Kenneth tells of his time in Washington working for the government on Foreign Affairs. He recalls a co-worker set to fire him (and did fire him) but later found out Kenneth had become the Dean of Area Studies at Foreign Services Institute. He tells…
Brad dropped dead while shopping at a store, at the age of eighty four. His funeral was held in Meadville, with no Presbyterians invited, but many of the old girls from his Bible class came. Kenneth and Margaret's attire at the funeral drew a lot of…
Marshall Sarit of Thailand came to dinner with the Landons in 1958. When Kenneth and Sarit were on the porch, Sarit noted the wild animals which lived in the same area as the Landons. Noting they weren't afraid of him, he concluded Kenneth had the…
Kenneth tells of his serving on the admissions committee of the Cosmos Club. Customarily, one would only serve for three years. However, after replacing a member who resigned, and finishing that members two years on the committee, he was able to stay…
Kip recalls Kenneth's commenting on Peggy's boyfriends when she was in high school. Kenneth says she was very popular with the boys. He remembers her dating a young Italian boy whom her parents thought wasn't the boy for her. She decided not to date…
Kenneth tells of his advice to William Donovan. He explains that the northeastern plateau was very arid. If he could redirect the Mekong River, it might provide power and irrigate the arid plateau, raising the level of agriculture greatly. Donovan…
One day Peggy decided to give a party. She held it in the Landons' living room. When the party was going, a large group of kids crashed the party uninvited. Peggy just told those fellows how they were going to have to behave. The boys were hunting…
There was an amusing incident when the Thai minister, Seni Pramoj had a quarrel with his military attaché, Karp Kunjara. Kenneth called the minister in and said that the quarreling and bickering with Colonel Kunjara was going to end immediately. The…
Kenneth's background on Southeast Asia led him to be convinced that these colonies were going to run their own show. They were going to fight. But the State Department didn't believe it. EY didn't believe it. Yet at the end of the war, Abbot Low…
Kenneth explains that he was the person in our government who arranged for military assistance to both Thailand and Vietnam initially, when the State Department was still in the Old Executive Office Building.
Kenneth talks about the head of the Far East section of the State Department, a man nicknamed "Baldy" Ballantyne, who would stutter when he didn't know what to say and would keep stuttering until he found the word he wanted. Ballantyne gave Kenneth…
Around the time he turned fifty, Kenneth started making a list of all the things he wanted to do in his life. On this list, he had that he wanted to write short stories. he finally got his chance and got them published in the Saturday Evening Post in…
Kenneth tells of becoming a member of the Congressional Golf Club. He had been trying for quite some time, and finally, through Larry, the husband of his piano teacher, was able to get on as a member. The price was drastically cheaper back then,…
Kenneth, after being removed from his job leading insurgency seminars, was able to travel some. He had received the position of Dean of Area Studies, and wanted to set up the program correctly. He studied the area studies programs at some of the…
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 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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
During the war, the head of the Free Thai movement in Thailand was known as "Ruth" to the OSS. The head of the police was known as "Betty." These were their codenames. There were agents from the Free Thai movement in Washington during much of the…
Such items as desks, chairs, rugs, and so on, were prescribed according to rank in the Department. "In the State, War, and Navy Building, which then became the State Department Building, the really posh offices for Assistant Secretaries and for…
General Brute Krulak found Kenneth to be going about the seminar in a way he didn't see fit. While Kenneth taught how to "rebuild the house", Krulak saw the house as on fire, and that the fire must be put out before they could start rebuilding--i.e.…