Latest news with #Thieu
The Hindu
23-04-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
From The Hindu, April 23, 1975: U.S. consulting govts. to end Saigon war by negotiations
Washington, April 22: The United States President, Mr. Gerald Ford, denied last night that the U.S. had exerted 'any kind of direct pressure' on the South Vietnamese President, Mr. Nguyen Van Thieu, to resign. In a televised conversation with three network correspondents, some hours after Mr. Thieu stepped down in Saigon, Mr. Ford maintained that the decision to quit was Mr. Thieu's own. Mr. Ford nevertheless left the impression that the U.S.'s changed attitude towards Mr. Thieu in the last few days might have been communicated to him, probably by the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. This reinforced other reports which said that within the last week or so Mr. Thieu had been told that the U.S.'s position vis-a-vis him had shifted from one of support to neutrality. In the face of the rapidly changing political and military situation in Saigon, the U.S.'s concern now is certainly not about the future of Mr. Thieu but about what his successors can do to prevent a bloody battle for Saigon. Mr. Ford himself was not sure whether the communists would now want a complete military victory, or a negotiated settlement (which many here now take to be an euphemism for surrender) between the insurgents and whoever eventually succeeds Mr. Thieu — few here believe that the aged and nearly blind Vice-President Tran Van Huong can long control the situation in Saigon. With the situation being as desperate as it is, Mr. Ford did not even once talk about 'stabilising' the situation in Saigon with or without U.S. arms aid.
Yahoo
03-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump isn't ‘un-American', he's just transparent
A common reaction to that notorious Trump/Zelensky press conference is 'we haven't seen anything like this before'. Seen is the key word. Bust-ups and walk-outs do occur in diplomacy, the difference is that Donald Trump does in the open what is meant to be conducted in private. An example: in 2022, NBC reported that Joe Biden had spoken to Zelensky by phone about a $1 billion aid package, and when Zelensky began asking for more, the US president 'lost his temper' and told him to be more grateful. So, yes, America argues with its friends. Worse than that: it has a record of abandoning them. I'm struck by the parallel between Ukraine and South Vietnam, two regimes encouraged by the US to fight an invader – at huge cost in money and lives – only for Washington to cut and run. America's stake was far greater in Vietnam (it lost about 58,000 soldiers trying to see off the Viet Cong) and Richard Nixon, unlike Trump, attempted to strengthen his ally's hand with devastating bombing raids. But Nixon had promised his voters peace and, in December 1972, his administration suggested terms to South Vietnam's President Thieu. If you want a sense of how the sausage is made in foreign policy, read the transcripts of Nixon's conversations with national security adviser Henry Kissinger. Thieu, it seems, rejected a peace deal that would be generous to the Viet Cong; Kissinger called him a 'cheap, self-serving son-of-a-b----', 'criminal' and 'insane.' He suggested cutting off Thieu's economic and military aid and 'doing a Diem on him' – referring to a coup d'état in 1963 that resulted in the assassination of one of Thieu's predecessors, Ngo Dinh Diem. Henry and Dick were discussing murder, but that was part of the job. To keep face, they decided to bomb the Viet Cong a bit more – then offered it ceasefire terms obviously unfavourable to their own ally. ('We bombed [the enemy] into accepting our concessions,' explained Kissinger). Thieu was left with a promise of ongoing US funding, what you might call a 'backstop', but Congress, including a young Joe Biden, soon voted to turn off the tap. South Vietnam fell in 1975. Some politicians opposed accepting refugees almost as vociferously as Trump does today. Decades later, Biden applied the withdrawal method to Afghanistan, believing voters were tired of building democracy in exotic locales. All foreign policy is domestic. Rightly so. Presidents are elected to represent Ohio and Alabama, not Kabul or Kyiv, and as circumstances change it would be madness to stick to a failed policy. What confuses outsiders about America is that its ideals are universal, all men created equal etc, so it sounds as if it's operating out of the goodness of its heart. 'We shall pay any price,' said John F Kennedy, 'oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.' (The Diem coup, incidentally, happened on Kennedy's watch.) Historian Mark White's latest, very good book, Icon, Libertine, Leader, suggests that Kennedy believed those words, that he entered office in thrall to his generals and the novels of Ian Fleming. He approved a disastrous invasion of Cuba and, probably, some plots to assassinate Fidel Castro. His strategy likely agitated the Soviets and gave a pretext for sending nuclear weapons to Cuba in 1962, bringing us closer to World War Three than we've ever been. Some argue that Kennedy's diplomacy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, though brilliant, de-escalated a drama he had helped to cause. Trump would have been 16 years old during Cuba. Does he remember it? Most people my age have no memory of living with the fear of a nuclear exchange, but it conditioned an entire generation's attitude towards Russian relations – and Donald mentions the risks often. That's why he's reluctant to provide security guarantees for a country outside Nato, which puts him in the tradition of non-interference adopted during the Soviet invasion of Hungary, in 1956. Today it is taken for granted that Ukraine should be allowed to join Nato if it so wishes, but as late as 1998, when senators discussed Nato's expansion, politicians of a less utopian era warned about 'poking the Russian bear'. As for fawning over Moscow's leaders, as Trump does Putin, even Harry Truman, the wisest eagle of all, wrote in his diary, 'I can deal with Stalin. He is honest – but smart as hell.' This did not stop him defending Europe or Korea when the communists went on the march, but the point is that politicians can be charmed, awed, fooled or irritated by choices as small as not wearing a tie. While many historians agree that Trump is something unseen before, a few might conclude he's the most American president we've ever had – his chief novelty being transparency. Viewers of the press conference were shocked by his volatility, but when he said 'you don't have the cards', he expressed the way countless administrations have handled smaller countries, including our own. The reason why British policy consists solely of trying to persuade the US to support our goals is because the Americans previously undermined our ability to act as an independent power. They made demolition of the empire a tacit condition for their support during the Second World War. The US insisted on creating a unipolar world and now complains about having to police it almost on its own. The irony. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
