Mr.Brown understood this question just about as well as he understood the question of the bombing of civilian centres in North Vietnam. The very same day, U.P.I. sent the following despatch from Bangkok: " U.S, Ambassador Graham Martin today officially acknowledged that U.S. forces were using bases in Thailand to participate in the Vietnam war. It was the first official acknowledgement by the United States of a topic that has been an open secret in Thailand for the past three years. Until now, Washington has denied it. Mr.Martin made the remarks in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce here. He also disclosed that there are 35,283 U.S. troops in Thailand - about 8,000 of whom are working on logistics facilities. He also acknowledged that there is an American Special Forces group in Thailand training Thai troops in counterguerrilla warfare. He added: "For the record, neither the Special Forces and other American forces have ... participated in actual counterinsurgency operations." Confirmation of the U.P.I. report came from Peter Duval Smith, writing in the Sunday Telegraph of January 22nd Writing from Chieng Kong, Thailand, he saids " Ever ‘since Utapao was declared open last August by 10 Buddhist monks who sprinkled holy water on the runway, the airfield has been used regularly by about 35 of the big KC135 tankers which are a familiar sight to every rice farmer in the north-east of Thailand, as their umbilical cords are lowered in flight to feed fuel to Phantom and Thunderchief fighter-bombers on their way to Hanoi, Strangest of all, Thailand does not admit that the first raid of all on North Vietnam, on Reb.7, 1965, was launched from a Thai base or that today no fewer than two-thirds of all raids on the north originate from Thailand. . In fact there are six main American air bases in the country, more than. 500 planes and 35,000 American servicemen, the great majority in the Air Force. ; mY Apart from these, there is a special forces mission teaching jungle warfare to the Thai Army: there are all those mystery men in the north and elsewhere; and a variety of engineers are constructing a major port at Sattahip, near Utapao, and building roads, pipelines and a ‘nation-wide communication system. This year American military aid will total more than 60-million dollars, and at least as much money again will come in from American private investment. Bangkok today is a modern capital city, prosperous as never before; but the new look that is rising among the temples and the old canals is unmistakeably a dollar look."
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