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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
Kenneth's most amusing experience while working at the Board of Economic Warfare happened one day when Max Ways said to him that the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted someone who had expertise on elephants to come over and instruct them on the animals. He…
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…
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…
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 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…
After calling on the President, Kenneth said to Donovan that his three weeks were up, and he would be leaving. Donovan still needed him, so he called President Dennis of Earlham College, and Dennis gave Kenneth a leave of absence through that first…
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."
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…
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…
In Washington Kenneth was given a nice big office in the Triangle Building. Kenneth was the first substantive employee of the Office of the Coordinator of Information, he says, which later became the OSS, and then the CIA. "I am regarded as one of…
Because of Kenneth's unusual path, the OSS has always claimed him as one of their founding members, though he never was in the OSS. Kenneth believes he is one of those shadowy people in their minds who probably was one of their secret agents all the…
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…
Kenneth explains what the OCI or Office of the Coordinator of Information was. William Donovan was convinced that war was coming, and that the United States would get into it, and that we lacked intelligence information. We didn't know much about the…
Kenneth finished his PhD at Chicago, tried to become a pastor, then to introduce the teaching of Eastern religions and Philosophy in a number of universities, but never succeeded in any of his attempts. One day he decided to go around Illinois, Ohio,…
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.