Ngo Dinh Diem - Coup and Assassination

Coup and Assassination

As the Buddhist crisis deepened in July 1963, noncommunist Vietnamese nationalists and the military began preparations for a coup. Bùi Diễm, later South Vietnam's Ambassador to the United States, reported in his memoirs that General Lê Văn Kim requested his aid in learning what the U.S. might do about Diệm's government. Diễm had contacts in both the embassy and with the high-profile American journalists then in South Vietnam, David Halberstam (New York Times), Neil Sheehan (United Press International) and Malcolm Browne (Associated Press). On 20 August 1963, Nhu's security forces raided the Xá Lợi pagoda in Saigon. They chose to wear Army uniforms during the raid to make it appear as if the Army were behind the crackdown. Nhu's forces arrested more than 400 monks who had been sitting cross-legged in front of a statue of the Buddha. Thousands of other Buddhists were arrested throughout the country.

Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., the American ambassador to South Vietnam, refused to meet with Diệm. Upon hearing that a coup d'état was being designed by ARVN generals led by General Dương Văn Minh, and supported by the CIA, Lodge gave secret assurances to the generals that the U.S. would not interfere. Lucien Conein, a CIA operative, had become a liaison between the U.S. Embassy and the generals, who were led by Trần Văn Đôn. Conein provided a group of South Vietnamese generals with US$40,000 to carry out the coup with the promise that U.S. forces would make no attempt to protect Diệm. Minh and his co-conspirators overthrew the government on 1 November 1963 in a swift coup. On 1 November, with only the palace guard remaining to defend Diệm and his younger brother, Nhu, the generals called the palace offering Diệm exile if he surrendered. However, that evening, Diệm and his entourage escaped via an underground passage to Cholon, where they were captured the following morning, 2 November. The brothers were assassinated together in the back of an armoured personnel carrier with a bayonet and revolver by Captain Nguyễn Văn Nhung, under orders from Dương Văn Minh, while en route to the Vietnamese Joint General Staff headquarters. Diệm was buried in an unmarked grave in a cemetery next to the house of the U.S. ambassador.