Word: thieu
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...months he had been a solitary, even hostile figure. He raged privately at the Kissinger negotiations when they were under way; he jeered publicly after the Paris agreement was finally signed, declaring that "there is no ceasefire at all." But lately South Viet Nam's President Nguyen Van Thieu has been sounding a different note. By the time he arrives this week in San Clemente, Calif., to begin a six-day visit to the U.S., the man who has personally benefited most from a decade of American involvement in Indochina will have completed a remarkable transformation from a sore...
...Thieu's trip, Saigon issued a flurry of announcements designed to show that the regime no longer felt itself on the defensive. Thieu signed an amnesty order freeing 967 political prisoners, among them Truong Dinh Dzu, who ran a strong second to Thieu in the 1967 election. Dzu had been jailed shortly thereafter for suggesting what Thieu is doing now: negotiating with the Communists. The next to be amnestied were Saigon's bars and nightclubs, which were allowed to reopen after having been closed since last May by Thieu as an austerity measure. Then, at a rally...
...Thieu himself was out and around more last week than he had been in months. He flew most of his government aides-and a good part of the Saigon diplomatic corps-down to Can Tho, a city deep in the Mekong Delta, for what he called a "farmer's day" outing that was as heavy on bands, pretty girls, prize pigs and political corn as an Iowa state fair. When a 40-man bicycle race was about to start, Thieu expropriated one bike to take a turn through the crowd. "He leads a merry pace," Foreign Minister Tran...
...government response to these accounts has been one of complete denial. Government sources say the prisoners are impostors, hired to discredit them prior to President Thieu's trip to San Clemente. Some in the government seem genuinely to doubt that the men really exist. "How can these men be alive?" asked one knowledgeable and honest government security officer. "No one ever comes back from the Con Son tiger cages alive...
STREET HIERARCHIES formed and a class of wild, homeless kids called Cao Bois grew up who beat and rolled American soldiers. Thu Do street had the largest collection of bars and bordellos in Vietnam--less than a half mile from Nguyen Van Thieu's home. Monks burned themselves in the streets; soldiers bought bar girls Saigon Tea for two bucks a shot and got blown up by bicycles laden with explosives; NLF agents lived next door to petty government officials. Hundreds of crippled war veterans angrily confronted the state with demands for housing and health care, descending on the presidential...