Bao Dai sent an official driver to pick Kenneth up in a big limousine. They went up into the mountain area where Bao Dai was staying, with the road along the edge of a cliff, and it was breathtaking. There were no guard rails or anything! The driver…
Kenneth tells of how he was poisoned at a dinner in Bangkok. There was a dinner at the Legation during which Kenneth became violently ill, supposedly from food poisoning with arsenic. There were Thai in Bangkok who were very suspicious of Kenneth,…
Kenneth tells of the time when he was to be the political adviser to Admiral Edwin Layton. The Admiral was taking a tour around the Pacific countries and was particularly interested in Japan. Kenneth was asked what he would be drinking on the trip,…
Bill Godel had gotten into some trouble. They talked with Kenneth about testifying on his character. Kenneth exclaimed that he figured Godel innocent, as he wouldn't piddle around with anything less than $10,000--more than that, though, he might have…
Bill was a natural golfer. He could have been a professional golfer if he had wanted to. He had good timing, coordination, grace. Bill wanted to run the mile, so he went out for the track team at school. Later on, when he was living in Seattle, he…
Kenneth tells of the time he was to brief McGeorge Bundy and Walt Rostow on Laos, as he was just returning from there. This briefing was right after John F. Kennedy was elected president. He found that McGeorge Bundy was quite the knowledgeable man,…
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…
Kenneth speaks of the Office of War Information that Donovan also set up and for which he made Thai language broadcasts. The original idea for the broadcasts came from the Thai Legation, as early as October, 1941, before the war began. Immediately…
The 1945 flight from New York landed in Ireland, then in London, where Kenneth visited the bookstores. He then flew on to Paris. Margaret had just "gotten in the chips" because of Anna, and had some money to spend. They had agreed that he would buy…
While Kenneth was in Djakarta he became lonesome, so he called home and heard the phone ring, and then Margaret picked up and said hello. He said hello, and she said, "Kenneth! Where are you?" He said, "Djakarta." And she said, "Oh, where in Kansas…
Kenneth tells the story of the Landons' bulldog, Candy, that Kenneth bought when he was going to Earlham College to make an impression on campus. The dog was very emotional and had an unsual way of greeting visitors, making a mess that Margaret had…
Kenneth had a regular ritual at State when coffee break time came. He had learned early on that the most important people to him were the messengers and the secretaries. They were helpful to him in many ways. Every day, Kenneth made a point of having…
Kenneth gives a detailed description of days during the Country Team Seminar. He discusses ways of improving the course, including time he spent with experts making sure he had the materials necessary for those in the course to study. He also details…
Kenneth had been ignoring Dean Rusk's attempts to meet with him, but Rusk eventually decided to just appoint Kenneth to the Foreign Service Institute. Kenneth was already making a larger salary than the Director, whom he was to be Special Assistant…
Merle Cochran gave Kenneth a dinner in which the meat, which was pork chops, was so tough that he could not cut it. Cochran sat there and laughed as Kenneth toiled away on the pork chops. The only way he could get anything off a pork chop was to pick…
Then Governor Tri gave a dinner in Kenneth's honor. The menu was in French, beautifully embossed. The menu didn't mean anything to Kenneth, and Governor Tri laughed at him. There were twenty-some courses, and after each one, Tri would ask Kenneth…
The Queen sent word around that she would like to come to dinner at the Landons' home. She named the night and the time, which was the royal prerogative. The Landons had the dinner catered there at 4711. The Queen got quite emotional when she heard…
After flying from Singapore then on to Djakarta, Kenneth tells of his encounter with General Ko Geng Hsui. At the time, the General was one of the most powerful men in the government under Lee Kuan Yew.
The State Department decided to hire Kenneth because they had no one who knew anything about Thailand, and Kenneth had told them there was going to be a lot more traffic of communication on Thailand. They decided they had better keep it in the…
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.
Kenneth continued working with Donovan in an unofficial way, though he was no longer with the OSS. He helped with the Free Thai movement and then he started drafting telegrams to Gen. Timmerman in Colombo. The response to the first of these came to…
Kenneth tells about his Easter Sunday at the Columbus church, his morning preparation and teaching, his sermon on the resurrection and its impact on the congregation. He commented how the church was willing to get him a car.
Kenneth tells of his encounter with Winnie Cobey. Winnie brought him a recipe book from a monastery in California. Included in this book was a far superior bread recipe, which he started to use. Kenneth's interest in cooking picked up as Margaret's…
The Secretary of State at that point was ill, so Undersecretary of State Edward Stettinius ran the Department. Kenneth tells how Stettinius once spoke at the same occasion as Margaret, the two of them having written books, and of how openly disgusted…