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One of his partners and good friends was Nguyen Huu Tho, a onetime Saigon lawyer who now heads the Viet Cong's National Liberation Front. That friendship lent some credence in voters' minds to Dzu's claim to be able to negotiate with the Communists. Another law partner was Mme. Nhu's brother, Tran Van Khiem. It was a profitable alliance for both men since the Diem family connections gave them an inside track with judges and the police. Along the way, Dzu visited the U.S. and became such a fervent Rotary Club member that he served a stint as Rotary director for all southeast Asia. He always wears his Rotary Club tie.
Earlier this year, several Americans in jail on currency-violation charges accused Dzu of promising to spring them if they paid him $10,000 to bribe their judges. The investigation was dropped to allow Dzu to run for the presidency. The most energetic and eloquent of the eleven candidates, he daily unleashed a barrage of invective at Thieu and Ky, all the while claiming plots and sabotage meant to damage him. Consistency was no hobgoblin; he first said that he had met with Tri Quang to join forces, then denied it. He said Viet Cong sympathizers had been encouraged by the N.L.F. to vote for him, then he denied that. Everywhere he "demanded" an end to the war, pushing peace like a patent medicine. In fact, his peace proposals differed little from those of the other candidates. Dzu merely shouted his louder and more often.
Not Ministrable. Dzu's very energy made Suu and Huong seem old and tired in comparison. His catcalling at the vested authorities, Ky and Thieu, undoubtedly struck a gleeful chord in a country where, as Henry Cabot Lodge observed in Newsday, "a Vietnamese proverb says that five evils afflict mankind: fire, flood, famine, armed robbery and central government."
Dzu's showing dramatized the essential honesty of the election, but it has not made Thieu's task of transition from military to constitutional rule any easier. Thieu's first job as President is to pick a Premier who, under the constitution, presides over the daily running of the government. Then Thieu must select a Cabinet. The Premier is likely to be his campaign manager, Saigon Lawyer Nguyen Van Loc, or perhaps Suu's running mate, Dr. Phan Quang Dan. In the effort to broaden the base of the government, a goodly number of the Cabinet posts are slated for civilians; Thieu and the U.S. had hoped Huong and Suu would be among those chosen. Even if they do come into the Cabinet now, their prestige is badly tarnished. And Dzu himself, as the French saying goes, is not ministrable. Thieu would not have him, and Dzu would probably not accept, even if asked.