...It Tolls for Thieu

"American Monument in Southeast Asia" by Frank Miller in Des Moines Register, March 20, 1975

Two weeks ago, our Graphical History Tour visited southeast Asia for the 50th anniversary of the fall of Phnom Penh to the communist Khmer Rouge. Today, we return for Part Thieu.

"We're Gettin' Out of Here" by Dave Engelhardt in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 1, 1975

North Vietnam launched a full-scale invasion of the South in January, 1975, its People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong (properly, the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam)  racking up a string of victories. As it became crystal clear that the U.S. Calvary was not going to ride in to save the day, South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu pulled back the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) for a last-ditch, desperate bid to protect his capital, then known as Saigon.

"We Would Be Much Braver Than This" by Pat Oliphant in Washington [DC] Star, ca. Apr. 3, 1975

ARVN’s hurried retreat left  military hardware abandoned in its wake, and ran through the panicked evacuation of civilians. Anyone with any connection to civilian government or the U.S. military fled in fear for their lives, with whatever they could carry.

The Chicago Tribune reported isolated instances of Americans in the path of the retreat being robbed by ARVN soldiers. The report quoted an anonymous Westerner that, "The South Vietnamese soldier feels he has been stabbed in the back by the Americans. He feels that he has had to suffer because of the war, but Americans come and go in Vietnam, brandishing their dollars, and he feels they owe him something, anything."

by Jeff MacNelly in Richmond [VA] News-Leader, ca. Mar. 30, 1975 

That report quoted an American teacher in Saigon: "The Vietnamese people are convinced that America has betrayed them. They believe we led them into the battle, then ran away and left them to fight. They have very little respect for us as a people."

On the other hand, a Vietnamese teacher at a Catholic school told the same reporter, "Americans have a tremendous guilt complex about what they have done in our country, the mistakes they have made, and now they feel everybody here hates them for it. Actually, the Vietnamese people don't hate the Americans, they just don't understand them. But who does?"

"Selling It to Congress Won't Be Easy" by Wayne Stayskal in Chicago Tribune, April 13, 1975

Acknowledging that the United States still had an obligation to the people who had relied on American promises, the Ford Administration opened the doors to as many Cambodian and South Vietnamese refugees as wanted to come to the U.S. 

In a joint effort, the U.S. military and Immigration and Naturalization Services (predecessor to today's ICE) scrambled to accommodate an estimated 120,000 refugees.

"Can the Congress Be So Calloused" by Hugh Haynie in Louisville Courier-Journal, April 16, 1975

The airlift started with Cambodian and Vietnamese children — mostly given up by terrified parents — arriving a Camp Pendleton, California, to be adopted by American parents. Then came whole families, sponsored by religious congregations and civic groups until they could make a living for themselves in a country where nobody spoke their language.

Sponsoring agencies had to commit to finding housing and jobs for the refugees, most of whom arrived with little more than the clothes on their backs, whatever their circumstances might have been back home.

"There Goes the Old Neighborhood" by Dick Locher in Chicago Tribune, May 11, 1975

The cost of caring for the refugees while they were in temporary camps awaiting resettlement was predicted to cost $500 million (in 1975 dollars, or nearly $3 billion today). Inevitably, Americans being Americans, resistance and resentment soon arose to the wave of  strangers who would supposedly — this may sound familiar — eat the neighborhood dogs and the cats. 

U.S. News & World Report described refugees as "a motley mixture, from professors to bar girls." Washington Post Columnist Nicholas von Hoffman accused some of being "the pimps, madams, and hijackers of American food and material" and "the torturers from Gen. Thieu's political police."

"Thank God It's All Thieu's Fault" by Tom Curtis in Milwaukee Sentinel, April 3, 1975

Nguyễn Văn Thiệu had been President of South Vietnam since 1967. What opposition there was to his rule was unable to unite around any rival leader during elections in 1971.

Refugees fleeing south as the communists advanced "are voting with their feet," wrote National Observer columnist James M. Perry. "Trouble is, there is no one for them to elect. The army is in panic, the Thieu regime is broken, and Thieu himself is finally exposed as the pusillanimous fraud he has always been."

by David E. Seavey in National Observer, Washington DC, April 12, 1975

Thiệu resigned the presidency on April 22 in a rambling speech in which he revealed that to get him to sign the 1973 Paris Peace Accord, then-President Richard Nixon had promised that the U.S. military would return if the peace failed. Tearfully blaming the U.S. for his plight, he told his nation, "I never thought that a man like Mr. Secretary of State Kissinger would deliver our people to such a disastrous fate. ... If the Americans don't want to support us any more, let them go, get out! Let them forget their humanitarian promises!"

