THE COUP D'ETAT OF NOVEMBER 1963 AND ITS AFTERMATH

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 05629355
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 27
• Document Creation Date: July 13, 2023
• Document Release Date: February 8, 2022
• Case Number: F-2017-01666
• Publication Date: October 27, 1964

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Presentation Before FSI Special Cour:se on Vietnam
27 October 1964, 9-11 am
The Coup d'etat of November 1963 and its Aftermath
It seems incredible to me that only one year has passed since
those tension-filled days of October 1963 which led up to the military
coup of 1 November and the demise of President Ngo Dinh Diem.
The coup had cast a long shadow before it. In 1954, when Diem
first took office, his authority was immediately threatened by three
dissident sects and by the Francophile Chief of Staff of the Vietnamese
Army, Nguyen Van Hinh. Hinh had openly boasted that he could oust
Diem between siesta hour and dinner, and Diem's sister-in-law,
Madame Nhu, had equally openly dared him to try to do so. For many
reasons Hinh did not, and left quietly for France where he remains
today.
Diem's rule was threatened again in November 1960 when a
military group headed by the paratroop commander, Nguyen Chanh
Thi, stormed the palace, took possession of the key points in Saigon,
and forced Diem to negotiate. Diem temporized long enough to allow
units from outside Saigon to overwhelm the rebel paratroopers and force
the flight of their leaders and the surrender of their units. In this
brigadier general
Diem was much aided by the action of a forceful young WO= named
Nguyen IChanh who helped organize the forces which caused the downfall
of the rebels.
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In February 1962 elements of the Vietnamese Nationalist Party,
the VNQDD, inspired two young pilots to bomb Diem's palace in Saigon.
The record is not clear as to whether this was to be a prelude to a
general military uprising, as one of the pilots who was captured later
asserted. Diem was saved, however, though the palace was so badly
damaged it was subsequently torn down and is being replaced by a
more modern structure. The perpetrator of this plot, Nguyen Van
Luc, is at present a member of the tattmatettppointet1 High National
Council. The pilot who was captured re-emerged after 1 November
from a dungeon under the botanical gardens. He was crippled, and
both of his hands had been severed from his arms.
After the failure of each of these attempts against Diem's life
hifrI165
and regime, the President apparently emerged strengthened andifilad
developed an almost messianic attitude toward his divine calling to lead
the nation.
The year 1963 opened on a bright note in Vietnam. Good effects
of the Strategic Hamlet Program which had been so vigorously pursued
by Diem and particularly by his alter ego brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, were
beginning to be felt in the countryside. The program had not been
evenly applied everywhere; its implementation lagged in the delta but in
the central highlands and coastal plain there was good reason to believe
an answer had been found to the Viet Cong challenge.
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Diem continued his autocratic ways, however, skipped channels
of command to directly order about Vietnamese Army units, shelved
some of his key military officers, such as Gen. Duong Van (Big) Minh
and Gen. Le Vantim, who were both given innocuous and powerless
sinecures. Gen. Khanh, the brilliant former Chief of Staff, was
transferred to II Corps to keep him distant from political maneuvering
in Saigon. Gen. Ton That Dinh, a youthful and mercurial personality,
was by contrast placed in charge of the Vietnamese III Corps with
headquarters in Saigor>because Diem had greater::- faith in his loyalty.
Gen. Tran Thien Khiem, generally regarded as politically colorless,
although a member of Diem's own Can Lao Party, had become Chief of
Staff of the Joint General Staff, replacing Khanh. Gen. Tran Van Don,
who had served without particular military distinction but with
considerable popular support from both the military and civilian populace
in the I Corps area in northern South Vietnam, had been relieved of
command and held a powerless position as Inspector General of the Army.
In those early months of 1963 there were many optimistic
reports from Saigon concerning the course of the war. It was believed
that the war had turned a corner and the path ahead lay upward. There
was considerable good foundation for those beliefs.
