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Thieu had another caller on April 20: Nguyen Van Toan, commander of the ARVN third corps. Says Tran Can Van, Thieu's Minister of Housing who was at the Presidential Palace that day: "Toan normally swaggered around, but that day he was like a robot, in a trance. I said, 'Hello, General,' but he didn't answer. He kept walking toward Thieu. Thieu was really tough, one of those guys who, if you looked right into his eyes and tried to shoot him, you wouldn't be able to pull the trigger. But that day when Toan came in, Thieu...
...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...
What was coming was the North Vietnamese army, and it did not take long to arrive. At 9 a.m., almost exactly an hour after the last American helicopter left the embassy roof, NVA General Tran Van Tra, operations commander for the final push, ordered his columns to move into the city from five different directions.They had waited, says Tra, because "our main purpose was to seize Saigon, not to kill people. We didn't want to stop the evacuation." In fact, Nguyen Huu Hanh, who had come out of retirement as an ARVN brigadier general to join Big Minh...
That impulse to control is thwarting Vietnam's move to a market economy. The thriving Dak Lak provincial rubber company in Buon Ma Thuot is seeking $5 million from foreign investors to establish a small factory to make tires. "We are stuck," says Tran Le, deputy director of the company. "We have to get [provincial government] approval to spend $30. We have ambitious targets, but until we are independent, the foreign companies don't want to sign a deal." Rice farmers in the Mekong Delta, traditionally Vietnam's breadbasket, face a similar problem. In 1990 the government allowed them...
...revenues. Officials from Hanoi are assigned the top jobs at local state-owned factories and trading firms. Even the bulk of the city's electricity comes from the Hoa Binh Dam, 930 miles to the north. "The government can satisfy some demands, not all," says Peoples Council president Pham Tran Truc. "For example, we are not satisfied with the electricity supply . " At which point the lights in his office flicker out. A coincidence, to be sure. But Truc offers a wry smile when asked whether, just maybe, Hanoi had been reminding him who's boss. What the incident also illuminates...