Early Years and Rise Up The Ranks
A northerner, Kỳ was born in Sơn Tây, a town west of Hanoi. After completing his secondary schooling in Hanoi, he enlisted in the French-backed Vietnamese National Army of the State of Vietnam and was commissioned in the infantry after attending an officers training school. After a brief period in the field against the communist Việt Minh of Hồ Chí Minh during the First Indochina War, the French military hierarchy sent Kỳ, then a lieutenant, to Marrakech in Morocco to train as a pilot. Kỳ gained his wings on 15 September 1954. The French defeat at the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ and the Geneva Conference ended the colonial presence in Indochina, and Kỳ came back to the new Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). The commander of a transport squadron, Kỳ was put in charge of Tân Sơn Nhứt Air Base, the main aerial facility in the capital, Saigon. Kỳ then went to the United States to study for six months at the Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell Field, Alabama, where he learned to speak English. He returned to Vietnam and continued to rise up the ranks.
A soldier in the Vietnamese National Army who eventually became commander of the South Vietnam Air Force, prime minister and vice president of the Republic of Vietnam, Kỳ had little political experience or ambition initially. After flight training by the French, he returned to Vietnam in 1954 and held a series of commands in the South Vietnam Air Force. Under the regime of Dương Văn Minh, whose coup Kỳ had supported, he was made an air marshal, replacing Colonel Đỗ Khắc Mai as head of the Vietnam Air Force.
Kỳ began his association with the American covert operations community in 1961. While still ranked as a major commanding Tân Sơn Nhứt Air Base, he became the first pilot for South Vietnam's presidential liaison officer, which was organizing to infiltrate military intelligence teams into North Vietnam. He recruited pilots from his command for this intelligence program of the Central Intelligence Agency, and flew some of the missions himself after being trained by an expert pilot from Air America. At one point, Kỳ took the CIA's Saigon station chief, William Colby, for a demonstration low-level flight. Kỳ's flight training graduation gift for himself and his pilots was a flight to Singapore, where he purchased black flight suits, purple scarfs, and cigarette lighters for all hands. Colby was amused by his flight but unhappy with the selection of flashy attire.
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