The Privileged Exiles

While a number of Saigon's deposed leaders are likely to seek refuge in the U.S., the most prominent of them has vowed that he will go elsewhere. Ex-President Nguyen Van Thieu was on Taiwan last week along with his wife, daughter and 89-year-old mother (and ten tons of baggage). The first family of the refugees was staying at the home of Nguyen Van Kieu, Saigon's Ambassador to Taiwan, in suburban Tienmu. The sprawling gray stone building was concealed behind a high wall. Before it stood casually dressed Chinese security officers who could have passed for college students but for the antennas sticking out of the newspaper-wrapped walkie-talkies that they carried.

Though Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said last week that if Thieu wished asylum in the U.S. "he would of course be received," associates of the former President quoted Thieu as saying he was "very angry" with the American Government because it "did not honor its commitment to South Viet Nam." The South Vietnamese embassy in London confirmed that Thieu's twelve-year-old son is in school in England, adding to speculation that the rest of the family might move there. Another possibility is Switzerland, where Thieu is rumored to own a villa. There were reports that the ex-President had shipped 3 1/2 tons of gold (2 1/2 by sea, one by air) to Europe. The stories could not be confirmed.

Former South Vietnamese Premier and Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky apparently has no qualms about settling in the U.S. Having told a Saigon rally only one day earlier that those who left the country were "cowards," Air Vice Marshal Ky commandeered a helicopter the day before the surrender and personally piloted it onto the deck of the U.S.S. Blue Ridge.

Ky's wife had already passed through Guam and Honolulu en route to San Francisco with a party of some 13 women and children; Mrs. Ky was staying with relatives in the Bay Area last week. Should Ky and any of his high-ranking colleagues similarly land on American shores, they would not be confounded by red tape. The Attorney General has used his "parole power" to ensure entry into the country of all Vietnamese who run a "high risk" of retaliation at the hands of the Communists. A similar provision has already enabled Cambodia's former President Lon Nol to settle in a comfortable suburb of Honolulu, where last week he was going through the process of obtaining a driver's license and a U.S. Social Security number.

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