Chapter 1268 – Sightings in Saigon

“Foltseva could have been clamoring for her son’s return since the Royal Navy added the strength of the Pacific Fleet. This way, recognize Alexeyev’s contribution to the Indonesian effort. Don’t skimp on medals and promotions and whatnot, but he can’t be allowed to return until we’ve got things sorted out. The First Secretary’s vacation will just follow the normal schedule, and the information channels, that’s your job.”

The KGB was the eyes and ears of the First Secretary, and to launch a major operation, Khrushchev had to be convinced that the country was very stable at this point.

Sherepine didn’t know the term information cocoon, but having been KGB chairman he had this realization, to cut off Khrushchev’s sources of information.

Having been First Secretary for so long, Khrushchev couldn’t have been without trusted subordinates, but now there was a push for a resolution that shook that support. There was no guarantee that Khrushchev would get through, even if Molotov and the others had a repeat of the initial outburst, and this resolution was that Khrushchev’s intention was to require the constant renewal of the leading organs, with half of the district committees, one-third of the oblast committees, and one-quarter of the central committees, at each election.

More to the point, any cadre over fifty-five years of age was called an old man and was a potential candidate for replacement. If things proceeded accordingly, in less than ten years, there would be a major turnover in the leadership of the organs and the Republic.

This was no threat to the likes of Sherepine and Semichasne; the Sherepine group was generally very young, and Sherepine, as the leader, was only forty-five years old. Shemicha Sneh and others are even younger than him, are forty years of age, but as it happens, a lot of Shelepine’s fans, just out of the position of the Central Committee members, although by the fluctuation is not big, but for the golden years of them, and the risk of being replaced, which is more unacceptable than replacing those old people.

Shelepine is well aware that he has no experience in local administration, although his fans do not lack such people, but want to talk to the local powerhouse, indeed, as Semichasne said, should make clear Brezhnev’s ideas, only Brezhnev’s usually quiet personality, and local cadres to communicate more easily.

Semichasne nodded, sat for a while and left Shelepine’s house, ready to challenge the soft underbelly of the culture tsar, as Shelepine intended. Let the big man who got Khrushchev through the last time not come out and get in the way this time.

But someone was one step ahead of him; Brezhnev, the second secretary of the two populations, who was malleable and whose views were not prominent and whose position was not firm, met Foltseva frequently in his daily work.

Foltseva’s son, Alexeyev, was a good breakthrough, and Brezhnev expressed his praise for the boy, “In looking at my children, Yuri is moderate, and Galina is a headache.”

Brezhnev was referring to his own sons and daughters, both of whom were, of course, more than a decade older than Foltseva’s son, Alexeyev.

Foltseva is now most concerned about their son, heard the second secretary said so, and immediately took advantage of the opportunity to say, “second secretary, he has been in Indonesia, I’m a mother is very worried.”

Foltseva still wants her son to return to the country, this is not a secret in the Central Presidium, especially the situation in Southeast Asia is becoming more and more unstable, Brezhnev did not immediately agree to it, just said that this is not a problem at all, and he also sympathized with Foltseva as a mother, the child, after all, is small in age and can be understood.

“Ekaterina, in fact, instead of worrying about the children, we should pay more attention to the immediate crisis.” Brezhnev spoke unhurriedly, “The frequent transfer of cadres has forced comrades to leave without waiting to familiarize themselves with the work of a place, which makes it impossible to mingle with the masses. It is also impossible to make achievements in a short time, and herein lies the greatest drawback. By the way, as the only woman in the Central Presidium, you shouldn’t have to worry about that.”

Foltseva immediately heard the chord, and almost immediately, remembering what the man had said about trying to maintain good relations with Brezhnev, she immediately replied, “Second Secretary, in fact, having reached my present position, I have no more political ambitions. All I hope for is that my children, in the future, will become successful and better serve the Soviets. It would be best if I could help a little, and if I can’t, I hope that his talents will be seen by his comrades.”

“This child is so good that the comrades can see it.” Brezhnev promised magnanimously, “There is no need for Comrade Ekaterina to be too modest, the Soviets still need more contributions from you, we have always looked to women’s rights and you are best suited to be a role model for the women.”

Brezhnev was the first one to approach Foltseva for Foltseva’s status as a woman, and also including Foltseva’s past of staying up all night at the Moscow airport to help Khrushchev turn the tide when the Molotov Group was on the prowl, and if all goes well this time around, it’s not like Foltseva will be a threat to anything and can stay seated in her current position.

The crippled soldier strained to walk through the woods on a stick, moving his long legs. Rotting, damp fallen leaves crunched under his feet, dense branches, vines and weeds blocked the way from time to time, and he had to stop and rest almost every bit of the way.

