Word: minh
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...also avidly compared by acquaintances. "Bill is less driven," says one friend. "Mac is tougher and more aggressive and perhaps more incisive," says another. Watching the two Bundys operate during the Viet Nam crisis, newsmen came up with their own evaluation. Inspired by the references to "Big Minh" and "Little Minh" in dispatches from Saigon, they took to referring to the Bundys as "Big Mac" and "Little Mac." By "Big Mac," they meant McGeorge, who though the younger and shorter by half a foot is presently the more powerful of the two. From the looks of things, though, a little...
...Corpses. Behind the first euphoric reaction to the coup there was some fairly grim political business for the crowd of generals who had accomplished it. The officers under Lieut. General Duong Van ("Big") Minh first moved to consolidate their victory. Reportedly they executed the captured commander of Diem's elite Special Forces, Colonel Le Quang Tung, his brother, the Special Forces Chief of Staff, Major Le Quang Trieu, and a former leader of Diem's Republican youth. They also placed under "protective custody" several former Diem officials...
...Best Weapon. Minh's junta also suspended the constitution, dissolved the National Assembly. Yet, declared Minh's men, they were well aware of the fact that the best weapon to fight Communism is democracy and liberty. But at the same time they were aware of the fact-which Diem also knew-that total freedom in time of war is impossible. So the junta added somewhat nervously that it had no intention of establishing a "disorderly democratic regime...
...What Minh, like so many soldiers who had seized power in other nations, was looking for was a form of democracy within the discipline of war. Few doubted his intentions, but few forgot the paths of other soldier-leaders after the first pure bliss of revolution. "For a moment, imagine that another government replaced this one," Diem once ruminated in one of his endless soliloquies. "It could not help but result in civil war and dreadful dictatorship...
...policymakers are not disturbed by such gloomy prophecy. "We know General Minh, and we think we can work with him," was the word in Washington last week. For better or for worse, Minh is now Washington's man, and his success or failure in the terrible war against the Viet Cong will be America's success or failure...