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Levers. No one in Washington or Saigon doubted that the Administration would find it difficult to bulldoze the tough and resourceful general whom Richard Nixon once called "one of the four or five greatest politicians in the world." Yet in his duel with the Administration, Thieu had few real options. Thieu was considering a strategem under which he would simply ignore Paris and unilaterally propose to resign and turn power over to a six-man "government committee" that would hold new presidential elections in three months. Thieu would claim to have met the Communist demand for his resignation—and then run for reelection. The catch is that if Thieu were to let go of the levers of power, even for a short time, he might not be able to find them again. But if he were to keep them, the Communists would have no chance in the elections and the struggle would resume.
More simply, Thieu could threaten to embarrass Nixon by loudly rejecting the Kissinger plan and vowing to carry on the fight against the Communists alone. The Administration might find it difficult politically to cut off U.S. aid to Saigon under those circumstances. But it could effectively counter by threatening to negotiate a bilateral, separate peace with Hanoi—a possibility that worries many South Vietnamese.
At week's end, the great Saigon tug of war spilled into a fourth day with no announced end to the maneuvering, while Kissinger flew off, apparently to Cambodia, for additional parleys. The word was out that Thieu had reluctantly agreed on at least one part of the plan: the ceasefire. But he was also said to be digging in against other key provisions of the Kissinger agreement that the Communists certainly regard as vital. Thieu was reportedly unhappy about the caretaker-government provision and adamantly opposed to any basic change in the present constitution that might open the way to the entry of a significant number of Communists into the country's political life. As a counteroffer, he proposed to recognize certain areas of the country as "under Communist control" and to allow them representation in the existing National Assembly on the basis of population. The Communists are almost certain to balk at that, for they would be hard put to demonstrate military control over more than 10% of the population.
Even if the Kissinger proposal eventually emerges in some form as the outline of a settlement, many problems would remain. A cease-fire alone would be devilishly difficult to manage even in a land that had not been at war for a quarter-century. The fact that several weeks would pass between the time a cease-fire was announced and the time the machinery to implement it could be smoothly functioning would mean that what is mildly known as "regroupment" could be a serious problem. Communist forces located in isolated "oil spots" would try to expand and link up with Communists in other areas, and Saigon's troops would try to blot them out altogether.