 Thiệu had also become very suspicious of his American allies , unwilling to believe ( as did many South Vietnamese ) that the U.S. had been caught by surprise by the offensive . " Now that it 's all over " , he queried a visiting Washington official , " you really knew it was coming didn 't you ? " Lyndon Johnson 's unilateral decision on 31 March to curtail the bombing of North Vietnam only confirmed what Thiệu already feared , that the Americans were going to abandon South Vietnam to the communists . For Thiệu , the bombing halt and the beginning of negotiations with the North brought not the hope of an end to the war , but " an abiding fear of peace . " He was only mollified after an 18 July meeting with Johnson in Honolulu , where the American president affirmed that Saigon would be a full partner in all negotiations and that the U.S. would not " support the imposition of a coalition government , or any other form of government , on the people of South Vietnam . " 
