Kenneth's work with the BEW began with a study of Southeast Asian countries to select bombing targets that would be significant in hurting the enemy's abilities to control the area. This began with important bridges, machine shops, roundhouses,…
Kenneth knew now that he was going to stay in Washington and began looking for a house for the family to move into. They rented at 2910 Brandywine St. in Washington and, later, bought 4711 Fulton Street in the fall of 1944. When the Landons made…
Kenneth was staying in a room, at $22 a month. When he moved over to the BEW and his salary jumped to $5600, he wrote to Margaret that he felt his future lay in government. The money was much better than he could earn in the academic world.
In March, 1942, Kenneth wrote a handbook for soldiers in Thailand. We knew we would eventually be going in, and so there was a lot of talk about how to set up a military government. Somebody had to cook up a manual on this, as there were none.
The Board of Economic Warfare was formed just for the war, and its purpose was to figure out how to cripple the economy of the enemy in the war. It was involved in bombing factories, bridges, acts of sabotage, whatever would cripple the enemy's…
Kenneth explains why the OCI became the OSS. The OCI was concerned with developing and coordinating information, and its staff consisted of scholars on the areas of interest. The OSS included that function but also had other branches of "activists…
Dr. Tsiang was of a very wealthy Chinese family in Java, and he took his new American wife back there with him. He had been in this country as a student, getting his Ph.D., and had stayed in America because of the Japanese invasion.
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…
Kenneth called the Board of Economic Warefare and asked Gordon Bowles if they had a job for someone who was an expert on Thailand and Malaya. They answered, "Yes, and his name is Kenneth Landon."
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.
Kenneth now tells of the Chungking project. This was a possible venture in India and China to tap possible sources of information in Thailand and Indochina, and it was to be based in Chungking. Kenneth was seriously considering going out and setting…
Kenneth delivered the Taft lectures at the University of Cincinnati, and Margaret accompanied him. Cincinnati wanted Kenneth to join its department of philosophy, in which he would be its specialist on Oriental philosophy. The people there treated…
Margaret wrote Kenneth that Candy, the bulldog Kenneth had acquired as a pet in Richmond, had bitten a child. Kenneth wrote back that he felt Candy should be disposed of. Margaret kept that dog, and two years later, when Kip was a baby, on March 27,…
The Dolly Madison saga, which happened in February, 1942. Dolly Madison was Kenneth's secretary, and she was madly in love with a reporter for The Washington Post, and a good one, named George. The man wasn't interested in marrying her, so she…
Kenneth went to a party and played the piano. Life magazine, Kenneth thinks it was, had an article on how to play the piano in four or five lessons. He sat down with that, figured it out, and did it. All he had to know was the melody, and it showed…
Kip has been reading Kenneth's letters of the time to Margaret, who was still in Richmond, Indiana with the children. Kenneth was forever expressing concern about her health, and urging her to walk for exercise, something she loathed to do. "I just…
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…
Kenneth says the US would not have declared war on Japan if the Japanese had not attacked Pearl Harbor and the Philippines. The US did not oppose the Japanese even when they were stripping China and murdering people by the millions. There are many…
In 1941 Kenneth Landon kept an office in the Library of Congress, where he enlisted the help of Shio Sakanishi, a Tokyo-born Japanese expert working in the Division of Orientalia. Horace Poleman, who became one of Landon’s best friends, worked with…
In October, 1941, Kenneth had a tooth pulled at a "speed dentist's." The man had six chairs and was working them all at the same time, pulling out teeth. It was like a barber shop. The procedure cost $2. Kenneth recalls the dentists he used in…
Kenneth recalls going up to stay at a British hill station after his operation for appendicitis and listening to British gentlemen there discussing what they would do when the Japanese attacked, and of how easily a small group of them could link…
Margaret returns to Kenneth's first weeks in Washington and the report he presented, based on his knowledge of the terrain in Thailand. She says that when she and Kenneth were in the final years of their second tour in Siam that the Japanese were…
For recreation Kenneth would go out to Glen Echo, up the Potomac River outside Washington, where there was an amusement park, and swim in the public swimming pool. It was very crowded.