From the S&S archives:
George Wallace: On top of the world on Vietnam tour

SAIGON — George Wallace walked briskly into the dining room at the Caravelle Hotel. He was smoking a big cigar. He shook hands with his breakfast companions and ordered two eggs, over easy, with bacon and orange juice.

"If everyone votes for us the way these soldiers say they will," he said, "we'll sure win the election."

Pfc. Jim Savage laughed. Wallace chuckled. Jim is an ebullient Wallace booster from Clarkswille, Tenn.

Savage, now a 1st Div. airborne ranger, organized Tennessee college students for Wallace's presidential campaign. He ran into Wallace in Saigon, told him about himself and Wallace invited him to breakfast.

"Last year we won every poll taken among servicemen," Wallace said.

Wallace had visited a hospital the day before. He had toured 25th Inf. Div. fire support bases and taken a chopper to the top of Nui Ba Den — the battlescarred "Black Virgin" mountain near Tay Ninh City — then eaten dinner with soldiers in a downtown Saigon club.

GIs had lined up to shake his hand.

"It put Wallace on top of the world," laughed his traveling companion, Dwight Coffman, a retired manufacturer. Coffman was a Curtis LeMay aide during the election campaign.

"I was impressed with the spirit of the men," said Wallace. "They look and act like they're the best. When I saw those shot-up young fellows in the hospital, and think of those draft-exempt fellows in colleges carrying Viet Cong flags, I know I'm right saying what I do."

He has been saying there is a difference between people who think America shouldn't be in Vietnam yet still support the troops and people who carry VC flags. The first are good. The others are traitors.

Wallace said his view is that of President Nixon — that the great majority of Americans want to get out of Vietnam, but "I'm pulling for Nixon," said Wallace. "If he can end the war, the American people and I will give him the credit. He will have to do it in a reasonable period of time, however — several months."

How will he then campaign against Nixon?

"People expect him to end the war," said Wallace, "but people are tired of high taxes, inflation, seeing their children bused across town to school, all this social experimentation. And, why, it's safer in Saigon than it is on many streets in many large cities back home."

He wants to raise taxes for the rich and lower them for the poor.

"The filthy rich in America  are just as dangerous as the militants," he said. "Rockefeller — all those foundations, you know — they're dedicated to overthrowing the country. They couldn't do it without all that money. They talk about helping poverty. Why don't they try living in poverty?"

Wallace spoke in a soft drawl, yet his voice radiated a feeling of controlled intensity rather than tranquility. His speech was spiced with double negatives. He spoke in a whisper on certain subjects. Communism was one. The poor was another.

Wallace came to Vietnam on a fact-finding tour. The visit did not seem to be changing any of his basic views, but after just a day in country those views were already being bolstered by frequent references to his observations here.

He expressed concern that Red Chinese and Soviet arms are used against Americans in Vietnam and thought some sort of action should. have been taken to prevent it.

" The Vietnamese soldiers wouldn't have much trouble if the Viet Cong were just armed with those little bamboo sticks," said Wallace.

Jim Savage and Dwight Coffman laughed hard at the joke. So did Wallace.