The Saigon Thi Party

Ever since the ten-man military Directory of Premier Nguyen Cao Ky (pronounced key) took power in South Viet Nam nine months ago, the greatest threat to the fragile stability of the Saigon government has been mustached, mercurial Lieut. General Nguyen Chanh Thi (pronounced tea). Vain, ambitious, an inveterate intriguer, Thi carefully cultivated the political Buddhists, got his own man installed as head of the national police. As field commander of the northernmost I Corps, he ran it like a warlord of yore, obeying those edicts of the central government that suited him and blithely disregarding the rest.

Once when Ky came north to remonstrate with him, Thi turned to his staff and asked contemptuously: "Should we pay attention to this funny little man from Saigon or should we ignore him?" Most Saigon hands were convinced that Thi wanted Ky's job. But last week Premier Ky and his fellow generals relieved Thi of his I Corps command and expelled him from the Directory. Afterward, they blandly announced that they "had considered and accepted General Thi's application for a vacation." At week's end, though Buddhists demonstrated in Hue and Danang, the ousted soldier had failed to rouse a successful revolt in protest. "This may go down in history," said one U.S. wag in the capital, "as the Saigon Thi Party, because they got away with dumping him."

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