Word: saigon
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Thieu has become progressively more embarrassing to the United States, as stories break on how U.S. aid is funnelled to the prison system, bogus newspapers, and the Saigon secret police. This year it was discovered that Thieu has blocked investigation into the shady business dealings of a fertilizer company owned by his brother-in-law, has built houses and acquired land with government money, and has profited from the distribution of scarce rice in famine areas. He has also been accused by Catholic priests of smuggling drugs. Father Thanh, a conservative Catholic, stated at a recent anti-administration rally that...
...Saigon daily Dien Tin reported this spring that the regime's slogan this year is "Anything goes in seeking aid." But anything is not going so well with Congressmen, who are increasingly skeptical about U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin's pleas for more weapons. Martin is shifting his position, calling for aid which will induce "economic takeoff." In order to achieve this, Thieu's trusted minister Hoang Nha explained to U.S. officials last March 30, "South Vietnam would need some $700 million in economic aid from the U.S. each year until 1980, at which point it could get along with...
...nationally-based economy is possible without dependence on PRG-controlled areas, and the gigantic Saigon army, bureaucracy, and urban refugee population are also impressive obstacles to postwar reconstruction. According to the Vietnam Resource Center in Cambridge, "What the Saigon regime and the World Bank have in mind is not a nationally-based economy but a foreign-based one...where labor and natural resources such as timber and sea-products can be cheaply exploited." The army bureaucracy and refugees could then serve as pools of cheap labor...
...SENATE HEARINGS during June and July, Senator Humphrey implied that a clean, well-financed government in Saigon might not necessarily include Thieu. Surprisingly, Ambassador Martin agreed; however, it was noted that a military coup would be, for public relations, a bad gamble. Last month the Ford administration sent General William Lansdale to South Vietnam. Lansdale is an ex-CIA agent who has been enshrined in the Pentagon papers for planning, along with Henry Cabot Lodge, the overthrow of Diem in 1963. Lansdale then headed the "pacification program" until Thieu banished him from the country, to make room for a safer...
Last month a secret radio station in the region around Hue began broadcasting well-documented reports of rallies against Thieu. On September 14 a second station close to Saigon joined in. The NLF expressed great surprise in its own broadcasts, because no group--religious, students, or military--has the facilities in Saigon to broadcast without detection. Experts guess that a mobile transmitter is involved. The only group which is known to possess one of these expensive, hard-to-come-by devices...