WELCOMES JOHNSON'S "KISS OF APPROVAL"
"Premier" Nguyen Cao Ky announced March 15 that he was flying to Guam to participate with President Johnson in the important war conference scheduled by the White House as part of the big new stage of escalation of U.S. aggression in Vietnan.
Ky's announcement reportedly caused a "great commotion" among the top staff of State Department, CIA and Pentagon officials in Saigon who are running both the war and the puppet government.
When the U.S. embassy in Saigon, which is headed by Henry Cabot Lodge, heard that Ky had been invited by Johnson to come to Guam, they argued against it in a return cablegran. They held that the invitation "will seem like a Johnson kiss of approval."
That was probably a diplomatic way of saying that in Vietnam, whether south or north, this would mean a kiss of death for the flamboyant general who has been so carefully groomed by his American advisers to run for the presidency in the elections that will eventually be held under auspices of the CIA and the Pentagon.
In Washington, however, it was held that it would look too raw if Johnson flew all the way to Guam to make life and death decisions on Vietnam without bringing Ky there to act as the "representative" of the Vietnamese.
In face of orders from Johnson, the enbassy prepared to make the announcement; but Ky decided to rub in his victory by telling the press himself.
Hau BANE
Hele
Another element, not reported by the press, is the fact that Ky is Johnson's favor- NGUYEN CAO KY ite puppet. At their last meeting in Honolulu Johnson even went so far as to demonstratively throw his arms around Ky in front of the press photographers. The gesture, of course, received wide publicity and no doubt was viewed with envy among all the other puppets maintained by Washington.
It is not known whether Johnson has succeeded in becoming Ky's greatest hero. Up until two years ago or so Ky admired Hitler most of all. The July 4, 1965, London Sunday Mirror quoted Ky as saying at the time:
"People ask me who my heroes are. I have only one -- Hitler. I admire Hitler because he pulled his country together when it was in a terrible state in the early thirties.
"But the situation here is so desperate now that one man would not be enough. We need four or five Hitlers in Vietnam."
WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL SET UP IN DENMARK
A committee to support the International War