Elizabeth Pond

Saigon   Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – maybe.   Thus the new South Vietnamese Cabinet is hardly the American dream of President Thieu’s broadening his political base and surging into semi-popularity. In easing out Prime Minister Tran Van Huong and replacing him with a four-star general – and in increasing the role of military officers, old Diemists, and hard-line Catholics in the Cabinet – Nguyen Van Thieu has chosen exactly the opposite course. He has narrowed and, at least in the short run, strengthened his base. And he has executed the consolidation with his usual skill in leaving his opponents dispersed and impotent. This political conservatism might just form the foundation for policy daring, however. It all depends on what Thieu does next. The Chronology   In retrospect, the pattern of this last political shakedown is much more obvious than it seemed during the summer’s five-week quasi Cabinet crisis. In brief, Thieu began to erode the power of his strongest rival, Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky, in Spring of 1968, by