User:YellowMonkey/coup

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Lieutenant Pham Phu Quoc (died 1965 in North Vietnam) was a pilot in the Republic of Vietnam Air Force, best known for being one of two mutinous pilots involved in the 1962 South Vietnamese Presidential Palace bombings on February 27, 1962, which aimed to assassinate President Ngo Dinh Diem and his immediate family, who were his political advisers.

Trained in France, Quoc was recruited by Nguyen Van Cu, a member of his squadron to attack the Doc Lap (Independence) Palace.

Attack

Quoc and Cu were scheduled to fly on an early morning mission into the Mekong Delta to attack the Vietcong, but turned around to attack the palace. The French colonial era Palace was in flames as their two fighter aircraft, World War II model AD-6s, supplied by the United States, dropped bombs and napalm. Several rockets as well as machine gun fire were fired at the compound The assault ended within an hour, but Diem and his family eacped unhurt, with three servants killed and thirty injured. Quoc's plane was damaged by fire, ejected over the Saigon River and landed in Nha Be, while Cu managed to reach Cambodia safely, believing the attack had been successful. Quoc was arrested and imprisoned. After Diem's assassination in November 1963, Quoc was released from jail and resumed his service in the air force. He died in a raid over North Vietnam in 1963.

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234. Nhu had formed the Front for National Salvation

"not only communists but foreigners who claim to be our friends." 253

Ambassador Beneral J Lawton Collins, suggested that she be sent away.

G279: Her Women's Solidarity Movement claimed that the Buddhist were infiltrated by Communists.*

112. Proclaikmed herself the reincarnation of the Trung sisters.

283 : Allege plots

Bravo I II, 318

Fake coup – Vung Tau. "revolutionary government" – con the opponents

Authorise Dinh.

T459:Senior leadership positions were based on social position, religion and loyalty, rather than integrity or ability. Can Lao 278.

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Colonel Nguyen Huu Co would take control of the seventh division, previously assigned to the IV Corps of Huynh Van Cao. The Seventh division at My Tho would be transferred to the command of the III Corps under Ton That Dinh. This would give Ton That Dinh complete encirclement of Saigon with the III Corps. The Seventh Division had come from My Tho in 1960 to crush the coup attempt. Co went to My Tho talked to the divisional commander, to two regimental commanders, the armoured unit commander and the My Tho provincial chief. Exhorting them to join the coup effort because the current regime was unable to keep the military going forward, he stated that all the generals except Cao had joined in. Nhu's agents heard this and reported to the Presidential Palace. When the Ngo brothers confronted Dinh with the report of what had happened in My Tho, Dinh feigned astonishment at his deputy behaviour, and promised to have him killed. Nhu opposed this and stated that he wanted to catch the plotters at once, and unveiled plans for a counter coup.

In the meantime, Nhu had given Dinh the power to deploy troops as he saw fit during the days leading up the Friday November 1 coup. Not trusting Co, Diem had placed Colonel Lam Van Phat in command of the Seventh Division. According to tradition, Phat had to pay Dinh, the Corps commander, a courtesy visit before assuming control of the Division. Dinh refused to see Phat and told him to come back on Friday at 1400. In the meantime, Dinh had army chief of staff General Tran Van Don sign orders transferring command of the Seventh Division to Co. Co, with a group of his personal officers, drove to My Tho on the morning of the coup to take command. Reaching My Tho two hours before the coup, he held a ceremony for the officers of the Seventh Division in a local hall, who thought the change of command was a routine matter. When the coup started, Co's men charged through the doors and arrested the officers, before taking command.

Co then phoned Cao, further south in the Mekong Delta to assure that the transfer had taken place smoothly. Co, a central Vietnamese, was afraid that Cao, a southerner would recognise his accent, and realise that he was impersonating Phat, another southerner. However, Cao did not notice this. When Cao was informed that the coup was occurring, he believed in to be part of the false coup, since he had been told beforehand as he was the regime's most loyal general and was to lead the stage countercoup. Later, Cao had realised that is was a genuine coup, and radioed My Tho. Co identified himself and taunted Cao, saying "Didn't you recognise my accent?". Co had ordered all the ferries to the Saigon side of the river, and told Cao not to attempt to cross the Mekong unless he wanted to die.

