Buddhist Uprising
Encyclopedia
The Buddhist Uprising of 1966 was a period of civil and military unrest in South Vietnam
, largely focused in the I Corps
area in the north of the country in central Vietnam. The area is a heartland of Vietnamese Buddhism and at the time, activist Buddhist monks and civilians were at the forefront of opposition to a series of military juntas that had been ruling the nation, as well as prominently questioning the escalation of the Vietnam War
.
During the rule of the Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem
, the discrimination against the majority Buddhist population generated the growth of Buddhist institutions as they sought to participate in national politics and gain better treatment. In 1965, after a series of military coups that followed the fall of the Diem regime in 1963, Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky
and General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu
finally established a stable junta, holding the positions of Prime Minister and figurehead Chief of State respectively. During that time, there were still much suspicion and tension between the Buddhist and Catholic factions in Vietnamese society.
The religious factor combined with a power struggle between Ky and General Nguyen Chanh Thi
, the commander of I Corps, a Buddhist local to the region and popular in the area. Thi was a strong-willed officer regarded as a capable commander, and Ky saw him as a threat, as did others within the junta. In March 1966, Ky fired Thi and ordered him into exile in the United States under the false pretense of medical treatment. This prompted both civilians and some I Corps units to launch widespread civil protests against Ky's regime and halt military operations against Vietcong. Ky gambled by allowing Thi to return to I Corps before departing for the US, but the arrival of the general to his native area only fuelled anti-Ky sentiment. The Buddhist activists, students and Thi loyalists in the military coalesced into the "Struggle Movement", calling for a return to civilian rule and elections. Meanwhile Thi stayed in I Corps and did not leave; strikes and protests stopped civilian activity in the area, government radio stations were taken over and used for anti-Ky campaigning, and military operations ceased. Riots also spread to the capital Saigon and other cities further south.
At the start of April, Ky decided to move. He declared that Da Nang
, the main centre in I Corps, to be under communist control and publicly vowed to kill the mayor, who had expressed support for the Struggle Movement. He moved military forces into the city and travelled there to prepare for an assault, but had to withdraw and then start discussions with Buddhist leaders regarding when it was obvious that he was not strong enough to crush the opposition. In the meantime, he fired Thi's successor Nguyen Van Chuan
because he wanted a firmer attempt to regain control, and appointed Ton That Dinh
to replace him. Dinh claimed to have calmed the situation, but Ky viewed the situation as appeasement and on May 15, his forces drove off Dinh and took over. During the past month, the American forces had also become involved in the stand-off and the Struggle Movement viewed their participation as biased towards Ky, tending to some tense confrontations.
In the second half of May, Ky's forces began to force the issue and gradually wore down the Struggle Movement as the rebel I Corps forces were worn down, despite some American objections that his aggressive attacks had the potential to cause too much collateral damage. At one stage, Ky's forces ended up in a skirmish with American forces, and later, the Americans were in the middle of a stand-off between the Vietnamese factions regarding a mined bridge. As Ky's forces took back Da Nang and Hue in street fighting, Struggle Movement supporters saw American intervention as being pro-Ky and anti-US riots resulted in some American buildings being burnt down. Ky's triumph ended the Buddhist movement's influence on politics and he confined their leader Thich Tri Quang
to house arrest thereafter, while Thi left for the US.
, who ruled the country from 1955 to 1963.
In a country where the Buddhist majority was estimated to be between 70 and 90 percent, Diem ruled with a strong religious bias. As a member of the Catholic Vietnamese
minority, he pursued pro-Catholic policies that antagonized many Buddhists. The government as being biased towards Catholics in public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business favors and tax concessions. Many military officers converted in the belief that their military prospects depended on it. Forgetting that he was talking to a Buddhist, Diem once told a high-ranking officer, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." In addition, the distribution of firearms to village self-defence militias intended to repel Vietcong guerrillas resulted in weapons only being given to Catholics. Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and in some areas, forced conversions, looting, shelling and demolition of Buddhist pagoda
s occurred. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse in order to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime.
The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country, and the "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French colonial authorities, which required official permission to conduct public Buddhist activities and restricted the construction of Buddhist temples, was not repealed by Diem. Furthermore, the land owned by the Catholic Church was exempt from redistribution under land reform
programs. Catholics were also de facto exempt from the corvée
labor that the government obliged all citizens to perform and the government disproportionately allocated funding to Catholic majority villages. Under Diem, the Catholic Church enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and in 1959, he dedicated the country to the Virgin Mary. The Vatican flag was regularly flown at major public events in South Vietnam.
