Word: thieu
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...peace agreements are indeed in danger, but not from the sources Nixon and Kissinger would have us believe. The biggest obstacle to a lasting peace in Indochina is the unrepresentative, militaristic regime of President Thieu, which depends on massive amounts of American aid to keep the South Vietnamese people penned in the burgeoning cities and watched over by Thieu's police...
...Thieu needs continuing aid to bolster his basically untenable position. The aid, he knows, will be forthcoming only if hostilities remain at a high level and his regime appears in danger. It is therefore in his interest to promote a warlike situation...
...American involvement on the battlefront. Eventually he came round to the fact that Viet Nam was essentially a political rather than a military war-and helped speed the withdrawal of American G.I.s from the combat zones. At the same time, he tried to assure the government of Nguyen Van Thieu that it was not being sold down the Mekong. The solution he so staunchly advocated-Vietnamization-was adopted, but its long-run efficacy will be argued for years to come...
That official optimism was in large part responsible for one of Bunker's most serious misestimates during his Saigon years. In 1971 he urged Thieu, at Washington's behest, to hold free, honest elections that would legitimize the Vietnamese President in the eyes of the world. To bring this about, genuine opponents were needed. To Bunker's embarrassment, Thieu eventually ran uncontested-and the elections were duly derided in the U.S. as a sham...
...time of mere leaping from one crisis to another to a point where long-range planning is possible. He is undiscouraged by the uneasy peace that now prevails: "I think that after a generation of war, one cannot expect peace to descend overnight. It will require time and patience." Thieu, he feels, faces four major tasks: refugee resettlement, war-damage reconstruction, economic development and ensuring greater effectiveness for his government...