K318, G288-292

K457. Later he became Defense Minister and gained a reputation for engaging corrupt ion, [pcleting the rent from the lease of government land to the US army.

G290

Dinh met with Colonel Le Quang Tung, head of the Special Forces and Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Ngoc Khoi, commander of the Presidential Guard, both of whom were regarded by their peers as armchair soldiers promoted due to cronyism. Dinh told them tanks must be used because "armor is dangerous". Dinh stated that if they brought in all their reserves, the Americans would be angry that they were not prosecuting the war, so he said that Tung should send four Sepcial Forces companies out of Saigon to pretend to fight the Vietcong. Tung's forces had their funding threatened as they were mainly used by Nhu to crush dissidents and Buddhists rather than fighting.

G291

The insurgent plans consisted of three main task forces. The first consisted of two marine battalions and a company of M-113 arnmoured personnel carriers. Two battalions of airborne troops considered loyal to Diem were moved to Binh Dunong Province and replaced with the two marine battalions. Another task force consisted of the Sixth Airborne Battalion from Vung Tau and a battalion from a training camp, supplemented by twelve armoured vehicles from the school at Long Hai. The final task force consisted of the Second Battalion of the Ninth Regiment of the Fifth Division and the Second Battalion of the Seventh Regiment of the Fifth Division. The three task forces were used to occupy various parts of the city, guarding the 155 howitzers and the headquarterd of Colonel Nguyen Van Thieu, who was to direct the attack on the Presidential Guard barracks. Some troops from the Quang Trung training camp were used to occupy the security police headquarters. They were to be guarded by General Mai Huu Xuan. Dinh then had twenty tanks brought to his headquarters at Le Van Duyet camp. In all, the plotters had over forty tanks and armoured personnel carriers.

The first victim was Captain Ho Tan Quyen, Diem's loyalist naval commander, who had noticed abnormal troop movements and drove to consult a colleague. A jeep filled with rebel marines intercepted him and blocked his path shortly after midday. He abandoned his vehicle and ran across the open field, but stumbled and fell. One of the rebels reached him and shot him in the head point blank. G291, K320

Various accounts are given of Quyen's death. Howard Jones asserts that Quyen was assassinated shortly before noon by his deputy, his escort, while traveling along the Bien Hoa highway.

The date of the coup coincided with Quyen's 36th birthday. According to Ellen Hammer, Quyen started his day with an early morning tennis match with other officers. He was invited to celebrate his birthday with them at lunch, but declined, citing that he had to attend to his children who were at home alone while his wife was studying overseas in Japan. His deputy followed him and convinced him to change his mind. They headed for a restaurant on Saigon's outskirts, and the shooting took place along the way. The generals were immediately informed of the murder and were forced to bring forward intended troop movements into Saigon ahead of schedule.

The coup started at 1330, with the marines currounding the Palace and they occupied post office, police headquarters and the radio station, and played a message proclaiming a coup. Diem and Nhu believed that the fake coup was going as planned. After some fighting broke out between rebels from General Headquarters and some Special Forces troops, the plotters forced Tung to take the phone and order his men to surrender. After and hour, Deim and Nhu suspected that something was going wrong and twice attempted to call Dinh's office. His aide told them that her was not there. Not believing that Dinh had double crossed them, they were heard in the background speculating that Dinh had been arrested by the rebels.

Diem then telephoned Don, who sated that the army was responding the wishes of the people after Diem had failed to reform his leadership. Diem asked the commanders to visit him the palace and work on a reform plan. The gerenals, remembering that he bought time for loyalists to come to his aid in 1960 with a false promise to reform, turned down his suggestion. At 4.30 pm in the afternoon, Diem called Lodge. Diem, still too proud to ask for US assistance, told Lodge that he was stil attempting to restore order, and asked Lodge what the US position was. Lodge, stated that since it was past midnight in Washington, the government did not have a position, and that he would not second guess it. Lodge did say that the generals had planned to spare Diem and Nhu and exile them. The generals then phoned the Presidential Palace to promise him safe passage if they left the country, otherwise they would attack the palace. The brothers were definant, and refused.