The situation began to change dramatically, however, on 8 May
1963 when Buddhists celebrating Buddhals birthday in Hue were ordered
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to subordinate their display of the Buddhist flag to the display of the
national flag, and in an angry demonstration at the radio station in
Hue, troops opened fire on a Buddhist crowd killing nine. Those were
indeed the shots heard 'round the world.
Buddhist-government differences began to flare in many places
in Vietnam following the initial engagement in May and on 11 June
Buddhist monk Quang Duc carefully poured gasoline over himself in a
downtown Saigon street and set himself afire.
This had been threatened by the Buddhists for some time if the
government did not accede to their demands with respect to an end to
alleged discrimination in favor of the Catholics.
Whereas the situation had been charged since May, it now became
explosive. The courage and determination of the Vietnamese Buddhists
to defend their cause against suppressive acts on the part of the Diem
government had caught the imagination of youthfulper,etofore nominal
Buddhist adherents, students, younger army officers, and, of course,
the always oppositionist Vietnamese politicians and intellectuals of
Saigon.
The Diem government agreed to negotiate with the Buddhist
leadership and down from Hue came a trio of Buddhist leaders, clearly
under the sway of Tri Quang, the Buddhist demigogue whose fiery oratory
originally assembled the Buddha's birthday celebrants in Hue.
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Just in time to avert major demonstrations, a statement was
signed by the Buddhist leadership and Diem on 16 June and the cremation
of the self-immolated monk proceeded without serious incident..
Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu, however, chose the very moment of the
cremation to call a meeting of her Women's Solidarkey Movement and to
announce her opposition, as well as that of her movement, to concessions
to politically inspired religious groups.
The Buddhist leadership throughout the remainder of June and
early July maintained an uneasy truce with the government but expressed
open ske
sin with respect to the government's fulfillment of its
agreement. The skepticism was further confirmed when Ngo Dinh Nhu
issued a secret communique to his Republican Youth urging them to
combat Viet Cong penetration and pressure on the government disguised
as legitimate religious complaint. The Buddhist leadership which had
many sources of information within the government immediately circulated
N
this r." communique-taabbefepublican Youth and Nhu was forced to issue
a subsequent clarification which did not wholly rectify the damage of
his earlier statement.
Privately Tich Tri Quang is alleged to have said that he never
expected the government to live up to its agreements and that, if they
had met his five demands fully, he would have five more, and then five
more, and then five more. He had caught the scent of victory and later
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admitted his objective was the down fall of the entire house of Ngo Dinh
Diem.
Through July and into August Buddhist self-immolations occurred
in Phan Thiet and Nha Trang and in Saigon a young Buddhist girl attempted
in Xa Loi Pagoda to cut off er arm with an axe in protest to government
actions against the Buddhists. The mother of Vietnam's most outstanding
scientist and ambassador to several African states had become a Buddhist
nun and threatened to burn herself if the government did not live up to its
agreements. When Ngo Dinh Nhu was questioned on what his reaction to
the self cremation of this venerable nun might be, he replied and I quote:
"If she wants to barbecue herself, I will furnish the mustard." This is
the last known of Nhu's many epithets concerning the Buddhist situation.
A month later he was dead.
The Buddhist leadership took up headquarters at Xa Loi Pagoda
in Saigon and larger and larger crowds visited daily to hear the fiery
oratory of Tri Quang and his associates. A veteran's group, clearly
inspired by the government, staged a counter-protest at the pagoda and
young monks began to arm themselves with simple weapons in preparation
for further government action against them.
No amount of urging on the part of American leaders with
respect to conciliation with the Buddhists appeared to have substantial
effect upon President Diem. In this atmosphere, Ambassador Frederick
Nolting, who was so highly respected by Diem as well as by the entire
American mission and who had been a staunch supporter of the successful
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Strategic Hamlet Program, completed his tour in Saigon and departed for
another post. Mr. William Trueheart, now Director of South East
Asian Affairs of the Department of State, became f Charge and able
negotiator of America's interests at one of the darkest hours of American/
Vietnamese relationships.