The injury and inflammation on his leg made his already weak body even weaker, and his strength was about to be exhausted.

They had been walking through this great forest that covered the sky for two full days. For most, it had been more than a grueling cross-country march; it had been a triumphant escape, an experience of defeat. They had arrived two days earlier in to an attack by North Vietnamese guerrillas and had unsurprisingly suffered a defeat.

The group was moving slower and slower, and the number of wounded and sick was increasing by the day. Rations were running out, and the men fed mainly by digging up plant tubers and hunting animals. Because of the ruggedness of the mountain roads and the fact that they often got lost, the group could only advance five kilometers a day.

From time to time, the forest was cluttered with the sound of gunfire as soldiers shot at monkeys in the trees. Sometimes the hungry men went through a lot of ammunition in order to hunt a grouse or a gray squirrel. An air of dismal defeat hung over the whole party.

The civilian party hobbled along. The civilians helped each other, walking with difficulty but without complaint. The stretcher-bearers also approached. The stretcher-bearers were all so tired that they seemed drunk, light-headed, and unsteady. The officers stipulated that only the seriously wounded and the seriously ill could sit on the stretcher.

The army’s American advisor was suffering from a return of fever and was unconscious; a white major touched his hot hand and sighed softly.

Two young nurses struggled to help the officer keep going, and he tilted his head back to look overhead. Though the sky was sprinkled with many broken patches of sunlight, there was clearly a heavy, fishy dampness creeping into the air as well, and there was a faint sound of thunder coming from the southern sky at times. All this signaled that the rainy season was not far off.

The climate of Vietnam was a test for the American GIs in the city on top of the mountain, and the godforsaken Vietcong guerrillas were a nightmare, and almost everyone was now convinced that Special Warfare alone was not enough to have any effect, and that in the absence of air superiority, American lives were no more valuable than those of the Vietcong.

Maxwell Taylor, the equivalent of Mountbatten in the British Army, came to Saigon facing just such a situation.

Complaints from the local American troops were endless, and if when they first arrived in Vietnam, the American GIs were relatively restrained and didn’t implicate innocents except for their daily inability to keep their pants on, after being cold-cocked by the guerrillas from time to time, the soldiers grew cranky, and the number of offenses committed, even if they were not in the area of combat, was on the rise.

“Mr. Nguyen, the current situation is truly a shame that Washington has supported you.” Maxwell Taylor couldn’t help but feel a great deal of disappointment, not just at the bad news, but also at the fact that the ruler of Vietnam was still Yang Minh Minh before he arrived, and just as he was on his way there, Yang Minh Minh was coup d’étated, and Nguyen Khanh became the he ruler of the country again.

How could this state of affairs be reassuring when it was all coming to a head, when North Vietnamese infiltration operations were so frequent and the Saigon regime was still in the midst of military coups?

“Honorable General, our heart to run to the free world will not be changed by some conceptual conflicts.” Nguyen Khanh was a little embarrassed in the face of Maxwell Taylor’s questioning, it was true that it was inappropriate to oust Yang Mingming from the game at this time, but there was no such thing as appropriate or inappropriate for a coup d’état.

Even if he knew that Maxwell Taylor was coming this time, he still had to drive his opponent down to fish.

What’s more, he didn’t do anything to Yang Wenming, unlike Wu Tingyan, who was all taken out, which of course has to do with the fact that Yang Wenming still has supporters in the military. Maxwell Taylor just did not practice the special relationship between Britain and the United States to bring the Orientalism expert over, otherwise Allen Wilson would have told this American general that the situation in South Vietnam is called a clan.

Vassalism this situation also does not only belong to the East, for example, the latter days of the world’s second military power of Ukraine, the country is also spread all over the private army, almost medieval feudal lords resurrection.

But even if he didn’t quite understand it, Maxwell Taylor was at least able to sense one thing that couldn’t be more obvious, that South Vietnam really couldn’t hold out without the presence of American troops. Just like Chang Kung twenty years ago, he now only hoped that with the pressure of the U.S. army, the South Vietnamese army could do what the Korean army did, at least have a fighting chance against the enemy after the integration.

“It is not enough to have this heart; South Vietnam must have some degree of self-defense. I hope General Nguyen will take my words to heart.” Maxwell Taylor barked that mindsets like Ngo Dinh Yen’s, who was honey-confident and had the audacity to blame the United States as if the United States begged him, had better disappear in a hurry.

It was no longer necessary to see more, Maxwell Taylor had already made a judgment that he had to intervene in order to stabilize the situation, and if he was late, it would be too late.