Word: saigon
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...threats of a coup d'etat against his government. Although Ky himself was now silent, he did dispatch an aide to Washington to urge that the Nixon Administration cut off economic and military aid to force postponement of the one-man presidential race. U.S. diplomats in Saigon settled into a quiet cynicism over the no-contest race...
Frantic Calls. The calm proved shortlived. In what became the most violent week in Saigon since the 1968 Tet offensive, scores of antigovernment and anti-American demonstrations broke out, bringing a rash of firebombings and rock-throwing incidents. The first incident occurred when U.S. Senator George McGovern, a presidential candidate and vigorous opponent of the war, arrived at a Saigon church to attend a meeting of a prison reform committee...
Next day the Saigon police chief confirmed what many had already suspected: most of the mob outside the church had been government militiamen. In a crude attempt to justify the attack, he said that McGovern had been unwittingly meeting with "Viet Cong agents." The Senator's demand for an apology from Thieu went coldly unheeded...
Vice President Ky spoke to TIME in the small study of his fortified mansion inside Saigon's Tan Son Nhut airbase. On a small end table was an autographed photo of Spiro Agnew. Only when the interview was over and he was showing his visitors out did Ky make his most disturbing statement: "In South Viet Nam, you know, the use of force is constitutional." He was pointing out that President Thieu had resorted to force in 1963 as part of the conspiracy that overthrew Ngo Dinh Diem. A repeat of this episode, Ky suggested, would not be impossible...
...ballot a second time. Mr. Thieu had used all kinds of maneuvers to eliminate me from the race, hoping first that Minh would stay in the campaign. You know, one general told me recently that he was upset by the Thieu maneuvers. So he came down to Saigon and asked Mr. Thieu why he was doing this. And the President told the general he was afraid he would be a loser in a three-way race. That's what Thieu told his closest friend...