The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 15

15 THE GUARDIAN Tuesday April 22 1975 I'j', A ft- IAN WRIGHT on. the doomed career of the man the Americans abandoned Thieu for the road Thieu in traditional robes at a ceremony lastly ear to mark the anniversary of Vie kingdom ofVietnam from under bi feet without actually sacking: him. The end cam Quicker than even Thieu's worst' enemies, the old men in tiro Hanoi politbureau, could have imagined. Looking foe frontiers a month ago, Thieu ordered Us war machine out of the Central Highlands and out of the entire northern pari of South Vietnam. The.

manoeuvre was ill-planned and disastrous its execution. Thieu tost the heart of Ibis nay in more than one sense. In retreat it crumbled and has brought South Vietnam, as envisaged by the Americans and recognised by the Western world, crashing around Thieu's ears. Few people thought that Thieu would fall by such a self-inflicted wound. Bat it is the logical consequence of the American desertion which he railed about in today's sad (resignation speech.

Like successive US Administrations, Thieu misjudged what was happening in Vietnam'. His rule was no new dawn it was always destined to be the end of an era. But argued, tilth little sense of history and much Vietnamese selff-ab sorption, thaf if the US could leave 300,000 men in. Europe for 25 years, they couW at least do as much for Indochina. Thieu sought luxuries lea than those about him.

Although he dtid not' inspire people to courage, many very courageous South Vietnamese laid down their lives during bis regime. But he was sufficiently thack-skimled not to appreciate any contradiction between the sacrifices made by many and the appalling comutption of those around him. He was rarely the man to give a moral lead, and too often he needed the support of those who were the most corrupt. Thieu depended on the Americans. As soon as it became evident that US support was ebbing away, be bid little more left to offer.

Has reaction to Kissinger's peace agreement with the Communists in Paris was genuine fury at foetrayai. By Mistinot lie dug his heeBs and, as far as he dared, flew in the face of ithe deal which effectively out the ground When. Nguyen! Van Thdeu, youthful and little-known came to power eight years ago, the' Vietnamese Communists called, him a puppet of the United" States, and Jthey were right In 1967 the US needed someone- who would preside over the system they were then building up, help steamroller the Saigon bureaucracy, and refashion the South Vietnamese Army in an American mould. Thieu did all that. -He and his class of self-made men were the shifting sand on which Americarrisatdon was built.

They, depended on US advice at almost every 'level and they were sustained by American supplies and money. As soon- as it became clear thai the Congress was no longer prepared to fork out. it was. only a matter of time before Thieu would be swept away and that has- now happened. Nguyen Van Thieu came from a poor Ashing community in centra! Vietnam, 1 but ihe pulled Jvimself up by has imported bootstraps.

By training he -was a French infantryman and he combined the stubborn craftiness Ideas to Thieu were mostly a closed book: be admired practical men and, ironically as it was to turn out Bie; self-reliant virtues America seemed to be preaching. A man of unpretentious -tastes, he was not at home in the absurd pomposities of the Due Lap palace, preferring fishing trips with folksy US generals to dealing with, diplomats or for that matter, to thinking about the future. Thieu's practical abilities wer.e in- every sense mundane. He understood much about human nature and built up the, most reliable network of his own men in the army and in the Government. Thieu was a master tactical moves, of fixing people by Sheer guile and persistence.

But he bad no sense of strategy, and that was his undoing. He saw himselif as a patriot but did: not see where he was taking his country. He accepted the chimera of a sort of South Korean solution for Vietnam, and had even seen that that would need massive application of American troops and firepower well into the of peasant with a soldier's instinct far. survival in tough situatoons. Early in life he learned dodges and bis face, no Eastern mask, often- betrayed the Cunning NCO woo bad seen it all before.

Thieu's rise and' promotion was rapid. He commanded Smith Vietnam's best infantry division by the time be was 37 and managed to be on the right side three yeans later when Ngo Binfh. Diem was ousted by General Doung Van Mirih in, 1963. His elevation to the Presidency, four years after that, came as the result of American manoeuvring 'the growing US conviction that they couldn't run South Vietnam with -the erratic General Ky at-the top. Thieu got on well with Americans.

He was the sort of sensible, placid man they could deal with. At first tie spoke their language haltinglybut he was on their wavelength. Thieu was literally too down to earth tor the French sqpihisticaition of Vietnamese intellectuals and he despised them as a class'. They considered him an upstart. Oasis of health -DAVID HIRST on Faisal's medical legacy There were two things that King Faisal wanted to-do before he died.

