All week long, Saigon was buzzing with rumors about President Nguyen Van Thieu. One air force officer, after swearing his family to secrecy, told them that the President was under house arrest. Some said that the President was preparing to flee the country. Others heard that he was ready to resign.
A Saigon editor, once sympathetic to Thieu, had a plausible explanation for all the unfounded stories circulating about the elusive and enigmatic South Vietnamese President. "As the West has left Thieu," the editor said, "Thieu has increasingly abandoned the West to withdraw into a historical autocracy. He sees fewer and fewer...