They then used the palace transmitter to broadcast all division commanders and province chiefs to send troops to protect the President. Nobody replied, since the rebels had either blocked communication lines or the forces also turned to the rebels to save themselves. He even calle dd Republican Youth and Madame Nhu's women paramiliatires to respond, but there were none.

As the Special Forces were either out of Saigon or had been forced to surrender, the insurgents then surrounded the Presidential Palace barracks. After heavy fighting and stiff resistance, the rebels mortarted the barracks heavily before surroundhing it with tanks. It fell at midnight.

AT 2000, realsising that they could not hold off the siege, Diem and Nhu escaped from the palace along with aides, using a tunnel system leading from the palace. There were reportedly three main tunnels in the system, but the rebels only knew of one exit, which they guarded. The brothers took a tunnel which lead to a park north of the palace amd were picked up by a vehicle. They were taken to Cholon in a Land Rover, where they switched a Citroen sedan and managed to avoid the rebel roadblocks during the curfew. They stopped at a villa belonging to Ma Tuyen, a Chinese merchant who had financed them for years. Nhu's agents had already connected a telephone from the villa to the palace for such a situation. This allowed Diem to communicate with the generals while giving the impression that they were still in the Paalce. As a result, at 2100, the generals gave the order for the rebels to attack the Palace, unaware that they were fighting for an empty palace. Neither did the Presidential Guard, leading to futile deaths. After an artillery barrage was unable to break the loyalist battalion, an infrantry division commanded by Colonel Nguyen Van Thiey, a future President, attempted to storm the battered building. The defenders clung to their posisitions and the fighting lasterd for hours.

After midnight, Diem and Nhu managed to contact Dinh at staff headquarters. The generals allowed Dinh to answer for the first time since the start of the coup, and he shouted obscenities to describe the family regime, saying that they were "finshed" and "It is all over".

During the early hours of the night, the rebels brought in flamethrowers, and attacked the palace for the rest of the morning with tank fire. AT around ^ am, te rebel soldiers noticed a white flag from the palace window. Assuming surrenderm, they walked towards the building and an officer was shot by a volley of automatic fire. This resulted in a final intensification of the battle, and they stormed the palace, capturing it in 45 minutes. The proceeded to loot Nhu's whisky and his wife's wardrobe.

Earlier at 3 AM, an aide to Diem had defected and phoned the generals, stating that the brothers were in Cholon, but would not pinpoint the exact location. With the area being a densely populated labyrinth, the generals dispatched search parties, although they were not optimistice of success, since a fugitive could escape detection there unless betrayed precisely. AT 6am, Diem phoned Minh, asking for negotiations. Diem said that he would resign, only if authority was transferred to the vice president or the speaker of the legislature. The gnerals, fearing he had a trick prepeared, decline dthe offer. When Diem called back a 6 30, Don rebuffed him and suggested that the brothers leave the country. Diem asked that he was ready to resign, but since he was the "elected President of the country", he asked for the "honors due a departing president". Don refused. Diem hung up and called back later, surrendering unconditionally, and stating that he was at St Francis Xavier Chruch.

Some wanted Nhu for trial, and others wanted a miltary court. First priority was to escort

Ngo brothers politely shook Xuian's hand, a secret police agent.. Why not a limo.

Claimed that Ngo had attempted to grab the gun and accidentally commited suicide. M 100-104

2 hour meeting between Lodge and Diem. And Nhu and Nguyen Van Thieu. A palace staff press secretary Ton That Thien, said that there were many people who came to report unusual occurrences.

Crowds tore up his portrait and slogans. Politcal prisoners were relaseds. Nightclubs opened again. No Strategic Hamlet

Madame Nhu's statue was demoilished

"The prospects now are for a shorter war."