South Viet Nam: The Trials of Thieu

• Share

Nearly everyone in Washington last week expected that South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu would soon come around and abandon his stubborn refusal to participate in the expanded peace talks in Paris. But while the conflict lasted, perhaps the most ironic element in it was the way in which it demonstrated Saigon's new-found independence. The U.S. has all along labored to help create a stable constitutional government that could eventually stand on its own, a government immune to Communist charges that it is a mere puppet of the Americans. President Thieu's defiant holdout provided an unexpected confirmation that the U.S. has indeed been at least partially successful in those objectives in Viet Nam. The impasse, as Washington saw it, constituted an untimely assertion of nationalism by Saigon, making the U.S. quest for peace far more difficult.

Lyndon Johnson would like nothing better than to get the negotiations resumed quickly in the hope of achieving major progress toward a settlement before his term in the White House runs out. However, he also wants to avoid any semblance of bullying Thieu to the conference table. Thieu's task is equally complicated. Standing up to the U.S. won him such enthusiastic support from Saigon's politicians and generals that he felt compelled at one point to promise: "I will try to keep flexing my muscle as long as I can." At the same time, he was prudently laying the groundwork for sending a delegation to the talks.

Wanting to Lead. When Johnson first proclaimed the bombing halt and expanded negotiations more than two weeks ago, Thieu balked at any South Vietnamese participation in a conference in which the Viet Cong's National Liberation Front would be permitted to speak for itself, rather than through Hanoi's delegates. But after several days, he announced that he would let his representatives come, provided South Viet Nam took over from the U.S. the leadership of the allied delegation and dealt directly with the North Vietnamese, not the N.L.F., at the negotiating table.

Thieu's proposal got short shrift in Washington. What was more, Thieu received scant support from President-elect Richard Nixon, who the South Vietnamese had hoped would be much tougher in dealings with Hanoi than Lyndon Johnson. They were disappointed when Nixon declared that until the inauguration Johnson could speak for the incoming administration.

Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford was obviously upset by Saigon's intransigence and unable to hide his pique. Saigon had known all along that the National Liberation Front would accompany Hanoi to the Paris peace talks, he told a press conference. The South Vietnamese, Clifford said, had pulled out of the deal "in the ninth inning." Then he added: "We should make every reasonable effort to demonstrate to Saigon why it should come in and join the talks. At the same time, if they choose not to, I believe the President has the constitutional responsibility of proceeding with the talks." Clifford's tough position, while doubtless reflecting the frustration and resentment of many U.S. officials over the delay, was hardly calculated to make it any easier for Thieu to compromise. Both the White House and the State Department, however, tried to assure Thieu that the U.S. was not now considering going it alone.