Word: thieu
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...able to keep the support of the peasants by warning that a return of government forces would mean a return of the landlords. Faced with U.S. troop withdrawals and possible early elections in which the vote of the hamlets may well be decisive, South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu now has produced a land-reform program that attempts to beat the Communists at their own game...
...Thieu government last week introduced in the National Assembly a bill that would revolutionize land ownership in South Viet Nam, where the best acreage still is held by the rich and privileged few. According to the legislation, due to be enacted into law this month, South Viet Nam's 800,000 tenant farmers, at no cost to themselves, will be able to take full possession of the land they now till. The 40,000 landowners who hold more than 80% of South Viet Nam's cultivable riceland will, in effect, be bought out by the government...
...Priority. There is, of course, the major question of whether Thieu's government can muster the political will and managerial skill to succeed in the task. Land reform has a long and unfortunate history in South Viet Nam. For years, U.S. and other foreign advisers impressed on a succession of Saigon rulers the need to end the inequitable system by which peasants are forced to turn over 25% to 50% of their harvests as rent to absentee landlords. If that advice had been heeded earlier, former U.S. Ambassador to India Chester Bowles recently mused, "it is unlikely that American...
After an hour of detailed discussion, Nixon was satisfied that Thieu was in genuine agreement. He brought out the U.S. draft statement and asked: "Is it agreeable then that when we go out for pictures I read this statement?" A Thieu aide, Nguyen Phu Due, wrote a companion statement for Thieu. There was more discussion and some minor changes in each draft...
Nixon asked his secretary, Rose Mary Woods, to type the Thieu text. Because there was no typewriter in the house, Miss Woods went outside and picked her way through the island's ubiquitous gooney birds in search of one. After 45 minutes, she returned. While they waited, the two Presidents talked of problems of military leadership and negotiating strategy. Later in the day they would discuss political conditions and economic reform in South Viet Nam. But the main business at hand was that of troop replacement and they took a break to go into the bright sunlight and face...