the government in Laos being overthrown the night after he left. After a brief tour he travelled back to Bangkok and briefed the Prime Minister on what he saw.
Kenneth tells of the security at airbases which were prepped to bomb the Ho Chi Minh trail. He says that their security was extremely lax, and he thought that it would be quite easy for the Vietnamese to come in and sabotage the planes.