His celebrated desire to pray in the Al-Aqsa mosque of a liberated Jerusalem had, at best, a moderate chance of fulfilment. But an assassin's bullet only just cheated him of his other ambition to see the opening, in marine screen. Each nig could be fitted with underwater listening or sonar detection devices, just like the patterns of sonar buoys that are laid by patrolling Nimrod aircraft or anti-submarine frigates. There are a lot of technical questions, such as whether the noise of drilling drowns the sound of a passing submarine, and whether Britain would have the legal right to install such equipment on a foreign rig on her continental shelf, even supposing she wanted to. But the naval interest will certainly be there in principle, and the Russians will be watching and listening for signs of it The North Sea will eventually be scattered not with drilling: platforms, twit passive production rigs, some of them British owned.

Even if they are not worth using in peace time ifor such purposes they might Ibe in war. And if the idea works in the North Sea, it might be much more useful in the Barents Sea right in the approaches to the most important Soviet submarine bases round Murmansk where the Norwegians will sooner or later begin to work the oiL Hence the recent important statement by the Norwegian Government, quite clearly directed at a sensitive Russian audience, that the protection of offshore rigs in the Arctic would be a national, not a NATO resonsibility. But what if the final legal Interpretation of the Spitsbergen Treaty of 1920 gives signatories lute the United States. Japan and the United Kingdom the right to operate their own rigs up there The saga of the Russians and the oil rigs is only just beginning. THE ROYAL NAVY'S first vessel commissioned specifically for the combined job of protecting North Sea oil rigs and fisheries.

HMS Jura, put to sea from the Clyde yesterday with the Minister of State for Defence, Mr William Rodgers, briefly aboard as a passenger. In keeping with Britain's straitened economic circumstances, she has merely been borrowed from the Scottish Department of Fisheries, and fitted with a naval communications system and a Bofors gun. She and the naval tug Reward must do what they can in the North Sea until the five specially designed protection the Navy has been promised are completed in a few years' time. Even the new vessels will be slow, cumbersome things compared with a conventional modern warship probably resembling Second World War corvettes with a speed of only about 16 knots. But they should keep the, sea comfortably during the long northern winters, and that is something their crews will appreciate.

They should then be available for a whole range of small but useful jobs arresting fish poachers, investigating the inevitable oil coordinating search and rescue operations and so on. There may be one more job for them, but that depends on whether the Russians continue snooping new North Sea oil rigs in the way they seem to have done over the past year. The first of three incidents that have- been publicised occurred in.June, 1974, when a Soviet intelligence-gathering ship brisMfng with aerials HMS Jura holding the fort while 'the fiv North Sea protection vessels are built As William Rodgers, Defence Minister, steams, out into the North Sea to resolve the problems of Russians snooping around our oil rigs, DAVID FAIRHALL assesses the options When Russia rigs up a navy lark the next few weeks, uf the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre. Actually it is not just a hospital, it xs a medical city. that has arisen on the palace grounds which he donated for the purpose.

Doctors who show you round it, in all its gleaming, virgin magnificence, are still a little wide-eyed them To be sure, such interest in our oil rigs (and allowing for the tendency of our own Services to play up such incidents so as to justify more Nimrods for RAF Strike Command or more protection vessels for the Navy) one will begin to suspect some similar instruction to probe and harass. Things have certainly not reached that point yet. But there is one strictly naval reason with a good many legal ramifications why they may yet do so. An array of oil platforms around the northern approaches to the British Isles could form the basis of a valuable anti-sub odoneerinE techniques; such Coupled with this could be a direct naval interest in just how the Western oilmen would react to an intrusion of that kind. No naval commander and particularly not a Soviet one, I would imagine deliberately contravenes any international rule of the sea unless he has authority to do so.

For example, some tacit authority must surely have been given during the period a few years ago when Russian vessels repeatedly harassed NATO naval exercises in the Mediterranean and elsewhere. If there are more incidents of Russians showing a close particular rig is established and publicised it also makes a prominent navigational mark a convenient place for a Russian fish carrier or factory ship to rendezvous with a fleet of trawlers, for example. The same is true for Russian naval vessels, but this 'does not explain the intelligence vessel closing right in to take pictures if that is what she was really doing. The reason there might be a general instruction from some Soviet department concerned with offshore oil to obtain all possible information about the pioneering North Sea operations. was no scope for diplomatic protest.

