Thieu on Top

At the approach of the June 30 fil- ing deadline for presidential candidates in South Viet Nam, the rivalry be tween Chief of State Nguyen Van Thieu and Premier Nguyen Cao Ky intensified. U.S. diplomats alerted Washington that trouble was imminent. Rumors of coup and counter-coup coursed through Saigon: Vietnamese marines loyal to Ky were said to be headed for the capital; 20 truckloads of pro-Thieu troops were reported en route to the city. Though the rumors proved false, the nation had good reason to be upset. A break between Ky and Thieu could have split the armed forces into rival camps, paralyzed the war effort and dealt a mortal blow to South Viet Nam's fragile experiment in constitutional government.

Suddenly, the dispute was resolved. Ky, once the heavy favorite to win the presidency in the September 3 elections, agreed to step aside. Moreover, he said he would take the second spot on a ticket headed by Thieu. Said a subdued Ky after his withdrawal: "We must all make sacrifices in order to realize unity."

Premature Politicking. Ky's abrupt comedown was precipitated by the mercurial Premier himself. Weeks before the official July 19 kickoff for presidential campaigning, Ky had begun electioneering. He appeared on radio and television, stumped the provinces and plastered posters everywhere. When U.S. officials protested his premature politicking, he ordered the posters removed--at least, he told a friend, "in the areas where Americans see them."

To make matters worse, Ky's police chief, Brigadier General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, was accused of intimidating the Premier's opponents. Former Premier Tran Van Huong, the most popular civilian candidate for the presidency, refused to leave his seaside villa at Vung Tau because he feared that Loan's men would assassinate him. Increasingly, Ky's actions alarmed both South Viet Nam's top military officers and U.S. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker. During a luncheon two weeks ago, Bunker gave the Premier a stern talking-to, warned him that he was undermining the fairness and legality of the coming elections.

Angry Confrontation. Early last week, when 21 South Vietnamese generals convened in Saigon, their immediate concern was exiled General Duong Van Minh, who wanted to return from Bangkok and campaign for the presidency. "Big Minh," who led the 1963 coup against Ngo Dinh Diem but was ousted as chairman of the Military Revolutionary Council only three months later, retains wide popular appeal. The generals quickly decided to keep him out of the country. Then they turned to an even graver problem--the feud between General Thieu (pronounced Choo), a phlegmatic, 44-year-old career soldier who is known as a shrewd ma- nipulator, and Air Vice-Marshal Ky, a flamboyant, 36-year-old pilot with a penchant for power.

Over beer and Cokes, the commanders of South Viet Nam's four Corps areas met at the quarters of Chief of Staff General Cao Van Vien. There they expressed their deep misgivings over the feud's effect on military unity. They decided to invite the two men to talk things over. In a heated and often an gry confrontation that ran on for nearly three days, the commanders urged Ky and Thieu to compose their differences or resign from office in favor of a caretaker government. Both refused.

Broken Promise. As the discussions wore on, Ky eventually realized that he was in a vulnerable position. For one thing, the generals were clearly annoyed with him for his illegal campaigning and for failing to curb Loan. Unmentioned, but certainly on the generals' minds, was Ky's broken promise that he would withdraw from the campaign if Thieu decided to run.

What really enabled Thieu to face Ky down, however, was the fact that while the Premier had been busily bidding for popular support, Thieu was vigorously wooing the generals, reminding them of Bunker's warnings against a rigged election. When the meeting began, three of the Corps commanders were known to be neutral. The fourth, Lieut. General Le Nguyen Khang, commander of the critical III Corps area in and around Saigon, was thought to be a Ky man. But Khang failed to support Ky and the Premier realized that he had lost.

Abruptly, Ky decided to yield. If Thieu put him on the ticket, he said, he would bow out of the presidential race. That left Thieu and Ky overwhelming favorites to defeat the other 17 slates now in the running. "Big Minh" may poll a sizable number of votes in absentia, and Huong is expected to do well--but not nearly well enough. Thieu, in fact, may offer to appoint Huong Premier as another step toward unity and conciliation. As for Ky, whose withdrawal won wide praise as an act of genuine patriotism, he is expected to be given far more responsibility as Vice President than the new constitution calls for. Then, too, there is 1971 ahead--when Ky will still be barely 40.

Time to Talk? Assuming the bargain does not come unglued, it may produce some genuine benefits. And it will be difficult for Ky to renege. For one thing, he cannot legally re-enter the presidential race now that the filing deadline has passed. For another, if he ever entertained hopes of engineering a coup, they evaporated as soon as General Khang withdrew his support.

By preventing a bare-knuckled brawl for the presidency, Ky and Thieu seem to have assured a relatively honest election. They have also made certain that the unity of the armed forces will be preserved; military officers will no longer have to worry about losing their jobs for backing the wrong man. To be sure, some South Vietnamese were disturbed by the prospect of continued rule by the military men who have run the country for the past two years. But most U.S. officials are convinced that at the present stage of South Viet Nam's political development, and with a war under way, a freely elected Thieu-Ky team is the surest guarantee of continued stability.

Thieu, who takes a tough line toward negotiations with the Viet Cong, has been known to say: "First we beat the hell out of them, then we talk with them." Nonetheless, with a popularly elected government in power, with political stability reasonably assured, and with the army concentrating on the war, the less intransigent members of the Viet Cong's National Liberation Front may decide sooner than anyone expects that the time has finally come to sit down and talk.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.