In the early morning hours of 21 August, the Xa Lot Pagoda
as well as other major pagodas in Saigon were invested by police, backed
up by Vietnamese Special Forces under the leadership of the strongly
pro-Diem Special Forces commander, Col. Le Quang Tung. American
reaction to these events was one of dismay, not only because of the sup-
pressive nature of the action itself but also because these units had been
trained, equipped, and financially supported by the United States Agency
for International Development, by the Military Assistance Program
In conjunction with this crackdown on the Buddhists, martial
law was declared anDardh Ton That Dinh became the military governor
of Saigon. The Buddhist leadership, including Tich Tri Quang, was
arrested. Tri Quang, however, had previously disguised himself by
shaving his eyebrows and took the identity of a junior and inconsequential
monk. After a routine interrogation he was released and immediately
made his way to the American Embassy where in a dramatic tug of war
between the U.S. Marine guards and the Vietnamese police, he gained
political asylum and remained until after the coup.
These events occured as Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge was
en route to assume his post as Ambassador in Saigon. Ambassador Lodge
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took up where Ambassador Nolting had left off in attempting to urge the
government and the Buddhists to further conciliation in order to prevent
the political deterioration injurious to the war effort.
Vietnamese students, in turn, took up where the Buddhist
leadership, now imprisoned, left off and there were once again demonstra-
tions in the streets of Saigon leading eventually to a mass arrest ofthigehil
� school and university students, including many who had no part in the
d ernonstrations. Buddhist agitation resumed under guidance of an under-
ground second echelong Buddhist leadership.
As the students were unavailing in opposing the position of
President Diem, so were the President's ears closed to the entreaties
of Ambassador Lodge. Seeking only the release of non-implicated
students, of reopening of the schools, the disinvestment by troops and
SistaL4o7 N ta.,"
police of the pagodas,' the Ambassadbr Was rebUffed at every turn by Diem.
Ngo Dinh Nhu continued privately to press a hard line against the Buddhists
upon the President, and Madame Nhu did so openly and publicly.
Considerable debate developed in the American press and
among official circles in Washington and in Saigon as to whether the
United States should continue its considerable material and financial
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support to Vietnam under circumstances where theAgovernment found
itself in open and contentious dispute with an organized and legitimate
segment of one of the world's great religicis,-42=bisees. Without making
any specific announcement, U.S. non-military economic aid ground to a
halt. There was no sudden termination of this aid, rather marttijy
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authorizations for the importation of goods under the Commidity Import
Program were delayed and not signed. Aitie Government of Vietnam
inqueries concerning the situation met with temporizing responses. The
displeasure of the United States was clear for all to: see. Both Vietnamese
who were genuinely concerned with the political future of their nation as
well as long-time political opportunists sought to read the handwriting
on the wall. In a more finite move, both the Military Assistance Program
support to Vietnamese Special Forces was specifically curtailed
pending the reorganization of the Special Forces under the established
chain of command. It was General Dick Stilwell and I who delivered this
ultimatum to Special Forces Commander Tung and his Chief of Staff and
brother, Le Quang Trieu, It was
the last time I saw either Tung or his brother alive.
At this the Government of Vietnam struck back. CIA was accused
� of attempting to overthrow the Vietnamese Government by military coup
and Mme. Nhuis personal organ, the Times of Vietnam, faithfully and
daily forwarded these charges. This was a critical mistake on the part
of the Diem regime since it was later learned that the eventual successful
coup plotters gave some credence to the Times of Vietnam accounts
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and gleefully interpreted them as a sign that perhaps th U. would
suppott their coup. Thus it can be said that, lapse*, Mme. Nhu
dug the grave of the Diem regime with her own mouth.
The Government of Vietnam began to grind to a halt. Ministries
and the bureaucracy and y w nt through the motions. Foreign Minister
Vu Van Maws aved his head and left his post. Howevet, National
Assembly elections which had earlier been postponed because of martial
law, were held without incident and without noticeable enthusiasm. On
27 September the UN General Assembly opened general debate on the
question of human rights in South Vietnam and agreed to send observers
on this question to Saigon. Their mission was not completed until after
the government had fallen.
