Nguyễn Văn Thiệu was the longest-serving leader of South Vietnam and the leader of that country in the latter half of the Vietnam War. The son of a small landowner, Thiệu's family saved up money so that he could attend elite schools run by the French, Vietnam’s colonial rulers. Following the end of World War II, Thiệu joined the Viet Minh, but left after a year as a result of his disagreement with the group’s communist ideology. Soon, Thiệu joined the Vietnamese National Army, part of the French-allied State of Vietnam- something that would strengthen with his conversion to Roman Catholicism following his marriage. Following the partition of Vietnam, Thiệu became an officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and initially allied with President Ngô Đình Diệm, notably helping to stop a coup attempt against Diệm in 1960.
By 1963, however, Thiệu joined the rising tide of military officers who were opposed to Diệm and led the attack on the Gia Long Palace that resulted in Diệm's surrender
— although the ousted president quickly fled and was later executed after being recaptured. Thiệu was granted a place in the military juntas that moved into the vacuum and, after several coup attempts led to generals being exiled or imprisoned, he gained prominence. Being named figurehead president, with general Nguyễn Cao Kỳ as the
de facto leader, the pairing ended the leadership changes that had become common since Diệm's ouster. Bowing to American pressure to restore constitutional government, Kỳ was named as his vice presidential running mate in a military ticket in the 1967 election that Thiệu won.
Thiệu and Kỳ began feuding soon after they were elected, with Thiệu intent on becoming the undisputed leader of the south. Although the Tet Offensive greatly damaged the confidence in the South Vietnamese government and proved a fatal blow to the American public’s support for the war, Thiệu used the opportunity to remove Kỳ allies from power, a key point in the power struggle that saw Kỳ increasingly slide to irrelevance for the remainder of their term.
Thiệu was adamantly opposed to the peace talks that formed the "October Surprise" that resulted in Hubert Humphrey winning the 1968 election in the United States and repeatedly walked away from the negotiating table throughout late 1968 and 1969. Feeling forced into a corner by the new president's pledge to withdraw from Vietnam, Thiệu was a thorn in Humphrey and Secretary of State Clark Clifford's side throughout the Paris negotiations, adamantly refusing to sign an agreement that treated the National Liberation Front (NLF or Viet Cong) as a legitimate entity as well as refusing to allow North Vietnamese soldiers to remain in their current positions in South Vietnam. Thiệu's intransigence enraged Washington and Humphrey threatened to pull
all American troops out of Vietnam, including those that had been planned to remain (mostly military advisers and river patrol teams) and cut off military aid entirely if Thiệu did not sign the agreement reached in Paris. Reluctantly, Thiệu acquiesced and the Paris Peace Agreement was signed in March 1970.
With a promise of American air support and continuing riverine support from Humphrey, Thiệu and South Vietnam were able to repel the Spring Offensive launched by the North in early 1972, but disastrous campaigns to retake parts of South Vietnam and disrupt the north's movements along the Ho Chi Minh Trail left the war in a stalemate
. The north could not make meaningful headway while the ARVN's shortcomings and poor leadership meant that the south could not permanently dislodge the north. In this atmosphere, Thiệu cemented his one-man rule, crafting an election law that would disqualify Kỳ and his other major opponents for the 1971 contest. His opponents, widely assuming that Thiệu would rig the elections, boycotted them and Thiệu won as the only candidate on the ballot. Similarly, he would win the 1975 election (the last held in South Vietnam) unopposed.
Military aid to South Vietnam steadily decreased throughout Humphrey's term and several river patrols were similarly withdrawn once the US Navy turned over control of patrol areas to the South Vietnamese. However, Thiệu had extracted a promise from Humphrey that the American president would work to keep Saigon "free" and Humphrey made good on his promise by preventing Congress from taking a meat cleaver to funding for South Vietnam.
Once Humphrey died, however, Thiệu was left without a partner in Washington who could prevent Congress from finally washing its hands of Vietnam. Muskie, Humphrey’s successor, was unable or unwilling to lean on Speaker Carl Albert and Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield enough to prevent congressional Democrats from gutting the budget for American forces in Vietnam
, forcing a pullout of almost all remaining American personnel there outside of the American embassy in Saigon by the end of 1976. George Bush, who Thiệu hoped would be more open to restoring vital American support for South Vietnam, had already written South Vietnam off as a lost cause. Bush, even if he had been willing to restore funding, lacked enough support in Congress to take such a drastic step against public opinion regarding Vietnam.
ARVN and the rest of South Vietnam began to crumble in 1976 as Hanoi, sensing weakness, began pushing further and further into South Vietnam. A May 1977 offensive that communist leader Lê Duẩn expected to be the set-up for the final campaign to take Saigon (tentatively scheduled for Tet 1978) turned into the final campaign itself as Southern forces, helped by an increasingly erratic Thiệu, collapsed in confusion and despair. After the final city on the road to Saigon fell in late September, Thiệu tearfully announced his resignation, handing power over to his vice president, Trần Văn Hương. Days later, CIA agents hustled Thiệu and his family onto a plane that took the former president to Taiwan, beginning his exile as Trần announced the South’s unconditional surrender less than a week after assuming the presidency.
Thiệu spent the first years of his exile in the United Kingdom before moving to the United States in the mid-1980s. His final years were spent largely as a recluse, only occasionally making public appearances or speaking out on Vietnamese issues, a large part due to his negative reputation among Vietnamese-Americans. He died of a heart attack in August 2000.
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