A supremely confident President Nguyen Van Thieu went through all the motions of campaigning last week, despite the fact that his name will be the only one on the ballot when South Viet Nam's voters go to the polls on Sunday. He sipped rice wine with Montagnard tribesmen in the Central Highlands, popped up in Pleiku for a "nonpolitical" medal-pinning ceremony, and went on radio to demand of the voters: "I want to know your clear-cut attitude; either you have confidence in me or not."
In fact the only thing that appeared to unsettle him was a charge by Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky that Thieu so feared for his safety that he slept in different places. Thieu took pains to assert publicly that "I spend every day and every night in the Independence Palace."
Thieu's confidence was well founded. He had Richard Nixon's assurance, given at a press conference two weeks ago, that U.S. aid would not be affected by Thieu's version of a one-man, one-vote election. The U.S. embassy also passed word among South Vietnamese generals last week that any attempt at a coup d'etat would bring an end to American support. That support, and South Viet Nam's need for it, was visibly demonstrated last week, when U.S. fighter-bombers launched heavy air attacks across the DMZ for five straight days.
Order and Security. Thieu appeared well prepared for any opposition at home, though anything could happen in the week before the election. National police were stationed throughout Saigon, ready to put down any anti-government protests as soon as they started. Police blocked off and occupied the sprawling 30,000-student Saigon University complex amid reports that disabled war veterans, students, militant Buddhists and radical Catholics were coordinating plans for demonstrations.
So long as "order and security" were preserved, Thieu seemed little concerned about other forms of opposition. He told voters that they could register a vote of "no confidence" in him by mutilating their ballot or dropping an empty envelope into the ballot box. He also made no effort to head off an embarrassing vote by the usually tractable South Vietnamese Senate. Calling the one-man race a "threat to the country," the Senate passed a resolution by a vote of 28 to 3, with 28 abstentions, urging Thieu to resign and turn the government over to the Senate Speaker, who would organize new elections.
Act of Conscience. The vote had no practical effect, but nonetheless revealed a considerable depth of political feeling. Said Senate First Vice President Huynh Van Cao, a retired general and friend of Thieu's: "President Nixon can support President Thieu, but President Nixon cannot force the Vietnamese people to support President Thieu." Added Senator Nguyen Van Chuc: "Thieu can claim he has 60 or 70 or even 97 percent of the votes of confidence, but the question is: who will believe these claims? There is a chance President Nixon alone will believe in them."