"King Rat" by Paul Szep in Boston Globe, April 22, 1975

Thiệu turned the government over to his ailing 72-year-old Vice President, Trần Văn Hương, who then resigned, succeeded by ARVN General Dương Văn Minh, 59. A leader of the 1963 coup that overthrew Ngô Đình Diệm, "Big Minh" had nevertheless earned a reputation for indecision.

Three days after ascending to the presidency, with PAVN advancing into Saigon and the U.S. hastily evacuating its embassy, Minh ordered ARVN to lay down its arms and surrendered to North Vietnam. Having offered no resistance to the victorious North, he was allowed to retire in peace, but eventually left for France.

"Will the Last One Out..." by Wayne Stayskal in Chicago Tribune, April 27, 1975

Thiệu retired to the United States, living out his days here in obscurity. He died at age 78 in Boston, Massachusetts on September 29, 2001 after suffering a stroke.

The Wreck of the Richard M. Nixon

The 50th anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation is next week. Although I've revisited cartoons from that historical moment before, the 1970's were a golden age of editorial cartooning; so there are plenty more whence those cartoons came.

"No One Is Above the Law" by Ranan Lurie, ca. July 29, 1974

At the end of July, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in U.S. v. Nixon, rejecting President Nixon's claim that "executive privilege" gave him the right to ignore subpoenas from the courts and Congress to turn over the White House tapes. Even with three Nixon appointees on the Court, the ruling against Nixon was 8-0, Justice William Rehnquist recusing himself.

Such a ruling has proven impossible under today's right-wing Court, stacked with grand old partisans who pretend to profess that the Founding Fathers intended for a president to have executive privilege entitling him to commit crimes, cover them up, and quash any investigation into them.

As long as he's a Republican, of course.

"The Last Bullet" by Walter "Trog" Fawkes in London Observer, August 4, 1974

Complying with the ruling, the White House surrendered the tapes, and investigators soon found the "smoking gun" they were looking for.

Six days after security guard Frank Mills discovered the Watergate break-in, and contrary to the President's claims that he wasn't involved, Richard Nixon and White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman decided that the CIA should instruct the FBI to drop its investigation on the grounds that it would expose covert operations related to the Bay of Pigs invasion.

"I Didn't Know It Was Loaded" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, August, 1974

I've posted Pat Oliphant's cartoon before, but it's too good not to rerun it again. I'll probably rerun it every time I ever refer back to the final days of Nixon's presidency.

"Wait, fellers..." by Gene Basset for United Feature Syndicate, Aug. 8, 1974

Support from congressional Republicans instantly evaporated. Party leaders Barry Goldwater, Hugh Scott, and John Rhodes came to the White House with advice for Nixon to start packing his bags.

by Don Wright in Miami News, August 7, 1974

On the way out, they suggested to Gerald Ford that if he hadn't yet moved into the brand new Vice President's residence at #1 Observatory Circle — he hadn't — he needn't bother.

by Bill Mauldin in Chicago Sun Times, ca. August 7, 1974

The House Judiciary Committee had already voted to send articles of impeachment to the full House. A few Republicans had voted with the majority Democrats. Now even Nixon's Republican defenders were urging him to resign before the House would have the opportunity to vote.

"Pay" by Jacob Burck in Chicago Sun-Times, August 9, 1974

The only question left was how steep a price Nixon would have to pay.

by Les Gabbard in The Guardian, London, August 8, 1974

Congress would happily drop its impeachment proceedings; but how much longer would the President of the United States remain an unindicted co-conspirator?

by Kenneth Mahood, Punch, London, August, 1974

President Nixon announced his resignation in an address to the nation on Thursday evening, August 8, 1974. Without admitting culpability for the Watergate break-in or the subsequent cover-up, he acknowledged that although "I have never been a quitter," he had lost all support to continue in office.

by Hugh Haynie in Louisville Courier-Journal, August 9, 1974

Unlike his "You Won't Have Richard Nixon to Kick Around Any More" speech in 1962, his address didn't wallow in self-pity. He didn't blame his political enemies for his fate. He didn't argue that his discussion about obstructing an FBI investigation was "perfect."

"The System Works" by Clifford "Baldy" Baldowski in Atlanta Constitution, August 8, 1974

And he definitely didn't call upon an unruly mob to march on the Capitol and fight, fight, fight or they wouldn't have a country any more.

by Frank Interlandi in Los Angeles Times, August 9, 1974

I had intended to close out today's post with the above cartoon by Frank Interlandi (which didn't foresee the ink spent on cartoons drawn after Ford's pardon of Nixon a month later, and Nixon's interview with David Frost in 1977); but in light of the passing this week of Tom Engelhardt at 93, I'll let him have the last word instead.

"The End" by Tom Engelhardt in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 9, 1974