In this parlous situation, coup plotting begn to be reported from a
number of quarters. Immediately prior to the 1 November coup CIA
reported some ten different coup groups in existence, one of w 'eh a
group headed by
had actually
begun to move but aborted at the last minute on 24 October.
Among the other groups was one headed by the President's
intelligence chief, Tran Kim Tuyen, who had been one of the earliest
and strongest supporters of the Diem regime, but who bore considerable
guilt for some of the more drastic acts of the regime. Tuyen had become
disaffected because of his and his wife's battles, both personal and
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and political, with Ngo Dinh Nhu and Mme. Nhu. An astute politician,
Tuyen saw considerable room for maneuvering and was carefully
organizing a group of security officials, younger army officials and
civilian politicians.
Tuyen's group had liaison with but was apparently separate from
that of Col. Thao and Huynh Van Lang. Lang had been one of the founders
of the Can Lao Party, Chief of the Finance Bureau of the Can Lao and
Chief of the Office of Exchange of the Vietnamese Government. He had
been ousted a short time before for financial /peculation and had begun
to organize a group of the younger and more articulate bureaucrats and
politicians in Saigon. Thao had the contacts with the military.
Another group was that of Gen. Le Van Nghiem, a devout Buddhist,
who had been relieved by Diem from his position in the Hue area when
Nghiem refused to take strong action against the Buddhists.
A Dai Viet group also existed and has subsequently surfaced as a
significant power since the N coupz
at, 4.W
ThekVNQDD which had s aged the bombing of the palace in 1962
and had been driven underground was also attempting to carefully line
up support for a military putsch against the government.
A group of colonels and other junior officers from the air borne,
marines and armor, had also met to discuss military action.
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Most significant, however, was a generals' group headed by
General "Big" Minh with Gen. Tran Van Don as contact man and
Gen. Le Van Kim as political organizer. What in effect happened was
that the generals' group subsumed several of the other smaller groups
which had been under the organizational talents of Col. Thao, Dr. Tuyen,
Huyn Van Lang, and the Dai Viets. The key negotiator between the
generals and the young officers was Tran Thien Khiem in that he acted
as liaison between the younger officers' group and the senior officers'
group.
Ngo Dinh Nhu was not without some knowledge of these activities
and in a move probably intended to shock and make them aware of his
knowledge, he called the generals together and proposed to them what
sounded strangely like an overthrow of his own brother in order to place
Nhu in power.
This was not Nhuls only gambit, however. He had also conceived
of a Machiavellian scheme in which he had enlisted the support of the
Vietnamese Special Forces Commander, Col. Tung, and the Commander
of the III Corps, Gen. Ton That Dinh. According to the scheme, a
phony coup would be staged by relatively minor military elements from
the area around Saigon. These units would invade Saigon, institute a
reign of terror directed in part at Americans and eventually be put down
by forces under the command of Dinh and Nhu. This scheme was supposed
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� to convince the Americans that the alternative to Diem was anarchy
and to force the Americans to capitulate to the Diem-Mm view re
Buddhist dissidence and the continuance of the war.
� The Buddhists, from sources inside the government, knew of this
scheme almost immediately.
Generals Don and Kim also had been aware, however, some time
previously that a key to their plan to overthrow Diem would be the
actions of Ton That Dinh, since the latter commanded the troops in the
vicinity of Saigon. With this in mind they deliberately played on Dinh's
ego, which was not inconsiderable to begin with, and had convinced
Dinh to go to Diem and demand the post of Minister, of Interior as payment
for his past faithful service. As Don and Kim suspected, Dinh was flatly
refused by the President and from that time forward, Nhu's phony coup
and the generals' very real coup were merged as Dinh betrayed Nhu
into the hands of the generals.