On May 8, 1963, Diem’s officials invoked a rarely enforced law to prohibit the display of religious flags, forbidding Buddhists from flying their flag
on Vesak
, the birthday of Gautama Buddha
. This caused Buddhist indignation, as Vatican flags had been flown a week earlier at a celebration for Diem's brother, Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc. On May 8, in Huế, a crowd of Buddhists protested against the ban on the Buddhist flag. The police and army opened fire and threw grenades at the demonstrators, leaving nine dead.
Diem's denial of responsibility for the incident—he blamed it on the communist Vietcong—led to more discontent among the Buddhist majority. The incident spurred a protest movement against the religious discrimination
of Diem's Roman Catholic-dominated regime. The dispute came to be known as the Buddhist crisis
, and it provoked widespread and large-scale civil disobedience. The objective of the protests was to have Decree Number 10 repealed, and to gain religious equality. However, the standoff persisted, and in August, the ARVN Special Forces of Colonel Le Quang Tung
, loyal to Diem’s brother and chief adviser Ngo Dinh Nhu
, raided temples across the country, killing an estimated hundreds and arresting thousands of Buddhist laypeople and monks. After this, the American government began to turn against Diem and secretly encouraged a coup. On November 1, Diem was deposed and he and Nhu were assassinated the next day.
After Diem, South Vietnam went through a period of persistent and heavy instability, as multiple coups, as well as other failed uprisings, occurred for 18 months. Apart from personal rivalries between the senior officers, the infighting was also stoked by conflict between religious pressure movements. The Buddhists lobbied for the removal of Diem’s pro-Catholic policies, as well as the those officers who had risen up the ranks quickly because they converted to Catholicism and vigorously enacted Diem’s policies. On the other hand, Catholics, whose privileges were rolled back post-Diem, accused the regime of General Nguyen Khanh
of persecuting them on behalf of the Buddhists. At times, religious riots broke out during this period.
In September 1964, the Catholic Generals Lam Van Phat
and Duong Van Duc
tried to overthrow Khanh after he had removed them under Buddhist pressure. This failed, but in February 1965, the Phat tried again with the help of fellow Catholic, Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao
, publicly invoking the memory of Diem in launching their coup. Phat’s second attempt also failed, and the pair went on the run, but the inability of Khanh to secure a decisive victory forced him into exile.
In mid-1965, Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky
and General Nguyen Van Thieu
took charge as prime minister and figurehead president, respectively, and continuity began to arise.
Because of the fractious nature of Vietnamese politics in the period after Diem’s overthrow, no officer could rule decisively without regard for the opinions of his peers without being deposed.
The generals who commanded South Vietnam’s four corps oversaw separate geographical regions, and were given wide-ranging powers. In the absence of civilian government, they were virtual warlords in their regions. The corps commanders were happy with this federated arrangement; Ky was acceptable to the US, and he would pass American military aid to them while allowing them substantial regional autonomy.
Despite, the steady control of Ky and Thieu, the religious tension remained. After one month, Thich Tri Quang began to call for the removal of Thieu because he was a member of Diem’s Catholic Can Lao Party
, decrying his “fascistic tendencies”, and claiming that Can Lao members were undermining Ky.
For Thich Tri Quang, Thieu, was a symbol of the Diem era of Catholic domination, when advancement was based on religion. He had desired that General Thi, known for his pro-Buddhist position would lead the country, and denounced Thieu for his alleged past crimes against Buddhists. The Buddhist leader Thich Tri Quang
said that “Thi is nominally a Buddhist, but does not really care about religion”.
The Buddhist activists wanted to end the war through a negotiated settlement with the communists and the departure of the Americans, putting them at odds with the pro-war, pro-American generals. It was clear that the Buddhists would stage some kind of protest against Ky and Thieu, and the prime minister regarded the Buddhist activists as traitors, so he welcomed confrontation as an opportunity to break their influence.
was a Buddhist and a competent commander regarded by Ky as a threat. Many political observers in Saigon thought that Thi wanted to depose Ky, and regarded him as the biggest threat to the other officers and the junta’s stability. According to Ky’s memoirs, Thi was a "born intriguer" who had "left-wing inclinations". Time magazine published a piece in February 1966 that claimed that Thi was more dynamic than Ky and could seize power at any time. The historian Robert Topmiller thought that Ky may have seen the article as destabilizing and therefore decided to move against Thi.
