Media Reaction
After the deaths, the military junta asserted that the Ngô brothers had committed suicide. On 6 November, Information Minister Trần Tự Oai declared at a news conference that Diệm and Nhu had died through "accidental suicide" after a firearm discharged when Nhu had tried to seize it from the arresting officer. This drew immediate scepticism from David Halberstam of the New York Times, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his Vietnam reporting. Halberstam wrote to the US Department of State that "extremely reliable private military sources" had confirmed that the brothers were ordered to be executed upon their return to military headquarters. Neil Sheehan of UPI reported a similar account based on what he described as "highly reliable sources". Father Leger of Saint Francis Xavier Catholic Church asserted that the Ngô brothers were kneeling inside the building when soldiers burst in, took them outside and into the APC. Lodge had been informed by "an unimpeachable source" that both brothers were shot in the nape of the neck and that Diệm's body bore the signs of a beating.
Read more about this topic: Arrest And Assassination Of Ngo Dinh Diem
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