03-03-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Trump isn't ‘un-American', he's just transparent
A common reaction to that notorious Trump/Zelensky press conference is 'we haven't seen anything like this before'. Seen is the key word. Bust-ups and walk-outs do occur in diplomacy, the difference is that Donald Trump does in the open what is meant to be conducted in private. An example: in 2022, NBC reported that Joe Biden had spoken to Zelensky by phone about a $1 billion aid package, and when Zelensky began asking for more, the US president 'lost his temper' and told him to be more grateful. So, yes, America argues with its friends. Worse than that: it has a record of abandoning them. I'm struck by the parallel between Ukraine and South Vietnam, two regimes encouraged by the US to fight an invader – at huge cost in money and lives – only for Washington to cut and run. America's stake was far greater in Vietnam (it lost about 58,000 soldiers trying to see off the Viet Cong) and Richard Nixon, unlike Trump, attempted to strengthen his ally's hand with devastating bombing raids. But Nixon had promised his voters peace and, in December 1972, his administration suggested terms to South Vietnam's President Thieu. If you want a sense of how the sausage is made in foreign policy, read the transcripts of Nixon's conversations with national security adviser Henry Kissinger. Thieu, it seems, rejected a peace deal that would be generous to the Viet Cong; Kissinger called him a 'cheap, self-serving son-of-a-b----', 'criminal' and 'insane.' He suggested cutting off Thieu's economic and military aid and 'doing a Diem on him' – referring to a coup d'état in 1963 that resulted in the assassination of one of Thieu's predecessors, Ngo Dinh Diem. Henry and Dick were discussing murder, but that was part of the job. To keep face, they decided to bomb the Viet Cong a bit more – then offered it ceasefire terms obviously unfavourable to their own ally. ('We bombed [the enemy] into accepting our concessions,' explained Kissinger). Thieu was left with a promise of ongoing US funding, what you might call a 'backstop', but Congress, including a young Joe Biden, soon voted to turn off the tap. South Vietnam fell in 1975. Some politicians opposed accepting refugees almost as vociferously as Trump does today. Decades later, Biden applied the withdrawal method to Afghanistan, believing voters were tired of building democracy in exotic locales. All foreign policy is domestic. Rightly so. Presidents are elected to represent Ohio and Alabama, not Kabul or Kyiv, and as circumstances change it would be madness to stick to a failed policy. What confuses outsiders about America is that its ideals are universal, all men created equal etc, so it sounds as if it's operating out of the goodness of its heart. 'We shall pay any price,' said John F Kennedy, 'oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.' (The Diem coup, incidentally, happened on Kennedy's watch.) Historian Mark White's latest, very good book, Icon, Libertine, Leader, suggests that Kennedy believed those words, that he entered office in thrall to his generals and the novels of Ian Fleming. He approved a disastrous invasion of Cuba and, probably, some plots to assassinate Fidel Castro. His strategy likely agitated the Soviets and gave a pretext for sending nuclear weapons to Cuba in 1962, bringing us closer to World War Three than we've ever been. Some argue that Kennedy's diplomacy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, though brilliant, de-escalated a drama he had helped to cause. Trump would have been 16 years old during Cuba. Does he remember it? Most people my age have no memory of living with the fear of a nuclear exchange, but it conditioned an entire generation's attitude towards Russian relations – and Donald mentions the risks often. That's why he's reluctant to provide security guarantees for a country outside Nato, which puts him in the tradition of non-interference adopted during the Soviet invasion of Hungary, in 1956. Today it is taken for granted that Ukraine should be allowed to join Nato if it so wishes, but as late as 1998, when senators discussed Nato's expansion, politicians of a less utopian era warned about 'poking the Russian bear'. As for fawning over Moscow's leaders, as Trump does Putin, even Harry Truman, the wisest eagle of all, wrote in his diary, 'I can deal with Stalin. He is honest – but smart as hell.' This did not stop him defending Europe or Korea when the communists went on the march, but the point is that politicians can be charmed, awed, fooled or irritated by choices as small as not wearing a tie. While many historians agree that Trump is something unseen before, a few might conclude he's the most American president we've ever had – his chief novelty being transparency. Viewers of the press conference were shocked by his volatility, but when he said 'you don't have the cards', he expressed the way countless administrations have handled smaller countries, including our own. The reason why British policy consists solely of trying to persuade the US to support our goals is because the Americans previously undermined our ability to act as an independent power. They made demolition of the empire a tacit condition for their support during the Second World War. The US insisted on creating a unipolar world and now complains about having to police it almost on its own. The irony.
