Ex-president of South Vietnam, Thieu, dead at 78

BOSTON -- Former South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu, who led his nation in the war that tore apart his homeland and bitterly divided the United States, then was forced to step down as North Vietnamese troops closed in, has died. He was 78.

Thieu collapsed Thursday at his home in suburban Foxboro on Thursday and died late Saturday at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, hospital spokesman Jerry Berger and cousin Hoang Duc Nha said Sunday.

Thieu had been in a coma and was kept on a respirator until relatives could gather in Boston, Nha said.

Thieu assumed power as chief of state in 1965, the same year President Johnson ordered the first major escalation of the war, sending more than 100,000 U.S. troops to Vietnam. He presided over the U.S.-backed South Vietnam until the fall of its capital city, Saigon, in 1975, to Communist-led troops from North Vietnam.

He then largely disappeared from public view and lived quietly in exile, first in London, then in the Boston area, a symbol of the war in which nearly 60,000 American troops died.

After the ceremonial post of chief of state, Thieu was elected president in September 1967 after pulling off a stunning switch with his rival, Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky, who had previously wielded the most influence in the South Vietnamese military regime.

"I gave him that position and responsibility," Ky said Sunday in Los Angeles. He said he spoke with Thieu's wife and family by telephone on Saturday after receiving news of Thieu's death.

The two had not seen each other since they fled South Vietnam in 1975.