Word: thieu
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...began gradually, by fits and starts. Peace may come the same way. The agreement laboriously worked out between Washington and Hanoi still faces many pitfalls. A cease-fire should be achieved soon, but the vast complexities of the proposed settlement, President Thieu's resistance, the maneuvering and counter-maneuvering for political control in Viet Nam, the pent-up bitterness and distrust?all these may still mean protracted trouble and even renewed bloodshed. Yet last week Henry Kissinger proclaimed: "Peace is at hand." At long last the U.S. could really count on the end of the conflict. That prospect makes...
...hard bargaining was far from over. President Nguyen Van Thieu was resisting the terms of the settlement with all his might?publicly, at least. Hanoi was complaining that the U.S. was trying to slip out of a promise to sign the agreement by Oct. 31, a date that seemed too soon to be realistic. Nor was the fighting yet at an end. Indeed the heaviest ground action in months flared up in Viet Nam as both sides jockeyed for eleventh-hour gains in advance of a cease-fire in place...
...imbroglio began with Kissinger's journey to Saigon. He managed to obtain Thieu's reluctant agreement to a cease-fire after four days of "heated" talks. But the tough-minded South Vietnamese President dug in against the proposal for a three-part council composed of Communists, Thieu loyalists and "neutrals." It would arrange elections, which Thieu fears would lead to a gradual Communist takeover or at least a new constitution that would effectively drum his narrowly based regime out of power. Fighting back in a two-hour TV address last week, Thieu denounced the plan as "a cunning scheme...
...almost abrupt with the Thieu regime. Saigon's wishes "would be taken extremely seriously," he said, but "we will make our own decisions as to how long we believe a war should be continued." He spoke warmly to Hanoi. He insisted that the Oct. 31 deadline had been Hanoi's creation, and that while he had promised "a major effort" to meet it the U.S. did not feel bound by it. Things had been delayed by various problems?the most important of which seemed to have arisen in Saigon. But he "understood" Hanoi's disappointment, and reassured the North Vietnamese...
...days later, Kissinger was ready to fly to Saigon via Paris and put the proposition to Thieu. As he boarded the presidential 707 for the flight, Kissinger was given a handwritten letter from Nixon. On two pages of pale green stationery, Nixon had penned some last-minute thoughts for his plenipotentiary for peace. "Do what is right for an honorable peace, without regard to the election," he wrote. A settlement might be "a slight plus for the election," Nixon mused, but more likely it would prove to be "basically a mixed bag for a variety of reasons...