Word: thieu
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Moreover, Thieu would not turn over power to Duong Van Minh. "Big" Minh, as he was universally known, was a former general who headed what he described as a neutralist "third force" and was acceptable to the communists. But Thieu chose to follow the South Vietnamese constitution, and yielded power to Vice President Tran Van Huong, who was 71, ailing and nearly blind. Huong did call for a cease-fire and peace negotiations, but vowed, if the North refused, to fight "until the troops are dead or the country is lost...
Vietnamese on both sides of the war recall watching Thieu's resignation speech and concluding that the South's last hopes had collapsed. And even if Big Minh had taken over immediately, he most likely would not have been able to moderate the outcome. Communist sources are quite clear that only an immediate and total surrender could have deflected the North Vietnamese army's drive to complete military victory...
Preparations for the final assault were well under way by Thieu's resignation. Responding to an urgent request from the forces in the South for more ammunition, Hanoi had sent thousands of trucks racing down the coastal highway loaded with rockets and shells. Bui Tin, a colonel and journalist for an NVA newspaper, arrived in Danang on April 21, en route from Hanoi to join the final push. Two days later he flew south on a helicopter that, he says, "was filled with new military maps of Saigon that had been rushed into print and flown from Hanoi" to guide...
...timing, says General Vo Nguyen Giap, the top North Vietnamese commander, "the key was April 21, when Thieu resigned. Then I knew, we all agreed, we had to attack immediately, seize the initiative." That night at the NVA's forward headquarters in Loc Ninh, 75 miles from Saigon, General Van Tien Dung, commanding the armies moving on the capital, gave the go-ahead to start the climactic offensive...
...April 26 NVA forces had surrounded Saigon. That night ex-President Thieu was persuaded to leave while he still could; Ambassador Martin organized a group of cars to spirit him out of the city to Tan Son Nhut. Snepp, who went along on the ride, half expected Thieu and his American escorts to be hauled out of their cars and shot at some checkpoint by ARVN soldiers incensed at being abandoned. Nothing happened, but the little caravan took the precaution of racing onto the air base with lights out and braking to a skidding stop alongside a runway. Thieu...