Word: saigon
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...pervade Phnom-Penh, the unresolved war in Cambodia has become the most crucial factor in the quest for peace in Indochina. If Cambodia falls to the Khmer insurgents, the Communists will gain easier access to South Viet Nam and thus be able to increase their pressure on the Saigon government...
Ramrod-straight, sober-faced, patrician, calm: he was almost the Hollywood image of an American ambassador. For six exhausting years he exercised more authority than most of his diplomatic colleagues ever dreamed of possessing. Always immaculate, even in Saigon's long, humid afternoons, always self-possessed, even in the face of deliberate snubs from the South Viet Nam government, Ellsworth Bunker, for better or worse, was at the epicenter of the longest and most difficult war in American history...
This week the last American proconsul is leaving Saigon. It will be years before his record can be properly assessed. For much of his tour, he was undisputed commander of both U.S. military and diplomatic-political activities in Viet Nam. As such, he presumably will have to bear some of the blame for the policy decisions that turned Viet Nam into an international tragedy...
...often-cited weakness was his lack of firsthand knowledge of the land and people outside Saigon. He spoke neither French nor Vietnamese. He learned about Viet Nam largely through briefings, refined and delivered by optimistic senior staffers who drew their information from men in the field but filtered out doubt and dissent...
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...