On the morning of 1 November, Admiral Harry Felt, Commander
in Chief, Pacific, was concluding a visit to Saigon. At 1030 he paid a
courtesy call on President Diem in the company of General Harkins and
Ambassador Lodge. The conversation was correct but somewhat cool
with Diem urging Admiral Felt to help heal current differences between
the U.S. and Vietnam. With this, Admiral Felt was escorted to the airport
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by Gen. Tran Van Don and a formal farewell was said. Gen. Don left
Ton Son Nhut Airport to go to a luncheon meeting of generals and senior
commanders at nearby Joint General Staff headquarters. At this
luncheon meeting were virtually every senior commander in the
Vietnamese armed forces. As the generals were eating, truckloads of
troops which Nhu had thought were in support of his phony coup, but which
were actually resolved to end the Diem regime forever, began to pour
into Saigon. As dessert was served, a detail of Vietnamese MPs entered
the general& dining room, surrounded it with sub-machine guns at the
ready, and Gen. "Big" Minh announced that he was taking over the
government.
Almost simultaneously, an attack began on Vietnamese Special
Forces headquarters immediately adjacent to the Joint General Staff
compounxi. Col. Tung, with a pistol at his head, was forced to phone to
his senior officer in charge and order a cease fire. Tung was then taken
� out into the Joint General Staff compound and summarily shot to death.
One by one the other 'commanders who had not already been privy to the
coup joined in it. There were some exceptions. Col. Hien, the commander
of the Vietnamese Air Force, was simply stripped of rank and command
and released; Capt. Quynh, commandant of the navy, had been prematurely
killed on his way to the luncheon by over-enthusiastic coup supporters;
Col. Vien, commander of the airborne, now Gen. Vien, altittLeLf=atatexcle
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the-it, refused to accede to demands that he join the
coup, remained loyal to Diem and offered to resign his commission or
suffer the fate of Col. Tung. Vien's sincerity was so widely and well
accepted that he was merely detained for the period of the coup and
later promoted to his present position.
The battle for Saigon lasted 17 hours. Throughout the remainder
of 1 November and into the morning of 2 November, opposition to coup
forces came primarily from the Presidential Guard and from the 42nd
Ranger Battalion which had not gotten the word that the phony coup was
off and a real coup was on and had considerable difficulty in eventually
joining the coup forces which they apparently had wanted to do all along.
During the night, 600 rounds of 105 artillery and 81 MM mortar landed
on the presidential guard barracks and Gia Long Palace. In the early
morning hours of 2 November alter a lengthy tank duel the Presidential
Guard surrendered and Diem phoned the generals to offer unconditional
surrender.
The exact sequence of events between 6:50 in the morning of
2 November and 10:00 o'clock the same morning is still somewhat shrouded.
It is certain that, by 10:00 a. m. , Diem and Nhu were dead. The most
probable reconstruction of events indicates that sometime near 8:00 p. m.
on the night of 1 November Diem and Nhu had learned emphatically that
the coup in progress was not their phony coup but was in fact a major
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military effort to unseat them. They then left Gia Long Palace through
a secret underground tunnel in company with the director of the
Republican Youth Movement, Cao Xuan Vy. They arrived at the home of
a wealthy Chinese Nationalist businessman in ChoIon around 9:30 p.m.
They had already taken the precaution of rigging the Palace switchboard
so the phone calls between them and the generals apparently originated
from the Palace, but actually after 9:30 p.m. were conducted from the ,
home of the Chinese businessman. After Diem had offered to surrender at
0650 on 2 November, a military detachment was dispatched to Gia Long
Palace to conduct the to the Joint General Staff headquarters. Diem and
Nhu themselves went to the nearby St. Francis Catholic Church and were
seen there between about 8:00 and 8:30 in the morning.
The last unchaLlengeable fact in this series is that they were
conducted into an M-113 armored personnel carrier at approximately
9:00 a. m. after some discussion had occurred between Diem, Nhu and
the MP and armored group which had come to arrest them. They were
dead on arrival at Joint General Staff headquarters in the same armored
personnel carrier at approximately 10:00 o'clock.
