Word: thieu
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...South Vietnamese response, according to Oberdorfer, was hardly more perceptive. President Thieu, for instance, actively believed that the U.S. military had conspired with the Communists to bring about the Tet campaign. He suspected that a Communist success would force a coalition government on Saigon, and thereby speed up the prospect of American withdrawal. When Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker appeared on Saigon television to deny "this ridiculous claim," it was confirmation to many South Vietnamese that the rumors and accusations were true...
Peretz shares a general Faculty concern that McGovern will be unable to attract wide-scale support, and he distrusts Muskie's political judgment. Referring to Muskie's trip to South Vietnam in 1967, during which the Senator said that the Thieu victory of that year was a free election. Peretz says: "I'm like the Old Baptists: people can redeem themselves with secular versions of penance. But this is pretty late. I would be very wary of the type of judgments Muskie would make...
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the election was the widespread acceptance of the results. Or was it a resigned indifference? Spokesmen for the militantly anti-Thieu, antiwar An Quang Buddhists charged that Thieu had "killed democracy and given birth to dictatorship." Supporters of Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky urged the Vietnamese "not to recognize the faked results." But never before had Thieu seemed more firmly in command. Before the election, when Ky's people were raising ominous visions of post-election catastrophe, the CIA estimated that there was a 40% chance of a post-election coup attempt...
Ready to Die. Thieu is not quite home free yet. Though Ky's supporters have filed a taxpayer's suit charging that the election was an unconstitutional fraud, there is little likelihood that the returns will be invalidated by the Supreme Court; after all, Thieu can usually count on the loyalty of six of its nine appointees. Ky's men say that he is "ready to die in the struggle." Since the election, he has been cloistered in his heavily guarded mansion at Saigon's Tan Son Nhut airbase, where he is doubtless trying...
Meanwhile. Thieu has his own troubles. In coming weeks, decisions will have to be taken on a number of long-delayed measures, including a possible devaluation of the piaster, as the regime faces up to the hard economic realities posed by the U.S. withdrawal. Thieu can only hope that his second term will live up to the incredibly ingenuous assessment delivered by the State Department on his unhappy second election: "a Vietnamese solution to a Vietnamese problem." It was as if the U.S. had never been involved...