In any case the legal niceties were less important than the motives of the Russian skippers involved. And the goes for the Soviet warships that have turned up in the vicinity of several oil rigs over the past ten days cruisers and submarines as well as an intelligence gatherer. Were the Russians aware of the safety zone rules, and if so, had they been given instructions to ignore them, or to harass the rigs in some way? Were they even aware of the oilmen's alarm Once -the position of a moved inside the 500-metre safety zone surrounding an Amo'co rig (all rigs are protected by this navigational zone, once their position has been formally declared) and appeared to be taking pictures. On the next occasion, involving another Amoco rig off Spurn Head, the oilmen claimed that a Russian trawler sailed past no more than 250 yards away, and that two more came in to "cut off" the rig's safety launch when it set out to challenge the -intruder. But it turned that the rig's position had not yet 'been officially declared so there sophisticated machinery, such.

luxurious ft'ttrngs, are an to oe found in the hospitals or tne West, but nowhere, it seems. do they all come together under one root, in a single inte grated wrtoie, in quite me con' centrartskm 'they do here-. tion beMpd it, but, practically spearang, it, is wie orunaiuu n.f Tlr Riiffa -Sawid All. his Egyptian born personal, phy- Til- Aili'e amrvHifimi wHipih seems likely to be fulfilled, is to make the hospiial, first -as a clinical facility and .8 a tnMi(il research centre, equal to the best the West has to offer. Princes or hcwlniiiinc will he out of action accommodated free in 250 ncniy-furnisnea ana carpcieu wards.

A11 tfcom ara nrivflifV and Jill V. vuvui their standard equipment includes an electrically frt cvr--i4rfcH KaH nuaViflhiiifit-nn cur tains and a' colour television c-n fnv rS wlmv -four Tiro- grammes will be provided by the lnsmnuraon wseu. it to be bland with a touch of controversy on a minor level." There have been numerous disagreements over the approach to features and reviews, and these have been exacerbated by what the staff considers to be Ms Street-Porter's contemptuous and authoritarian manner, laying down the line and not being prepared to enter into discussion," which if true will not. have gone down well among a group of journalists who have tried to resist development of an editorial hierarchy, maintaining the same salary' for all non-management staff. "If Janet is -guilty of issuing instruction, then so am Mr Elliott explains.

"If people disagree they have a mouth to say it. Janet has done everything that I've wanted her to do, and she has done it very well, on both magazines. This 'is a big "business and it has to be run in a business-like way. that's why there is an agreement between the company and the union, and provided everyone continues to play the game I hope I won't be forced to sell the publication." news and entertainment events. But the magazine's political and cultural reporting have become areas of confrontation.

Elliott backed up by his new deputy editor, refers to the news pages- as the "squatters column," and has in a number otf cases refused to allow coverage of industrial disputes, while news staff Tiave found themselves embattled over pursuing the investigative reporting which has often prised open national issues that have escaped Fleet Street's attention. The news pages meanwhile have shrunk from half a dozen to two. "The basic function of the magazine," Mr Elliott says, "is to pump out listings of events, and you will find that there's a hard rump of the staff who don't necessarily feel that the political reporting that has been flogged to death in the front of Time Out is crucial to the life of the The staff, however, takes the view that the editor and his deputy are determined to make the magazine a record of fun things to do in London, with coverage of stars and They want vated the issue. An agree-ment with Time Out's NUJ chapel specifies that while the 'editor has the power to hire and fire, the staff' has the right to prior consultation over editorial appointments. In the past, this had generally meant that editors of.

the various sections of the magazine 'have made up their own shprt-lists, and that iournal-ists have sat in on all interviews. But there were no interviews for the deputy editor job. "There were a very large number of extremely depressing applications," says Tony Elliott, Time Out's editor and publisher. and Janet, with her experience and contacts, was in quite a -different league from all the others." Janet Street-Porter came to the magazine via the Daily Mail's, fashion page. West One, a London give-away, and a dhat show on London Broadcasting all' of which, in Mr Elliott's view, also put her in a different league from the magazine's existing staff.

Time Out; now six years old with a weekly circulation of 50,000. has its roots in the alternative press; providing a radical coverage of London's AS NATIONAL Union of Journalist delegates go into session this morning at the start of the union's annual conference to debate among other issues the rights of editors, the staff of Time Out magazine in London are taking action which challenged both the sanctity of 'editorial appointments and the determination of editorial content The' staff are demanding the removal of the magazine's deputy Janet Street-Porter, who was appointed at the beginning of March, and yesterday came out on strike after failing to elicit a response from the management. In part, the dispute is over the manner of her appointment, and the fact that she is engaged in two full-time NUJ jobs. Street-Porter is editor of Sell Out, a Time Out spin-off just launched as a consumers' guide -to survival in London, and the" staff of both magazines are concerned that Sell Out's future is being jeopardised by her absence. But it is the question of.

