1565 



special message of June 1, 1965, asked for a supplemental $89 million 

 in foreign aid funds for the Mekong River Basin project, Congress 

 acted promptly to grant the request. On March 16, 1966, it authorized 

 a $200 million subscription to the capital of the new Asian Develop- 

 ment Bank." Had the President's initiative succeeded in hastening 

 an end to the Avar, there is little doubt that Congress would have 

 given strong support to a postwar reconstruction program in South- 

 east Asia with the Mekong project as a major feature. 



Outcome 



President Johnson's initiative ended in failure. It seems clear that 

 the main reason it failed w^as its timing: it was too late, probably by 

 several years. The North Vietnamese were dug in and were apparently 

 convinced that they held the long-run advantage. There is evidence, 

 however, that the proposal Avas taken seriously at the time, even in 

 North Vietnam, and that it had considerable influence on long-range 

 thinking about regional development. Presidential emissary Eugene K. 

 Black has commented as follows on the political impact of the speech 

 in Southeast Asia : 



. . . there is little doubt in my mind that the political impact of President 

 Johnson's offer of large-scale post-war assistance to South Asia was substantial. I 

 say Southeast Asia rather than the "Riparian States" because the offer of assist- 

 ance was not confined to them. I believe the President intended and I acted as 

 though Southeast Asia covered the five Mekong coimtries — Thailand, Cambodia, 

 Laos and both Vietnams — and Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the 

 Philippines. And I considered the $1 billion of^er to be more symbolic than mathe- 

 matically precise. My visits and contacts included all of these countries except 

 North Vietnam. Both an immediate and shortrange political impact of our offer 

 was its positive role as a catalyst in stimulating the interest in and moves toward 

 regional cooperation. While nationalism is, of course, the dominant political 

 force in the region, this is now tempered by a fairly widely accepted view that 

 the states of Southeast Asia have a common interest in working together for 

 political, economic and even cultural reasons. Many of the regional organizations 

 and groupings in Southeast Asia owe their origin cr vitality to the boost for 

 regional cooperation given by the United States in the period 1905-09. Best 

 known is the formation in late 1965 of the Asian Development Bank.'*! 



Less recognized but no less real. Black continued, was "the large 

 increase in interregional personal contacts which occurred in South- 

 east Asia over these years at various levels and in various forums": 



I have in mind such developments as the initiation of plans for a regionwide 

 study of transportation infrastructure (the study was completed in 1971 with 

 help of the ADB) ; the coming together of ministers of education of the region to 

 plan development of training institutions of regional significance and the mush- 

 rooming of specialized regional groups to consider one topic or another of economic, 

 social or political significance. As for the Mekong "Riparian States," they have 

 participated in most of this regionwide activitj^ plus, of course, made progress iri 

 further developing plans for harnessing the resources from the river itseli. The 

 Johns Hopkins speech and the stepped-up interest in the development potential of 

 the Mekong which it generated certainly had a healthy political impact in the non- 

 Communist Riparian States by focusing attention on the future. I know this 



" Eupene R. Black, former— 1949-62— president of the World Bark and in 1965 a special emissary of Trc;!- 

 dent Johnson in connection with the Mekone project, commented in his response of March 14, 197'.', to soiii'' 

 questions by the author of the Mekong project study that while the idea for the Asian Devolopiuciit Ba'ik 

 "had been around for several years and ECAFE circles favored it, its formation in 196.5 resulted directly 

 from President Johnson's April 7 general offer to Southeast Asia and his July offer to propose the linifed 

 States join such a bank, if formed, which I was able to convey to a special meeting of Asian bankers in Bang- 

 kok." [See Appendix to The Mekong Project, vol. 1, p. 433.] 



''• Appendix to The Mekong Project, p. 433. 



