Many of whom felt that Khánh thought of himself as the "Sihanouk of Vietnam"; the Cambodian monarch had managed to avoid the Cold War for the time being by shunning both communist and anti-communist blocs. During the first half of February, suspicions and evidence against Khánh began to solidify, an example being his order to release the wife of communist leader Huỳnh Tấn Phát from jail. Taylor's superiors in Washington began to align with his view, giving him more scope to agitate for a coup.