consultation which has aggra Lana Turner and escort Geoffrey Sheridan reports on a strike at a London magazine over the problem of editorial prerogatives Camp followers SALLY QUINN reports THE LIGHTS focused on the From the moment he crosses the threshold the patient, becomes, clinically speaking, a card in a computer slot before that if, as an emergency case, he arrives by the hospital's computer-linked'ambulance helicopter. Thereafter, and throughout his stay, everything that is medically interesting about him 'is monitored, and stored away for rapid retrieval. Elaborate laboratory tests and-the collation of data, which might take hours elsewhere, are a matter of minutes away. In the intensive units, every aspect of the patient's condition, over every five minutes of the past eight, hours, can be instantly verified. Medicines are ordered through a central computer system, which Is trained to against incompatibilities, and automatically conveyed to their destination.

Computers monitor the movement of nurses, plot the most efficient corner of the New stage and she appeared, a vision in -urhite nlatinium and sparklff. They just died over her. '1 ney gave ner a swip ing ovation, wnisueu cheered, jumped up and down, and cried, out in ecstasy, "you are the most "London Letter beautitud woman in world." Mouthing my heart to you with her ruby lips, she gestured to her legendary answer that) the Labour Party's one-day conference' hands and reached out to the audience screaming its adulation. mka -tri'Viuifo was nne- 01 a THIS BEING European Architectural Heritage Year and the good people at the National Book League being sensitive and responsible -citizens, they are mounting a special exhibition combining, naturally, books and historic places. The books have been chosen by the Civic Trust and are augmented by various visual devices plans, photographs.

prints, architects drawings and the like. The whole thing is being opened at the league's hand- Alhpmnrlp Street Tire- the the moment a mal semes arranged in the past coital clinch with Julie Christie (it's that kind of movie), and co-star Jack Warden, watching them, had just murmured "What a beautiful fuck" (it's that kind of movie) when the. film stopped and the lights went on. Beatty, sitting there at the back, had suddenly, spotted a mysterious seven-minute cut, dashed upstairs and stopped the film. They couldn't find the missing seven minutes (which came before the big clinch) and Beatty set the show up again for last night with a different When you write, produce and star you can do that sort of thing.

distribution- develops, uty-six cameras, which can see in nimnct, total darkness, convey continuous television pictures 01 speciai-care patients- a panel of screens in a central control mises on May 6, by, naturally If all this sounds coldly mechanical; the hospital vYvannorars tiactpn to Doint Out on 'the contrary, it leaves She says the highs in her life are when she is working on something she cares about, the lows when she's not working. She's had mostly lows since the Stompanato episode, and most of the few times she has worked have been disasters. So why lana Turner? Why any of these women? What is the appeal, particularly to homosexuals It is not a new phenomenon, but it is more out in the open these days because of new-attitudes toward gays. The crowd was described by one New York observer of the gay scene as "the freaks of all time. They weren't even the young gay crowd.

They were 40-year-old creatures, tired old drag queens, fighting and bitching each other." For others it was "an interesting psychological thing. There's nobody here who cares tonight about great acting," one "said, and Lana wasn't the kind that the little old ladies love. She represents these homosexuals' fantasies at a certain age in their lives. They identify with her and she's a survivor. After the last standing ovation, she dabbed her eyes delicately with the same lace handkerchief, murmured: It's the first tone in my life I've had a tribute all my own," and delivered herself to a phalanx of Neiw York City They escorted her, in her white fur, past the delirious fans, laced her -inside a black mouslne and lumped into a squad car with a siren to follow, Miss Lana 'Turner, Legendary lady of the Theatre, off into the night, A man was walking by as this Spectacle unfc-Mfd.

Who's that? he asked. Lana Turner "Big, deal." Washington Post moreume tor me mimen licorl c4nfF ttio hnsnitsl will -iMnhlrio TiioVi tochntiinev with a staff-patient ratio which is um tHiA0 tinux! thi normal. The Hospital Corporation of America, to which the management- pntninfed. has a copy of his group's latest analysis of the political case against So, being a canny northerner, he sent-off copies to Peter Shore and Michael Foot at their House of Commons addresses, as mortal MPs rather than as high-powered Ministers. Anyway Towler duly got his acknowledgment 1 from Tony Benn, a duplicated one but personally signed and enclosing a copy of Benn's address setting out the anti-Market case to his electors of Bristol.

Well done, Tony, But what of Mr Shore, Labour MP for. Stepney. His Commons parcel was acknowledged by a B. M. Watson, signing himself as one of Shore's private secretaries' (civil servants to you) at the Depattment of Trade.

