404 



The principal subscribers to the Bank included both regional coun- 

 tries and non-regional countries. Of the regional countries the prin- 

 cipal subscribers and the amounts originally subscribed were as fol- 

 lows: Japan ($200 million), India ($93 million), and Australia ($85 

 million) ; of the non-regional, apart from the United States, the prin- 

 cipal subscribers were the Federal Republic of Germany ($34 million) , 

 United Kingdom ($30 million), and Canada ($25 million). The total 

 subscription was $978 million. 



It had been anticipated that the new Bank would be a major chan- 

 nel for the flow of capital to the various planned units of regional 

 development in the Lower Mekong Basin. However, the quest for a 

 sound financial reputation in its first years of operation apparently 

 moved the Bank to impose rather stringent credit terms so that Mekong 

 activities tended to Wk e^ewhere for <>rants or soft loans on easier 

 terms. An effort to establish a separate soft loan "window" at the Asian 

 Development Bank received little immediate support. 



THE PA MONG DAM PROJECT 56 



The largest engineering task on the agenda of the Coordination 

 Committee was a proposed dam some 12 miles upstream from Vien- 

 tiane, Laos, on the main stem of the Mekong. This dam site drew the 

 attention of engineers from the first because it offered on an enormous 

 scale opportunities for power, irrigation water storage, flood Control, 

 and flow stabilization to favor downstream navigation. The first sur- 

 vey of the Pa Mongsite was requested from the U.S. Bureau of Recla- 

 mation by the Coordination Committee shortly after Vice President 

 Johnson's visit to the Committee in May 1961. The request was for a 

 preliminary reconnaissance to prepare the design requirements for a 

 comprehensive feasibility study. 



The Bureau of Reclamation preliminary report on Pa Mong was 

 made early in 1962. It proposed an 8-year, three-phase program of 

 investigation emphasizing land use studies. Each succeeding phase 

 would be contingent on positive findings in the phase preceding. 



The Phase I investigations were begun by the Bureau under an 

 agreement (with U.S.A.I.D. as intermediary) with the Coordination 

 Committee on May 31, 1963. It continued the availability of abundant 

 land suitable for irrigation using water from the project, and recom- 

 mended that work begin on Phase II. A preliminary report anticipat- 

 ing these findings was issued by the Bureau in June 1965. less than two 

 months after the President's Johns Hopkins speech. 



Phase II consisted of several interim reports to gather all the find- 

 ings together into a comprehensive plan for the project. The various 

 studies under this phase were merged in a '"Pa Mong Stage One Feasi- 

 bility Report" which the Bureau of Reclamation transmitted Decem- 

 ber 1!». L969, to I". S.A.I. I), for delivery to the Coordination Commit- 

 tee. This was an impressive 279-page report with many maps, draw- 

 ings, tables, and graphs. The project that emerged was heroir in si/.e 



and scope. (See Table 2 for a L968 comparison of Pa Mong with some 



M A concise history of tin- Pa Mong project, through 19B9, is presented as Chapter 1 of 

 the "Pa M * > 1 1 ir Stage One Feasibility Report," Bureau of Reclamation, Departmenl of the 

 Interior I December 19, 1969) 



