Word: thieu
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MANY SOUTH VIETNAMESE opponents of the Thieu regime were skeptical of the American rationale for negotiations. They could not reconcile the American desire to prevent Vietnam from falling into the hands of "World Communism" with the United State's insistence on negotiations with the communists to break the battlefield deadlock. Ironically, even Thieu was fond of saying that the Americans lost patience at the most inopportune moments...
...asserted that the Saigon government could not stand without U.S. aid. An aid cutoff would have an important but not decisive influence on events in the South. Siphan said that as economic conditions worsen and the morale of the populace and the army sinks, the people will force President Thieu to obey the peace agreement...
After discussing the prisoner issue, Ly Van Sau said that the Thieu regime could not maintain its political prisoners without $50 million of U.S. aid annually. Pointing his finger at me, Sau said emphatically that it was the duty of American taxpayers to put pressure on Nixon to stop the aid. The thought occurred that Thieu might let the prisoners starve to death if the United States stopped its aid, but I kept my thoughts to myself...
...weekly news conference one hour before our talk, Sau raised the issue of the Saigon government's use of defoliants. Although he did not have precise information concerning how Saigon had obtained the chemicals, Sau asserted that the Thieu regime was using them because that regime is anti-popular and cannot exist without the use of coercion. If Thieu sprays chemicals on PRG-controlled areas, it is because he considers them to be the new Vietnam: the city of Loc Ninh is the new Saigon-- life is cheaper, the people live better. Sau insisted that the Thieu regime had been...
Congress did not cut off U.S. aid to the Thieu regime, but there is some hope that in the future it will continue to reduce his fund allocations. Yet, as the French scholar Philippe Devillers and an official on leave from the U.S. embassy in Saigon both impressed on me, the only laws that the United States respects in Vietnam are the gun and the piaster. Wars that cannot be won on the battlefield can be dragged on a minimal cost. Thieu may last for another eight years if he can stir up enough support from the right-wing chauvinists...