Notes
VITALISING WITH WORDS
During the first session of the SEATO conference at Bangkok Mr. Dulles suggested that what he and the other Foreign Ministers had to do was `to vitalise our treaty with words.' It is certainly unlikely to be vitalised with much else as a result of the conference, in spite of the Siamese Govern- ment's anxiety to have a permanent SEATO army stationed within the country. Two days before the conference began Marshal Pibul Songgram, the Prime Minister of Siam, took an alarmist line and spoke of a Communist force. 20,000 strong, already poised in China against Siam. 'If we do not do any-. thing about it,' he said, 'Communism will take over Thailand and dominate the whole of South-East Asia.' The main threat, however, is not so much from China as from the dissidents in Siam itself, who thrive on the incompetence and corruption of the regime, which in the past has not made anything like the best use of the aid which America pours into the country. Neither America nor any other member of SEATO will be keen to take up Marshal Songgram's invitation. He will have to put his own house in order as best he can. There is a more important subject under discussion at Bangkok, although it falls outside SEATO's competence. That is Formosa, and it is to be hoped that Sir Anthony Eden will adequately convey to Mr. Dulles the alarm and despondency caused abroad by the apparent ambiguities of American policy. As Captain Cyril Falls says elsewhere in this issue, it will not be easy for America to force a loss of 'face' on Chiang by persuading him to get out of Quemoy and Matsu while the going is good. But some loss of 'face' by Chiang is infinitely preferable to the prospect of a Sino-American war sparked off by a brush over the unimportant offshore islands. And the sooner these islands are evacuated the easier it will be for the Americans to restrain Chiang from provoking the Communists by incessant air attack.
Previous page
