Word: thieu
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...Among Ky's 30-odd guests were such prominent figures as Dr. Tran Van Do, former Foreign Minister and head of the South Vietnamese delegation to the Geneva Convention of 1954, and Father Tran Huu Thanh, leader of the Catholic anticorruption movement that has sponsored several popular anti-Thieu demonstrations in the past several months. The group's first move was to put pressure on Thieu to cede his power to a new, more broadly based government. Thieu could remain as President, but he should preside over an entirely new Cabinet...
...Thieu's response was swift and characteristic. He had a handful of lesser-known dissidents arrested, including two who had been at the tea meeting, as well as a number of journalists and politicians who tend to support Ky. The arrests were clearly meant to frighten the bigger fish in the opposition and demonstrate that Thieu not only was still in power but also intended to remain there...
Still, given the collapse of the military effort, opposition to Thieu's government is bound to increase, especially among Saigon's strongly non-Communist conservative groups. The day after the arrests, Ky and Father Thanh held a news conference to announce the formation of an Action Committee for National Salvation that would press Thieu to relinquish his near absolute power. None of the action committee sponsors favored an overthrow of Thieu; indeed, they seemed to believe that a coup would only further lessen public confidence in the government. But the conservative opposition argued that South Viet...
...emergence of Ky's action committee and the arrests of right-wing oppositionists helped start a flurry of coup rumors in Saigon. But in fact there is only an outside chance of Thieu being removed by his present opponents. For one thing, the action committee is still not united with Saigon's other main non-Communist opposition force, the most militant Buddhists, who favor entering directly into a coalition government with the Communists. Neither Ky nor General Duong Van ("Big") Minh, an ex-chief of state who now leads the Buddhist opposition, seems to have enough...
More crucial to Thieu than the opposition moves is whether the U.S. Congress will approve the $300 million in additional military aid requested by President Ford. That approval seems as unlikely as ever. Nor does the "compromise" described by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at his news conference last week - a threeyear, $5.5 billion aid program - have a much better chance...