Pictures which I believe to be authentic and which came into my
possession on the morning of 3 November showed Diem and Nhu with
their hands tied behind them, apparently bullet riddled, and unmistakenly
dead on the floor of an armored personnel carrier. On the morning of
3,November the Vietnamese radio, then controlled by the generals,
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announced that Diem and Nhu had committed suicide by taking poison
in the church in Cholon. A later story which was circulated was that
Nhu had secreted grenades in his clothes and exploded them at the
moment of capture. A third story was that Nhu had shot Diem and then
himself shortly after their capture.
The pictures do not bear out these allegations. Diem apparently
received one or two at most small caliber, probably pistol, wounds in
the back of his head. Nhu was apparently literally hacked to death. The
most likely account I have heard is that Nhu had taunted a young officer
who was their escort to Joint General Staff headquarters. This same
officer's wife had been allegedly severely tortured by the Vietnamese
secret police. Goaded by Nhu, the officer took his carbine bayonet and
stabbed Nhu according to the report of the French doctor who issued
the death certificate, more than 30 times' Diem attempted to intercede
and the officer shot Diem in the back of the head with a pistol. A usually
reliable eye witness reported to me having seen this same young officer
with his arm covered with gore and brandishing his bayonet on arrival
at the JCTS compound. It may be some time before all the facts associated
with these events are known fully.
The generals had originally planned to install a civilian government
as quickly as possible and to take only a minimal part in the task of
governing. In the struggle to form a government in the days following
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tucy,
1 November 1963, it became evident, however, only "Big" Mirth
himself had the power to hold the many contending factions together.
Civilian politicians wrangled interminably among themselves and with
the generals with respect to who and what groups should be represented.
Gen. Le Van Kim, probably the most astute of the coup group, dealthwith
this problem and told me with some exasperation in early November that
he had the hardest job of any of the generals, that the others had only to
fight, which they were trained to do, whereas he had to argue with the
politicians which he was not trained to do and for which task he evidently
had very little taste. The government which emerged had "Big" Minh
as Chief of State with Nguyen Ngoc Tho, who had been Vice President
under Diem, assuming the premiership. The generals took only lettr
other posts, that of National Defense under Gen. Tran Van Don; Information
under Gen. Tran Tu Oats
Heehaw The post of Minister of Security went to the irrepressible
Gen. Ton That Dinh, who had been in. charge of the raids on the pagodas
and the Military Governor of Saigon following that incident. Gen. Dinh
immediately reinstituted dancing in Saigon, which had long been banned
by Mme. Nhu, and to the chagrin of his co-conspirators, exhibited with
maps and charts to all who visited his office haw he singlehandedly
conducted the coup that unseated Diem. Significantly perhaps, Gen. Dinh
was convinced to give up his direct command of troops in the III .Corps
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area and the functions of police authority and control over province
chiefs were stripped from the office of Gen. Dinh prior to his assumption
of his ministership.
The new government immediately ran into a basic problem. There
were ifAreeeliet-e demands on the part of the formerly suppressed political
groups to purge Diemists in government, but the opposition offered so
little by way of talent to replace the purgees, in many cases the only
replacements available were persons of acknowledged third or fourth
rate capabilities.
The Viet Cong, which apparently had been caught short in exploiting
the coup itself, did not miss their opportunity to extend their power in
the countryside while Saigon sought to erect a new edifice of government.
Since lines of authority were confused and exercise of authority by remaining
Diemist officials was questionable, a great lethargy set in upon both
the civilian bureaucracy and the military establishment. The Viet Cong
attacked their primary targets, the strategic hamlets, entered many
unopposed, destroyed others, tore down fences, and occupied areas
previously closed to them.
A great game of musical chairs began throughout the governmental
heirarchy. Province chiefs, who are the most fundamental echelon of
governmental control in the countryside, were in some places changed
five or six times within a three-month period. New and younger military
commanders were established within the military echelons and the
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generals promoted themselves liberally. The younger officers who
carried the brunt of fighting the coup, however, received few
promotions.