A native of central Vietnam, Thi was the commander of I Corps
, which oversaw the five northernmost provinces of South Vietnam and the 1st and 2nd Divisions
. He was known to have the “deep-rooted” loyalty of his soldiers. A large part of the South Vietnamese military was the Regional and Popular Forces, which were militia who served in their native areas, and they appreciated a commander with a regionalistic rapport. The support from the Buddhists, his troops and the regional tendencies gave Thi a strong power base and made it hard for the other generals and the Americans to move against him.
Thi was a senior member in the ten-man ruling junta, which opposed the Buddhist activists. Thi performed a balancing act, and accommodated the Buddhists, wanting them to see him as a friend. He allowed the students to publish a magazine that was highly critical of military rule. Thi also manoeuvred to have a trusted subordinate installed as the head of the national police, increasing his political power.
The historian Stanley Karnow
said of Ky and Thi: "Both flamboyant characters who wore gaudy uniforms and sported sinister moustaches, the two young officers had been friends, and their rivalry seemed to typify the personal struggles for power that chronically afflicted South Vietnam. But their dispute mirrored more than individual ambition." Both were also known for their colourful red berets.
There were reports that Thi was showing insubordination towards Ky. The US military commander in Vietnam, General William Westmoreland
, said that Thi once refused to report to Ky in Saigon when requested. On one occasion, Ky came to I Corps to remonstrate with him in early March, Thi addressed his staff and asked mockingly "Should we pay attention to this funny little man from Saigon or should we ignore him?" Thi made this comment rather loudly, within earshot of Ky, and the Vietnamese politician Bui Diem
thought that the prime minister viewed Thi’s comment as a direct challenge to his authority. In Vietnam, newspapers critical of the government of the day were routinely shut down so that only mouthpieces were left speaking, and many political leaders erroneously assumed that the US operated in the same manner. As a result, they often interpreted negative US media reports as the official position of Washington and thus encouragement of a coup.
Time magazine said that Thi "ran it [I Corps] like a warlord of yore, obeying those edicts of the central government that suited him and blithely disregarding the rest". The historian George McTurnan Kahin
said that Ky may have feared that Thi would secede from Saigon and turn central Vietnam into an independent state. The CIA analyst Douglas Pike
, who worked in Vietnam, speculated that this would have been a large part of Ky’s thinking, as Vietnamese people often had strong regional tendencies.
Thi claimed that during this meeting, knowing that the other generals were not favourable to him, he nettled them by chastising their commitment to the country. He said that the population would never support the generals’ war effort as long as they lived so comfortably, and he mocked them for ostentatiously flying their female partners to Hong Kong
for shopping expeditions. The junta put Thi under house arrest pending his departure from the country, and then appointed General Nguyen Van Chuan
, the erstwhile commander of 1st Division and a Thi subordinate, as the new I Corps commander. General Pham Xuan Nhuan was then made the 1st Division commander.
At first, Ky said that Thi was leaving the country to receive medical treatment for his nasal passages. An official announcement said that the junta "had considered and accepted General Thi's application for a vacation". Thi retorted that "The only sinus condition I have is from the stink of corruption." Ky gave a series of reasons for dismissing Ky, accusing him of being too left-wing, of ruling the central regions like a warlord, of having a mistress who was suspected of being a communist, and being too conspiratorial. Ky did not say that Thi supported negotiations as a means of ending the war, but he did have a history of removing officials and military figures who promoted such a policy.
Despite Thi's good relations with the Buddhists in his area, most notably the leading activist monk Thich Tri Quang, Ky reportedly had the monk's support for Thi's removal. If Ky thought that Thich Tri Quang would not organize demonstrations against Thi's dismissal, he turned out to be wrong, as the monk used to crisis to highlight Buddhist calls for civilian rule. There were claims that Thich Tri Quang had always intended to challenge Ky, regardless of whether or not Thi had been cast aside.
US Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
, the US military commander in Vietnam General William Westmoreland
and the Defense Secretary Robert McNamara
were supportive of the Ky-Thieu regime and their prosecution of the war against the communists, and they opposed Thi, regarding him as not being firm enough against communism. The Americans wanted to ease Thi’s out of the corridors of power in South Vietnam by offering him an economic future in the US and an education for his children. On the other hand, Thi did have the support of Marine Lieutenant General Lewis Walt, who commanded American forces in I Corps and was the senior adviser to Thi’s ARVN forces. Walt thought highly of Thi’s abilities as an officer.
The dismissal caused widespread demonstrations in the northern provinces. Initially, the pro-Buddhist demonstrations in I Corps and Saigon were mild and orderly. However, the unrest steadily grew, as civil servants, disaffected military personnel, and the working under-class, in part upset with the economic problems, joined the anti-government demonstrations. At first, Prime Minister Ky tried to ignore the demonstrations and wait for them to peter out, and to do not fight the dissidents, so as to "not to provide any martyrs". Thi was immensely popular in the Buddhist stronghold of Hue. A general strike had incapacitated 90% of Da Nang, the largest city in central Vietnam and the second biggest in the entire country. In Saigon, 10,000 attended a Buddhist rally to call for elections and civilian rule and the monks used Thi's dismissal to focus attention on the junta's rule.
Meanwhile in the capital in mid to late March, Ky took the lead in trying to dampen discontent, meeting Buddhist leaders and promising elections and social reform; however, he also warned that street demonstrations would be suppressed. Showing the Americans' concern that the situation may deteriorate, Lodge met with Thich Tri Quang to warn him about taking aggressive actions. Although the leading activist monk Thich Tri Quang accused Ky of "indulging in a cult of personality", most of the Buddhist banners focused their criticism against the Catholic figurehead chief of state Thieu.
Ky then decided to allow Thi to return to Da Nang, the largest city in the region and the second largest in the country on March 16, ostensibly to restore order. Ky claimed that he allowed Thi to return to his old area of command as a goodwill gesture, to keep central Vietnamese happy, and because he promised Thi a farewell visit before going into exile. Given Thi's popularity, Ky's gesture was regarded as a political gamble. In any case, Thi made a tongue-in-cheek speech, filled with sarcastic references about his need to go to the US for healthcare.
The next day, he went to the former imperial capital of Hue in his corps. Around 20,000 supporters, in a town of around 130,000 mobbed him, shouting and trying to touch him. A Buddhist student leader cried "Do you want the general to stay with us?" to which the students and other protestors answered, "Yes! Yes!" Neil Sheehan
of The New York Times
said that the crowd display "left no doubt that the ruling Saigon junta was in trouble". Thi told the large crowd "Think about our country, not about me". He told a journalist that he would accept "any position which is useful for the country", leading some to think that he wanted Ky or Thieu’s job. According to Time magazine, Thi's speeches showed that he "was obviously torn between a desire to rally support for a comeback and his soldier's distaste for adding to dissension". Thi’s speech was followed by presentations by student and Buddhist leaders, who called for the removal of Thieu and Defense Minister Nguyen Huu Co
. Both were Catholic generals notorious known for their rampant corruption. However, despite the large-scale demonstrations and support for Thi, there had been no clashes or strong tensions at the time. One prominent Buddhist leader said "We are very grateful to the generals...Ky brought about some stability in the last eight months" after he became the leader of South Vietnam.
The various dissidents formed a pro-Thi, anti-Ky organization called the Military-Civilian Struggle Committee, better known as the Struggle Movement. Their message and influence quickly spread. Some of them took over the government radio station in Da Nang and made anti-junta broadcasts, and they were joined by university students. Initially this dissident soapboxing was not treated with much alarm and it was thought that the regime had decided to wait for the protests to peter out instead of risking an escalation by trying to suppress it. The administrator at Da Nang's radio station allowed the Thi supporters to make a broadcaster when only ten student protesters turned up, a minuscule amount of popular pressure. The opposition groups were not well organized at this time and seemed unsure of their objectives. They were also conducting themselves placidly at this point.
The challenge to Saigon increased when the Struggle Movement claimed authority over the military forces in Quang Nam Province
, which included Da Nang and the military bases there. Buddhists in Hue joined in and took control of the radio station and joined the Struggle Movement. Four hundred students took control of the radio station for two days, disseminating speeches criticizing Ky's junta. Despite assailing the Americans for their support of the junta, ironically during breaks in the speeches, John Philip Sousa
's The Stars and Stripes Forever was played. By the end of March the situation had worsened.
