Word: thieu
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...President moved across the globe toward Asia to grapple directly with South Viet Nam. Nixon flew to Midway Island for his first meeting as President with Nguyen Van Thieu, the South Vietnamese chief of state...
...Wedded. Both Presidents faced a grave dilemma that could profoundly influence the effectiveness-or in Thieu's case the survival-of their regimes. The National Liberation Front has thus far refused to countenance any suggestion of a political settlement in South Viet Nam that would perpetuate Thieu's "puppet regime." Yet the U.S. might damage Saigon's hard-won political stability if it were to jettison Thieu at this stage. In fact, the Midway meeting was designed to bolster Thieu's position with tributes to South Vietnamese courage and Washington-Saigon solidarity...
There were unmistakable signs last week of shifting stances both in Washington and in Saigon. Thieu is considering avenues to compromise that he cannot afford to discuss publicly for fear of alienating important hard-line factions among his political supporters. He again let it be known that he could agree to holding elections in South Viet Nam before 1971, the year they are now scheduled to take place, if that would speed a negotiated end to the war. The N.L.F. called for such special elections in its ten-point proposal early last month in Paris...
...same time, Secretary of State William Rogers posed a scarcely concealed threat to Thieu. Rogers, while still a novice in the nuances of diplomacy, is a canny attorney who is not given to ill-considered statements. "We are not wedded to any government in Saigon," he said in a Washington press conference. He added that "the only principle to which the Administration is wedded is free choice," suggesting that the U.S. could accept any government that resulted from free elections in South Viet Nam; he did not insist that Thieu be included...
...more immediate question, how ever, is not the regime that will result from elections but the regime that will be in charge until elections are held. Thieu wants the U.S. to back him in opposing any coalition government that includes the N.L.F., now or later, and he has repeatedly proclaimed that he will give up U.S. support rather than submit to a coalition. In the long run, Saigon may find that President Nixon -under growing pressure from his own electorate-will have to abandon Thieu in order...