Coup
According to Stanley Karnow, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Vietnam: A History, the coup was ineffectively executed; although the rebels captured the headquarters of the Joint General Staff at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, they failed to follow the textbook tactics of blocking the roads leading into Saigon. They also failed to disconnect phone lines into the palace, which allowed Diem to call for aid from loyal units.
The paratroopers headed down the main thoroughfare of Saigon towards Independence Palace. At first, the forces encircled the compound without attacking, believing that Diem would comply with their demands. Dong attempted to call on US ambassador Elbridge Durbrow to put pressure on Diem. Durbrow, although a persistent critic of Diem, maintained his government's position of supporting Diem, stating "We support this government until it fails". Durbrow later recalled receiving a telephone call from an aide to Diem who insisted that he call Diem and tell him to surrender or face a howitzer attack on the palace. Durbrow refused and no attack took place. He consequently learned that the aide was forced to make the call.
Most of the rebel soldiers had been told that they were attacking in order to save Diem from a mutiny by the Presidential Guard. Only one or two officers in any given rebel unit knew the true situation. A high wall, a fence and a few guard posts, surrounded the palace grounds. The mutinous paratroopers disembarked from their transport vehicles and moved into position for an attack on the main gate. Some ran forward and others raked automatic gunfire at the front of the palace, shattering most of the windows and puncturing the walls. Diem was nearly killed in the opening salvoes. A rebel machine gun fired into Diem's bedroom window from the adjacent Palais de Justice and penetrated his bed, but the president had arisen just a few minutes earlier.
The paratroopers' first assault on the palace met with surprising resistance. The Presidential Guardsmen who stood between the rebels and Diem were estimated at between 30 and 60, but they managed to repel the initial thrust and kill seven rebels who attempted to scale the palace walls and run across the grass. The rebels cordoned off the palace and held fire. They trucked in reinforcements and the attack restarted at 7:30, but the Presidential Guard continued to resist. Half an hour later, the rebels brought in five armored vehicles and circumnavigated the palace. They fired at the perimeter posts, and mortared the palace grounds. However, the exchange had petered out by 10:30. In the meantime, the rebels had captured the national police offices, Radio Saigon and the barracks of the Presidential Guard. They had also put most of the Saigon-based generals under house arrest, meaning that Diem's saviours would have to come from outside Saigon. However, the rebels also suffered a setback when Hong was killed during the battle for the police headquarters. He had been sitting in his jeep behind the frontline when he was hit by stray gunfire.
Diem headed for the cellar, joining his younger brother and confidant Ngo Dinh Nhu, and his wife Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu. Brigadier General Nguyen Khanh, at the time the Chief of Staff of the ARVN, climbed over the palace wall to reach Diem during the siege. Khanh lived in the city center, close to the palace, and awoken by the gunfire, he drove towards the action. The plotters had tried to put him under house arrest at the start of the coup, but were unaware that he moved house. Khanh proceeded to coordinate the loyalist defenders, along with Ky Quan Liem, the deputy director of the Civil Guard.
At dawn, civilians began massing outside the palace gates, verbally encouraging the rebels and waving banners advocating regime change. Saigon Radio announced that a "Revolutionary Council" was in charge of South Vietnam's government. Diem appeared lost, while many Saigon-based ARVN troops rallied to the insurgents. According to Nguyen Thai Binh, an exiled political rival, "Diem was lost. Any other than he would have capitulated." However, the rebels hesitated as they decided their next move. There was debate on what Diem's role would be in future. Dong felt that the rebels should take the opportunity of storming the palace and capturing Diem. Thi on the other hand, was worried that Diem could be killed in an attack. Thi felt that despite Diem's shortcomings, the president was South Vietnam's best available leader, believing that enforced reform would yield the best outcome. The rebels wanted Nhu and his wife out of the government, although they disagreed over whether to kill or deport the couple.
Thi demanded that Diem appoint an officer as prime minister and that Diem remove Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu from the palace. Saigon Radio broadcast a speech authorised by Thi's Revolutionary Council, claiming that Diem was being removed because he was corrupt and suppressed liberty. Worried by the uprising, Diem sent his private secretary Vo Van Hai to negotiate with the coup leaders. In the afternoon, Khanh left the palace to meet with rebel officers to keep abreast of their demands, which they reiterated. The rebels' negotiators were Dong and Major Nguyen Huy Loi. They wanted officers and opposition figures to be appointed to a new government to keep Diem in check.
The plotters unilaterally named Brigadier General Le Van Kim, the head of the Vietnamese National Military Academy, the nation's premier officer training school in Da Lat, would be their new prime minister. Kim was not a Can Lao member and was later put under house arrest after Diem regained control. According to Kim's brother-in-law, Major General Tran Van Don, Kim was willing to accept the post but was not going to say anything unless the coup succeeded. The rebels also suggested that Diem appoint General Le Van Ty, the chief of the armed forces, be made defence minister. Diem asked Ty, who had been put under house arrest by the plotters, if he was willing, but the officer was not. During the afternoon of November 11, the rebels used Ty as an intermediary to pass on their demands to the president. A broadcast was made over Saigon Radio, during which Ty said he had consulted with Diem and obtained his agreement for the "dissolution of the present government" and that "with agreement of the Revolutionary Council" had given the officers the task of constituting "a provisional military government".
