The Anguish of a Yankee Gentleman

At the time of his appointment as U.S. Ambassador to Viet Nam in 1967, Ellsworth Bunker seemed the perfect man for the job. A coolheaded, persuasive negotiator, Bunker had calmed the thorny Dominican Republic crisis in 1965; he had served as a brilliant mediator in the bitter disputes between Indonesia and The Netherlands over former Dutch New Guinea and between Egypt and Saudi Arabia over Yemen. In Viet Nam during the tumultuous Tet offensive of 1968, and later through all the growing pains of Viet Nam's fumbling efforts at democracy, Bunker did nothing to diminish his reputation. Now President Thieu's intransigence in the face of Bunker's efforts to ensure a fair election has proved a profound disappointment to the septuagenarian diplomat. He is on his last assignment, and the unwarranted blemish at the end of an otherwise superlative career hurts deeply. The pain was evident as Bunker met with newsmen, including TIME Correspondent Stan Cloud, who sent this report:

THE Vietnamese refer to Ellsworth Bunker as the "blue-eyed sorcerer" or "the icebox." In their view, the American ambassador is shrewd, cool and manipulative, a match for the wiliest Vietnamese politician. He seems, in a word, inscrutable-so much so that a great many Vietnamese believe that Bunker, acting on Richard Nixon's behalf, eased Big Minh and Nguyen Cao Ky out of the presidential race. After all these years, they still do not understand the Yankee gentleman from Yale.

Cool and elegant in sports shirt, Palm Beach slacks and casual loafers, Bunker relaxed in the well-appointed sitting room of his Saigon house.

Atop a grand piano and on a coffee table were autographed color photographs of Richard Nixon, looking flushed, happy and youthful. Abstractions come easily in such surroundings, and Bunker, looking tired but still trim and sage at 77, was nothing if not abstract as he fielded the questions of the testy, aggressive reporters, and discussed his reaction to the political trauma of the past fortnight. sb The reporters asked many of the right questions, and felt that they received almost none of the right answers. Had he offered Minh and Ky millions of dollars to run? Had he urged Thieu to resign, as Ky suggested? Would he himself soon be retiring?

Bunker's replies were largely unresponsive and uninformative. He reminded the reporters that he had had a long lifetime of experience, that he had seen and done too much ever to be surprised, too much to be disappointed by the failure of a single election. It was almost as if it were 1959, as if Bunker had been discussing whether the U.S. should become involved in Viet Nam. It was as if the past ten years had never happened. sb

Bunker is winding up his Viet Nam assignment, and his best hopes, and those of the Administration he represents, have been dashed by Nguyen Van Thieu. Bunker will leave South Viet Nam with an even less viable government than it had when he arrived. That cannot but have weighed heavily on him as the correspondents asked their impertinent, necessary questions. It must have pained him to go through the motions of answering.

Bunker, like Henry Cabot Lodge and Maxwell Taylor before him, did his duty to the last; he did so in the past two weeks with an almost frantic sense of urgency. In the end, he was reduced to mouthing the slogans of the cold war.

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