Word: thieu
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...Nixon were to win a second term, Kissinger argued, the Administration offer could well harden. In September, by the reckoning of intelligence analysts in Washington, the polls began to convince the Hanoi Politburo that a victory by McGovern, who has proposed that the U.S. should "break free of Thieu" with a unilateral withdrawal, was a poor gamble...
...well knows, an obstreperous ally in Saigon refusing to accept the Kissinger-designed settlement might raise new doubts in the minds of the U.S. electorate about the Administration's course in Viet Nam. More likely, though, given the U.S. desire to get out of the war, a rebellious Thieu seen as sabotaging peace might simply rally Americans to the President's side, enabling him to liquidate U.S. involvement without any fear of recrimination at home. Still for Nixon to abandon Saigon would be tantamount to declaring his Viet Nam policy to have been an utter failure...
...what would Thieu do? The silence of the U.S. embassy and the presidential palace only deepened the mystery. Saigonese pored over the abbreviated accounts of the talks that were in the tightly controlled press. Rumors flew of an impending coup, of an imminent shakeup of the South Vietnamese army. A report that the government had placed a rush order for 2,500,000 yards of bunting with a Saigon cloth merchant sparked speculation that the rumored cease-fire might really be at hand...
Even in cynical Saigon, Vietnamese reacted strongly-and somewhat surprisingly-to the image of Thieu at bay. Nguyen Van Huyen, the president of the South Vietnamese Senate and an occasional critic of Thieu, openly declared his hope that "he will remain in power to keep stability." Huyen added: "I don't say the U.S. is deserting us, but something very disquieting is happening." TIME Bureau Chief Stanley Cloud cabled: "For the first time in his political career, Thieu has become a truly sympathetic character. Even his opponents have expressed support for him as he apparently attempts to resist American...
Levers. No one in Washington or Saigon doubted that the Administration would find it difficult to bulldoze the tough and resourceful general whom Richard Nixon once called "one of the four or five greatest politicians in the world." Yet in his duel with the Administration, Thieu had few real options. Thieu was considering a strategem under which he would simply ignore Paris and unilaterally propose to resign and turn power over to a six-man "government committee" that would hold new presidential elections in three months. Thieu would claim to have met the Communist demand for his resignation-and then...