"Dear Mr Towler," reads that oh-o-f amiliar Civil Service reply, Mr' Shore has asked me to thank you for your recent letter about British membership of the European Community. Your comments have been noted. As you will know the Government has now completed' its renegotiations of Britain's terms of membership arid Is recommending to the people that Britain should remain a member TALKING about ihe Market and who isn't (wft "don't xenophobia of the get your prayer mats here" scrawled on- a wall variety) is rampant. Colin Campbell's original interior, over which Pevsner waxed eloquent, is being spoiled, fireplaces are being removed, there was no planning application. Some people, who have been Inside the castle since work began, some weeks ago say that in- terior upstairs walls have been removed.

Mereworth. Castle Is a listed' building and and Mailing Council havenow, belatedly, extracted an application for consent to alter a listed building from the. ambassador's agent though they are anxious tp cool local tempers because In this day and age it Isn't always possible to find an owner for. such a building." The ambassador, a busy as well as ridh and cultivated man, is rarely seen, locally. The castle is empty.

Asked about the threat to Mere-worth last night the National Book. said "Yes, I thiflk. we've heard something about it." Shore thing CAUTIONARY tale for Who Governs Britain There was this fellow, James Towler, who is chairman of the British Business for World Markets Group, and lie Wanted to end prominent --anti- VJl UtUI IHtp IU -V' 14 little trouble. Driven rather, since it concerns the transport arrangements. Tfie conference is being held in the Sobell Sports Centre in Islington and by unhappy coincidence next Saturday at nearby Highbury Arsenal are playing Sprus, which in local derby terms means a crowd of plus.

Naturally, the local juz? yield to force majeure and have told- the Labour Party there'll be no nearby on-street parking for conference delegates. The Sobell's oivn modest car park will be shared between' the important participants, NEC cars and the BBC and 1TV vans. And where does that leave Labour minis or diplomatic observer' Mercedes? Towed away, if they're not careful. and set THE CRITICS' nightmare came true at last There they all were yesterday sitting in the dark at Odeon in the Haymarket watching the press showing of Warren Beatty's smash American hit Shampoo, when it all went wrong. Beatty who start as well as writes and produces this odyssey about- a Beverley Hills hairdresser and stud was Just embarked upon a done all the recruiting in two years oy a pumn-ioj.

John Springer, for "Legendary ladies of the theatre. Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Sylvia Sidney and Myma Loy each was celebrated at an evening of her own. But none of them pulled in. as many friends as did Lana Turner. Most of them were gay.

it appeared. Oh, there were the-usual celebrities Andy Warhol, Phyllis Newman and Adolph Green, Sylvia Miles, Rex Reed, Ruth Warwick, Yma Sumac and Carleton Carpenter (he sang Abba Dabba Honeymoon with Debbie Reynolds) but mainly it was the faithful homosexuals who haunt the hangouts, the comebacks, the openings and the premieres of those women who are bigger than life. The evening With Lana Turner, was, like the others, a showing of film clips from some of her famous movies such as The Bad and the Beautiful, The Postman Always Rings Twice Bnd Madame followed by questions. There was some nervousness because of her seven marriages and that fatal stabbing in 1958 of her gangsler-lover, Johnny; Stompartiato, 'by ner 14-year-old daughtei Cheryl Crane. America, uraiain, ana inc -nrao rnlt ft ilnaa tint want, nrims donna careerists, says, and mbimhnloflniil natantalhiMtv ifi a Lord navur-ally enough, is the League's, president.

Imagine then the surprise of the commuting' Kent conservationist to spot among the six British buildings singled out for visual exhibition Mereworth Castle on the outskirts of Maidstone. For Mereworth pronounced "Merryworth" by the locals is threatened what seems to be the antithesis of European Architectural Year. In January the castle was bought by Mtrhamamed Mahdi Al-Tajit, Arab one or the richest men around and-these days. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. He paid a -modest 500,000 plus Jor.

the Palladian pile in a subsequent Interview- with the. Observer '(and a spiritedly Anglophile one at that) said I needed somewhere'' appropriate bang my pictures." Three' months later local ruraour XeWhed. with, strong point in a candidate's But competition has been severe i.ouu junencwi, auu 1,400 British applicants for 60 it posts Mi we nrai- jrcai, inn tVicw cmwtiH- Mutiv nf them will- live iri'f villas and xnarlmnnts in the medical city. So will the nurses --also way, hasten the. ''These pictures of the stowing peoples of West Bengal are being brought to uott live via Indie's irst satellite." Michael White erosion or sooiai which this most fiercely traditionalist of Arab capitals is unaergwns.r,.:.