From The Hindu, April 23, 1975: U.S. consulting govts. to end Saigon war by negotiations

Washington, April 22: The United States President, Mr. Gerald Ford, denied last night that the U.S. had exerted “any kind of direct pressure” on the South Vietnamese President, Mr. Nguyen Van Thieu, to resign. In a televised conversation with three network correspondents, some hours after Mr. Thieu stepped down in Saigon, Mr. Ford maintained that the decision to quit was Mr. Thieu’s own.

Mr. Ford nevertheless left the impression that the U.S.’s changed attitude towards Mr. Thieu in the last few days might have been communicated to him, probably by the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. This reinforced other reports which said that within the last week or so Mr. Thieu had been told that the U.S.’s position vis-a-vis him had shifted from one of support to neutrality.

In the face of the rapidly changing political and military situation in Saigon, the U.S.’s concern now is certainly not about the future of Mr. Thieu but about what his successors can do to prevent a bloody battle for Saigon. Mr. Ford himself was not sure whether the communists would now want a complete military victory, or a negotiated settlement (which many here now take to be an euphemism for surrender) between the insurgents and whoever eventually succeeds Mr. Thieu — few here believe that the aged and nearly blind Vice-President Tran Van Huong can long control the situation in Saigon. With the situation being as desperate as it is, Mr. Ford did not even once talk about “stabilising” the situation in Saigon with or without U.S. arms aid.