At the center of the fight for privilege and promotion was Premier
Tho, never a particularly effective administrator, long absent from
the mainstream of events because his position as Vice President under
Diem was entirely a sinecure. Overwhelmed by the magnitude of the
problems that faced Vietnam, he became the symbol to many of continuing
Diemist influence and of indecision and weakness, contrasting in a strongly
unfavorable light with the previous decisive, if unpopular, leadership
of Diem. Both military and civilian leaders awaited their orders to continue
the battle against the Viet Cong. Few orders were forthcoming and those
which were promulgatgd were in many cases confused or overestimative
of the capabilities of those charged with their implementation.
The prime activity of the previous government, the strategic
hamlet program, was revamped and achieved a rather minor position in
the planning of the new government. There was, in fact, not a little
official denigration of the previous strategic hamlet endeavors.
Remaining aloof from the struggle and turmoil of Saigon,
Gen. Nguyen Khanh had been appointed commander of the I Corps area,.
encompassing the four northern-most provinces of South Vietnam. , He
had given his support to the coup group of 1 November but with the specific
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stipulation that the life of President Diem be spared. In fact, Khanh's
part in the I November coup had been to assure the non-interference
of troops under his command in the II Corps area and to evacuate
Diem by air to the country of Diem's choosing. Khanh had been promoted
to Major General but was apparently deliberately exiled to this northern
war zone in order to isolate him from the political bickerings of the
capital. His popularity among the military, due to his previous
position as Chief of Staff of the Joint General Staff, made him an all too
apparent threat to the unique control exercised by the principal
perpetrators of the coup.
In December 1963, Gen. Khanh began to grow a beard and confided
to a close associate that he would not shave it until he believed the
revolution had been completed. In late December, he went into a kind
of hibernation, remaining in his quarters, apparently deeply depressed
by events, cut off from contact with all but his closest associates and
obviously giving serious consideration as to his future.
Former Diem regime exiles began to pour back into Saigon. A
boatload of returnees from Poulo Condore, the Devil's Island of Vietnam,
included the venerable politician Pham Kliac Suu, who had been so
mistreated as to have virtually reached senility at the age of ti; Dr. Pliam
Quang Dan, who had denounced the Diem regime over the radio during
the coup of 1960, by contrast emerged full of health but somewhat
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discredited due to his pleadings for pardon in the months just prior to
the demise of the House of Ngo.
From France came Gen. Nguyen Van Vy, a former officer in the
Vietnamese Imperial Guard who had left at the time of Bao Dai's ouster.
From Switzerland came Hoang Co Thuy, a young lawyer who had been
the political backer of the 1960 coup. From Cambodia came Col. Nguyen
Chanh Thi, the paratrooper leader of the assault on the Palace in 1960.
Out of hiding came Nguyen Van Luc, perpetrator of the February 1962
bombing of the Palace. Perhaps the most significant returnee, however,
was a Vietnamese of French nationality, Lt. Col. Tran Dinh Lan, an
officer
The shadow
Col. Lan, Vietnamese by birth, had amassed a reputation for conspiracy
and intrigue and his arrival in Vietnam and his appointment to work with
the Francophile chief of police, Maj. Gen. Mai Huu Xuan, immediately
brought cries of dismay from the newspapers and the Francophobes. In
January Saigon was flooded with rumors concerning the possibility of a
pro-French coup, inspired, according to these rumors, by Col. Lan.
The Deputy Chief of National Police, Col. Tran Ba Than, added somewhat
to the speculation by his release of a few key Viet Cong prisoners, the
destruction of Viet Cong dossiers, the exile and arrest of strongly anti-
communist police and Surete officials, and the placement in a key bureau
in the Surete of a police officer who had several months before openly
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defected to the Viet Cong and who, it was subsequently learned, probably
had been a Viet Cong agent all along. Col. Than, as well as Gen. Xuan,
were widely thought to be
agents. In the case of Than, it is
more likely that he was and is a North Vietnamese agent.
On the night of 28 January 1964, Gen. Khanh called in his American
military advisor and told him that he was very disturbed concerning
information he had received regarding French machinations in Saigon
and that he would be going to Saigon to investigate the situation himself.
