(4 of 10)
A Delicate Matter. Ky very quickly began to learn the limits of power in Saigonese politics. Though hardly known for quiet nights at home himself, he tried to slap a curfew on Saigon's teeming bars and brothels, only to back down-mainly because in a tense war capital, revelry is almost an essential. But he also produced some welcome surprises. Acknowledging the obvious, he declared war on North Viet Nam. Then, with the nation legally at war, he doubled army pay (from $33 to $66 a month for a private), cut in half top civilian government salaries, including his own as Premier (now $6,500 a year). He severed diplomatic relations with France over Charles de Gaulle's continued mugwumping with Hanoi and Peking. He also refused resolutely to yield his command of the air force, well aware it was his best protection against yet another coup-as well as the prime source of his influence in the directory of generals.
For influence it is, not dominance.
Viet Nam today is, in essence, governed by military committee. The Premier's role, as Ky himself explains it, is "a very delicate matter, in which many things must be kept balanced. The way we work is that my colleagues decide what they want done and then I try to carry it out."
The Directory. Part of the balance is in the makeup of the ten generals themselves. The Directory is divided between Catholics and Buddhists, Northerners and Southerners, staff officers like Ky and commanders of Viet Nam's four embattled corps areas and the capital military region.
Ky, in fact, is not even nominally the top man. That hat belongs to Directory Chairman and Chief of State Nguyen Van Thieu, 42, a brainy, sophisticated survivor of nearly every government since Diem, who provides a quiet balance to Ky's occasional impulsiveness. Of the line commanders, both the III Corps and the Capital Military Region are in the hands of generals born in North Viet Nam-and close friends of Ky. The Mekong Delta, or the IV Corps, is the domain of Major General Dan Van Quang, 36, a rough soldier whose girth and ready laughter have earned him the nickname "Jolly Green Giant" from his American advisers.
But by far the most powerful of the corps commanders is Lieut. General Nguyen Chanh Thi, 40, tough boss of the I Corps. A sound tactician, charismatic speaker and careful planner, Thi is the one man in the Directory thought to covet Ky's job. Dapper and mustachioed, favoring fierce badges and gaudy scarves, he even resembles Ky. Thi, who was exiled by Diem after an abortive 1960 coup, could probably take the job any time he chose. Among his other assets, he can count his hand-picked head of the nation's 50,000-man police force. So far, to the benefit of South Viet Nam, which needs stability in Saigon as much as victories on the battlefield, Thi has not made his move.