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ukraine's path to obscurity
Feb. 19 (UPI) -- This week's meetings in Saudi Arabia between the United States and Russia began with a goal of ending or resolving the three-year war in Ukraine. President Donald Trump is exactly correct. The fighting in which hundreds of thousands have been killed and Ukraine laid to waste must stop. But this should have Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky very worried. Ukraine has not been included, just like a wake that lacked a corpse. The administration argues that Ukraine is involved. The presidents have talked. And a dual and separate track has begun in which the United States is the go-between in talks with Russia and Ukraine. Still, Zelensky should not be happy. President John Kennedy explained why. Kennedy tartly observed that the only thing worse than being an enemy of the United States is being a friend. He was correct. In 1956, the United States and the USSR forced the United Kingdom, France and Israel to withdraw from the Suez Canal after initiating the war. Six years later, the U.K. was abandoned by the United States. The United States' closest ally, and part of the special relationship, had based a substantial amount of its nuclear deterrent capability on an air-launched ICBM called Skybolt. Because the technology was not up to the task, the United States quickly canceled the program, causing quite a strain in the special relationship. When President Richard Nixon entered office in 1969, he put in place the Paris Peace talks with North Vietnam to end the war. The talks, negotiated by National Security Adviser and later Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, ultimately led to an agreement. South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu was forced to accept the terms. The Nixon administration had imposed a "Vietnamization" on the Army of Vietnam to assume responsibility for its own defense against the north, hoping it would work after the United States withdrew. Congress cancelled the funding. Thieu was gone. And the scene of the disastrous U.S. evacuation from the U.S. Embassy in Saigon was a tragic pictorial of a war gone bad. The Trump administration intended to end America's longest war in Afghanistan. In 2019, it entered into the Doha Agreement with the Taliban. The United States would withdraw by April 2020. The Taliban would provide the security. And guess who did not come to dinner -- Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. The Biden administration took office in January 2020 and debated about Afghanistan. Despite the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommending retaining 2,500 troops at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul, Biden chose a complete withdrawal, extending the date to August. But like Thieu, Afghani President Ashraf Ghani played no part in negotiating away his country. The withdrawal was a debacle. Thirteen U.S. service personnel were killed in a terrorist attack. Images of panicked Afghans trying to force themselves aboard the landing wheel compartments of U.S. air transports filled TV, computer and smartphone screens. Ghani and his administration had fled the country earlier, leaving Afghanistan without a government. Despite forecasts that Kabul would hold out for months, everything collapsed. The Taliban took over just as quickly as it fell after the U.S. 2003 intervention. The talks have a long way to go. Ukraine cannot survive without foreign support. But if European states who are members of NATO deploy troops to Ukraine and conflict breaks out, will Article 5 -- an attack against one shall be considered an attack against all -- be invoked, committing the alliance, including the United States, to war? This question is one of many profound and perplexing quandaries that must be addressed if an agreement is to be reached in Afghanistan. Zelensky, like Thieu, will be given a fait accompli. His only leverage is the threat to fight on, no matter. In that case, the outcome seems predictable. Russia will win. Perhaps shuttle diplomacy will work. Separating the two combatants may be the only way to conduct the negotiation. Still, will Zelensky's and Ukrainian interests be preserved? Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth's remarks at the Munich Security Conference last week were called a "rookie mistake" by U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., tipping the administration's hand. Ukraine would not join NATO or regain its pre-2014 borders before Russia occupied Crimea. While the White House tried to modify the remarks, it did not. Ukraine must see how this could turn out. The Vietnam and Doha talks are important indicators. If Trump really wants to end the war, he can -- at Ukraine's expense. And if the talks move to Paris, Zelensky needs plans A, B, C, D and so on. Harlan Ullman is UPI's Arnaud deBorchgrave Distinguished Columnist, senior adviser at Washington's Atlantic Council, chairman of two private companies and principal author of the doctrine of shock and awe. His next book, co-written with General The Lord David Richards, former U.K. Chief of Defense and due out late next year, is The Arc of Failure: Can Strategic Thinking Transform a Dangerous World. The writer can be reached on Twitter @harlankullman.
