Word: huong
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...civilian politician has wielded significant power in South Viet Nam since President Ngo Dinh Diem was over thrown in 1963. A succession of generals and military juntas, in or out of uniform, has ruled the country. Civilian ministers have held office but not authority. Premier Tran Van Huong, appointed in May 1968, was no exception. Last week the affable Huong, who enjoys wide popularity among the Vietnamese people, lost what little power he had. President Nguyen Van Thieu replaced him with General Tran Thien Khiem, 43, the hard-eyed minister in charge of police and pacification...
...Having said that he was willing to com pete openly with the Communists' political arm, the National Liberation Front, Thieu was expected to broaden the makeup of his Cabinet in an effort to match the Front's strong appeal to peas ants and intellectuals. But in firing Huong, a politically independent civilian, and replacing him with a soldier, Thieu seemed to be moving in the opposite direction. Rather than broadening its base, Thieu's government was limiting its leadership to military men. Later appointments could, of course, give the regime a more heterogeneous character. For the time...
South Viet Nam's malleable Parliament had set the stage for Huong's removalby claiming that his economic and anticorruption policies were ineffective. To be sure, Huong was an indifferent administrator, a homey type who grows roses and readily admits: "I have never been a revolutionary." Moreover, he is aging (66) and ailing (asthma, rheumatism). Huong's personal shortcomings were not, however, what brought about his dismissal. Thieu, who had not bothered to consult his Premier about major issues for months, apparently wanted a man in whom he had complete confidence to help him through the next...
...Huong was unharmed and returned to his office after lunch for a normal afternoon's work. But it had been a close call. The cyclo contained a Claymore mine and two pounds of plastique. The combination failed to ignite, and despite all the shooting, no one was injured. The attacker, still wearing the Ranger uniform, and a civilian were arrested and later interrogated by Huong's personal security...
Government sources said that the uniformed man, after originally claiming that he had been paid the equivalent of $85 by Huong's political enemies to kill the Premier, had eventually confessed to being a Communist agent. Inevitably, in the conspiratorial atmosphere of Vietnamese politics, there were those who preferred to believe that the assassination attempt had been a dark and sinister plot hatched against Huong by foes inside the government. The Viet Cong's publicists did not offer any enlightenment, since dissension within the government is, for them, the next best thing to outright assassination...