The movement became anti-American as well as anti-Saigon government, and it increased in influence until most of I Corps was operating independently of central Vietnamese government control. Washington became alarmed and Ky decided to act. The Mayor of Da Nang then started openly supporting the rebelling ARVN soldiers of the I Corps who refused to obey Ky.
Ky then sacked the police chief of Hue, a Thi loyalist. The local policemen responded by going on strike and demonstrating against their chief's removal. On the weekend, 20,000 civilians along with some military personnel in uniform in the imperial capital. They carried banners proclaiming "Down with [Chief of State] Thieu and Ky". The Struggle Movement called a two-day general strike, which was taken up by public servants. This cut down traffic and hindered stevedoring operations at Da Nang Port. The large turnout was in part attributed to economic discontent over rapid inflation rates rather than strictly religious or democracy desires. Ky responded to this on nationwide by warning that the junta would "move strongly" to quell agitation. However, he moderated his words by promising a new constitution by no later than November and that the national elections might be held at the end of the year, bringing it one year forward.
However, the supporters of Thich Tri Quang appeared unwilling to wait for Ky's schedule, calling for the Constituent Assembly that would draft the new constitution to be chosen from provincial and city councils, where Buddhists did well in elections, but Ky refused. While Thich Tri Quang seemed unlikely to see eye-to-eye with Ky, the Saigon-based Buddhist leader Thich Tam Chau appeared open to an accommodation with Ky.
before releasing him.
On the public holiday that commemorates Emperor Hung Vuong, the legendary founder of Vietnam, Saigon's Buddhists used a trick to stage protests against Ky and Thieu's junta. They asked for a permit for a public gathering to celebrate the occasion at the market, and were granted approval on the grounds that at most 600 people took part and that no anti-government sentiment was expressed. However, a few thousand people turned up to the event and then erected pictures of Ky and the senior junta generals on the posts used for public executions, adding a poster that read: "This is the plaza of demagogy. Ky, Thieu and Co. must be executed." The civilian protestors then used megaphones to transform the event into an anti-junta, anti-American, anti-war demonstration through the capital, complete with pre-prepared banners.
Ky also recalled the police chief of Hue, a Thi ally, to Saigon, prompting his men to protest. On the weekend, some 20,000 people, mostly civilians but also including some uniformed soldiers, staged a demonstration, carrying large banners reading "Down with Thieu and Ky". in 12-ft. banners. Another two-day general strike was called for public servants with much success in Hue.
On April 3, Ky held a press conference during which he claimed that Da Nang was under communist control and vowed to stage a military operation to regain the territory. He thus implied that the Buddhists were communist agents. He then vowed to kill the mayor of Da Nang, saying "Either Da Nang's mayor is shot or the government will fall."
The following evening, Ky deployed three battalions of marines to Da Nang using American military transport aircraft. The marines stayed at Da Nang Air Base
and made no moves against the rebels in the city. Soon after, they were joined by two battalions of Vietnamese Rangers
, as well as some riot police and paratroopers.
Meanwhile, civil unrest continued in the cities of South Vietnam. Around 5,000 turned out in Hue to demonstrate, while another 10,000 took to the streets of Da Nang. A mob of 10,000 looted government buildings in the south central coast town of Qui Nhon
, while some 2,000 soldiers as well as some senior officers demonstrated.
The protests were at their most violent in the capital Saigon, where pro-Buddhist students rioted, using bicycle chains and sticks as weapons, vandalised cars, threw rocks and shouted anti-American slogans. Street battles erupted between Ky's loyalist police and troops, as the dissidents fought tear gas with rocks, homemade spears, glass bottles and sometimes a hand grenade. The police frequently lost the ascendancy to the rioters, who dispersed them and forced them to flee. At one stage, the military mayor of Saigon went onto the streets in attempt to try to convince the rioters to stop, but he was pelted with projectiles as well. Often the protesters wore makeshift masks made of plastic bags and threw tear gas canisters back at the police and military, and regardless of who was on the receiving end, this often necessitated momentary retreats due to eye irritation. Some 300 Buddhists staged a sit-down protest at the national radio station in capital before the police used clubs to disperse them. The riots were repeated in the central highlands
towns of Da Lat, Pleiku
and Ban Me Thuot.