Phan Quang Dan joined the rebellion and acted as the rebels' spokesman. The most prominent political critic of Diem, Dan had been disqualified from the 1959 legislative election after winning his seat by a ratio of 6:1 despite Diem having organised votestacking against him. He cited political mismanagement of the war against the Vietcong and the government's refusal to broaden its political base as the reason for the revolt. Dan spoke on Radio Vietnam and staged a media conference during which a rebel paratrooper pulled a portrait of the president from the wall, ripped it and stamped on it. In the meantime, Thuy went about organising a coalition of political parties to take over post-Diem. He had already lined up the VNQDD, Dai Viet, and the Hoa Hao and Cao Dai religious movements, and was seeking more collaborators.
Khanh returned to the palace and reported the result of his conversation to the Ngos. He recommended that Diem resign due to the demands of the rebel forces and protestors outside the palace. Madame Nhu railed against Diem agreeing to a power-sharing arrangement, asserting that it was the destiny of Diem and his family to save the country. Madame Nhu's aggressive stance and persistent calls for Khanh to attack, prompted the general to threaten to leave. This forced Diem to silence his sister-in-law, and Khanh remained with the president.
During the standoff, Durbrow ambivalently noted "We consider it overriding importance to Vietnam and Free World that agreement be reached soonest in order avoid continued division, further bloodshed with resultant fatal weakening Vietnam's ability resist communists." American representatives privately recommended to both sides to reach a peaceful agreement to share power.
In the meantime, the negotiations allowed time for loyalists to enter Saigon and rescue the president. Khanh used the remaining communication lines to message senior officers outside Saigon. The Fifth Division of Colonel Nguyen Van Thieu, a future president, brought infantry forces from Bien Hoa, a town north of Saigon. The Seventh Division of Colonel Tran Thien Khiem brought in seven infantry battalions and tanks from the Second Armored Battalion from My Tho, a town in the Mekong Delta south of Saigon. Khiem was a Catholic with ties to Diem's older brother, Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc. Khanh also convinced Le Nguyen Khang, the acting head of the Republic of Vietnam Marine Corps to send the 1st and 2nd Marine Battalions. Rangers were called into Saigon from the western town of Tay Ninh. Assistant Secretary of Defense Nguyen Dinh Thuan phoned Durbrow and discussed the impending standoff between the incoming loyalists and the rebels. Durbrow said "I hope that the Revolutionary Committee and President Diem can get together and agree to cooperate as a civil war could only benefit communists. If one side or the other has to make some concessions in order reach an agreement, I believe that would be desirable to ensure unity against the communists." Durbrow was worried that if he sided with one faction over the other, and that group was defeated, the United States would be saddled with a hostile regime.
Diem advised Khanh to continue to negotiate with the paratroopers and seek a rapprochement. After consenting to formal negotiations, the parties agreed to a ceasefire. In the meantime, loyalist forces continued to head towards the capital, while the rebels publicly claimed on radio that Diem had surrendered in an apparent attempt to attract more troops to their cause. Diem promised to end press censorship, liberalise the economy, and hold free and fair elections. Diem refused to sack Nhu, but he agreed to dissolve his cabinet and form a government that would accommodate the Revolutionary Council. In the early hours of November 12, Diem taped a speech detailing the concessions, which the rebels broadcast on Saigon Radio. In it he expressed his intention to "coordinate with the Revolutionary Council to establish a coalition government".
As the speech was being aired, two infantry divisions and supporting loyal armour approached the palace grounds. Some of these had broken through the rebel encirclement by falsely claiming to be anti-Diem reinforcements, before setting up their positions next to the palace. The loyalists opened fire with mortars and machine guns, and both sides exchanged fire for a few hours. During the morning, Durbrow tried to stop the fighting, phoning Diem to say that if the violence was not stopped, "the entire population will rise up against both loyalists and rebels, and the communists will take over the city. If a bloodbath is not avoided, all of Vietnam will go communist in a very short time." Durbrow deplored the attempt to resolve the situation with force. Diem blamed the rebels for causing the outbreak of fighting and the collapse of the power-sharing deal. Some of the Saigon-based units that had joined the rebellion sensed that Diem had regained the upper hand and switched sides for the second time in two days. The paratroopers became outnumbered and were forced to retreat to defensive positions around their barracks, which was an ad hoc camp that had been set up in a public park approximately 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) away. After a brief but violent battle that killed around 400 people, the coup attempt was crushed. This included a large number of civilians, who had been engaging in anti-Diem protests outside the palace grounds. Thi exhorted them to bring down the Ngos by charging the palace, and 13 were gunned down by the loyalist soldiers from the 2nd Armored Battalion as they invaded the grounds. The others dispersed quickly.
Read more about this topic: 1960 South Vietnamese Coup Attempt