Peggy tells of finding out that she was to have another sibling. Margaret was shocked to find that Peggy and Bill were quite excited at the prospect of a new baby.
Peggy tells of the summer of 1942 in which the Landons moved to Washington. Margaret would join them a little later, as she stayed behind to take care of the moving and packing.
Peggy tells of the birth of her new sibling. She also recalls the house-hunting process in which, when they found their house, they simply knew it was the right one!
Peggy tells of the time the Landons lived in Indiana. She tells of the house they lived in and recalls the mahogany desk which she remembers her mother sitting and writing.
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…
Kenneth left the OCI for the BEW in part because the Harvard folks couldn't get along with him about the Chinese he spoke. Margaret points out that Kenneth spoke the Swatow dialect, Taichu, that was commonly spoken among the diaspora of Chinese in…
Margaret returns to the name of Baxter, looking up the Baxters in a biographical dictionary. James Phinney Baxter III. She reads about his work as president and lecturer at several colleges. When the OCI became the OSS, he became Deputy Director of…
Margaret explains how, in World War I, President Wilson discovered that the US had no such thing as an intelligence service, and so began to address this issue, but the little that he did at that time had probably disappeared when WWII started. The…
During that initial three weeks, Kenneth had two offices, one in the Triangle Building, and one in the Library of Congress, a research office, with full facilities and the availability of the stacks. That was when he discovered all of the Thai…
Kenneth and Margaret tell about Kenneth's earliest exchanges with the government about Southeast Asia. They talked about when the Japanese could attack Thailand, why the Japanese were in Indochina and how far, if they attack Thailand, they could…
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…
Margaret recalls a story of the Well's fine set of sterling silver. When the Japanese invaded Thailand, they had to flee. Wells, at the time, was a headmaster at a boy's school in Chiang Mai. Teachers at the school snuck out and secretly buried the…
When the Japanese invaded Thailand, many Westerners fled. Thomas Byrd, the British Consul General in Chiang Mai at the time, was one of these fleeing. Margaret recalls the story that Byrd was in a car while others were walking, and upon passing a…
Kenneth acquired a royal barge from Thailand. It was dropped on his desk by a young man who had joined the Board of Economic Warfare and whose parents had died. The picture was part of his inheritance. The Landons believe it is an original painting…
Kip notes from Kenneth's letters that he was being paid $20 a day. He started out at $15 a day, then moved up to $20. Kenneth was negotiating for more. Ernest Griffith was a man of wealth, a Quaker business type who was determined to get everything…
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.
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…
In the spring of 1942, Kenneth delivered the Taft lectures, three lectures, at the University of Cincinnati. In conjunction with that, he worked on reading in Chinese with a view to writing a book on Chinese philosophy.
Kenneth tells of the background to his appointment at the State Department. There had been a number of inquiries before the call from Washington. Kenneth wasn't interested in most of them. He tells how Mortimer Graves, secretary of the Council of…
Brad would visit Kenneth and Margaret in the city, but would always leave his car at the edge of town and ask Kenneth to come pick him up (he was afraid of driving in the city). His visits were marked by snide remarks and usually ended in a difficult…