Southern Comfort

Premier Nguyen Cao Ky moved last week to cool the month-old simmering crisis in his Cabinet. The feud was sparked by the Cabinet's southerners, who resent the fact that most of the top jobs in Saigon and within the government and army are held by North Vietnamese-born refugees from Communism like Ky himself. Skillfully de-escalating the crisis, Ky used earnest pleas for unity to placate most of the seven Cabinet ministers who originally petitioned him to resign. In the end, only four finally left the Cabinet.

Shuffling jobs as well as men, Ky last week defused the issue still further by appointing six new Cabinet ministers--southerners all--to replace the four dissidents who had departed. Saigon Dentist Nguyen Van Tho became Minister of Education, Nguyen Xuan Phong took the portfolio for Social Welfare, and Colonel Ho Van Di Hinh became Youth Minister. Deputy Premier Nguyen Luu Vien added the new Culture Ministry to his duty roster. Onetime Economics Minister Truong Thai Ton moved over to the Ministry of Industry, and Nguyen Kien Thien An became Minister of Commerce.

Then Ky, for good measure, shifted some senior officers, notably flamboyant Lieut. General Dang Van Quang. Quang had headed the IV Corps area in the Mekong Delta, where the Viet Cong are still thriving and where no U.S. troops yet operate. Quang had resisted sharing the Delta war with the Allies, so his removal might prepare the way for the U.S..to make a major move into the Delta.

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