Gen. Khanh arrived in Saigon on 29 January and entered into conversations
with Gen. Tran Thien Khiem, who, it will be recalled, was the key liaison
point between the generals coup group of 1 November and the younger
commanders who controlled troops in the Saigon area. These officers
were already restive because of their failure to achieve any recognition
for conducting the coup of 1 November, greatly affected by the rumors
of French plotting, somewhat disgusted at the actions of contending
factions within Gen. Minh's government, and considerably concerned over
the virtually unopposed advances of the Viet Cong in the 90 days following
"Big" Minh 's assumption of power.
At 4:00 a. m. on the morning of 30 January 1964, marine, air borne,
paratroop and armored units, practically the same units which had
conducted the coup of 1 November, overthrew the Minh government in a
bloodless coup de main and installed Gen. Khanh in power. The coup
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Lcinfi
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was over by 7:00 a. m. Gens. Don, Dinh, Kim, Xuan and Vy were
arrested and, though never officially charged, were accused of
complicity of plotting with the French to renew French influence in the
area. Gen. ''Big'' Mirth, who at first refused to cooperate with the
Khanh government, to preserve the military unity accepted the powerless
position of Chief of State at the appointment of Khanh, who then installed
himself as Prime Minister. Gen. Khiem became Minister of National
Defense.
Gen. Khanh's coup, though it was not known at the time, marked
a decisive end not only to the Diemists remnants within high places in
government, such as Premier Nguyen Ngoc Tho and Gens. Don, Dinh, etc.,
It also broke the mold of the ruling class which has existed in Vietnam for
�
more than a century. During that period, Vietnamese leaders have been
typically of the Mandaxinal class, Anamese and Catholic because of the
special educational advantages, accorded under the French, to Catholics
and converts. The new leadership of Vietnam is Cochin Chinese, Buddhist
and very much removed from the Mandarinal disciplines of their
predecessors. They are also on the whole younger and less experienced.
The second coup within 90 days also meant that the dragon's teeth which
had been sown since the Buddhist demonstrations of May 1963 had taken
root. The whirlwind to be reaped has not yet blown itself out. Whereas
the Diem regime had gambled heavily on its authoritarian power to extend
23
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the strategic hamlets quickly into the countryside and through them to
isolate the peasant from the Viet Cong, the more fragmented and
divisive society which emerged after Diem could only hope to proceed
more cautiously in slower and smaller stages toward the eventual
elimination of the Viet Cong. The banana republic tradition of military
coups became part of the thinking of every ambitious troop commander,
and the task of the United States became increasingly complex in applying
its military and financial strength to the problem of insurgency because
of the shaky political base in Saigon. Whereas before thousands of
strategic hamlets had been planned and a good quota of them built,
emphasis shifted away from this concept to that of the oil spot whereby
the centers of power would be consolidated and their influence extended
to the countryside in a hopefully perceptive fashion. The political
leavening of authoritarian force dropped away from government programs
and no positive political catalyst has replaced it. In its stead have come
clamorings of special privilege groups, the Buddhists, the Catholics,
the students, the laborers, the military factions. With Khanh the changes
of faces and appointments began anew. Civilian political parties, such
as the Dal Viet and the VNQDD and now, the National Salvation Councils,
have arisen to call for their place on the appointments list and to seek the
disarray of their real or imagined opposition.
In brief retrospect which the events of 1 November have afforded,
I conclude that, while it was probably not possible to go with Diem since,
SECT-I
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in fact, the momentum of the Diem regime had ground to a virtual halt,
the Vietnamese have not yet replaced that regime with a fundamental
decisive leadership or an underlying political philosophy necessary to
provide the cutting edge in a war that requires the conviction and
responsiveness of the majority of the population in order to achieve
victory. We cannot turn the &lock back one year and I doubt that it would
be useful to do so. There is still time, there is still hope. A new
peacefully chosen government is emerging in Vietnam at this moment.
The hour is very late. A Historians will judge whether this is the beginning
of the end or the end of the beginning.
October 1964
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