Ky took personal command and found that the roads leading into the city as being blocked by Buddhist civilians and pro-Thi portions of the I Corps. After a stand-off, Ky realized that he could not score a decisive victory and had lost face. He arranged a meeting and media event with Chuan, and various Struggle Movement supporters.
During the unrest of early April, the Buddhists called for a constitution, for the junta to hand power to an elected civilian executive and legislature, which Ky had repeatedly promised to honour in the future. The Buddhists wanted the Constituent Assembly, which would draft the constitution, to be chosen from regional and city councils, which were dominated by Buddhists, something that Ky objected to. Having miscalculated in his deployment of marines and paratroopers to Da Nang for a show of force, the humiliated Ky arrived back in Saigon, where he met with Buddhist leaders for negotiations. The Buddhists demanded an amnesty for rioters and mutinous soldiers, and for Ky to withdraw the marines from Da Nang back to Saigon where they formed part of the strategic reserve. The monks said they would order the Struggle Movement "temporarily suspend all forms of struggle to prove our good will". Thich Tam Chau took a moderate line on the matter of the constitution, however, Thich Tri Quang refused and the protests continued.
Walt was caught between the two Vietnamese military factions. On April 9 the tension escalated. Pro-Struggle Movement ARVN Colonel Dam Quang Yeu ordered a convoy of infantry, tanks and artillery to proceed north from Hoi An
to Da Nang. The Americans finally waded into the dispute when Major General Wood Kyle, the commanding officer of the 3rd Marine Division, ordered the 9th Regiment to block Route 1 and stop the convoy. A platoon from the 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines, supported by two antitank vehicles, blocked a truck on the bridge outside the city and took up positions on the northern bank. A group of VNAF fighter planes flew overhead the rebel convoy, threatening to bomb them. Colonel Yeu responded by aiming 155mm howitzers at the Da Nang Air Base where Ky's forces were located.
Walt dispatched Colonel John R. Chaisson to the standoff at the bridge. Chaisson warned Yeu not to raise the stakes any higher. To add weight to his arguments, a group of Vought F-8E attack aircraft flew over the bridge with rockets and bombs. Walt further told the marines to aim 155mm and 8-inch guns at the rebel position.
Yeu told Chaisson that he was a friend of the marines but that "he had come to fight the Saigon government troops who threatened the local people. He had come to lay down his own life if necessary." Yeu's men unpacked and fused their artillery shells. Chaisson warned Yeu that his rebels would be destroyed if they fired on his men, then returned to his helicopter and departed. Tensions eased over the next week. The Vietnamese marines returned to the capital and the I Corps forces resumed fighting against the communists. Thi publicly disassociated himself from the Buddhists. However, he remained in I Corps and was still regarded as a significant political influence.
Ky later claimed to be unconcerned by the apparent challenge to his authority by protestors and the military in I Corps, claiming that they represent a small fraction of Vietnamese society.
While the Johnson administration maintained a low-key approach during this period of stalemate and tension, mant American commentators and cartoonists blamed Johnson for situation, saying that his overt enthusiasm and support of Ky had made the South Vietnamese people view him as an American puppet. There Americans were publicly pretending to be uninvolved in the Vietnamese dispute, Secretary of State Dean Rusk
saying "This is in part an effort by some civilian groups to carve out a certain position in relation to the steps that have been announced for some time by the military government to move toward a constitutional system."
. Ky felt that General Ton That Dinh
's aggressive attitude following the Xa Loi Pagoda raids
staged under the Diem regime in 1963 indicated a willingness to suppress Buddhist dissidents. Dinh arrived in Huế on April 15.
The Buddhists reacted to Dinh's appointment with dismay. They openly took responsibility for organising all future demonstrations, releasing a proclamation to that effect through the Vien Hoa Dao. They declared the country to be in "a state of emergency" and demanded civilian rule immediately, calling for an escalation in protests.
After a week, Dinh announced that he had restored Saigon's authority over the region. He proclaimed that he had regained control of the radio stations in Da Nang and Huế from the dissidents and that he had convinced the mayor of Da Nang to stay loyal to Saigon. Dinh announced a deal whereby the Buddhists would have regular air time in return for relinquishing control of the radio station. This move was interpreted in different ways. Some felt that Dinh was attempting to gain favour with the Buddhists in anticipation of Ky's fall from power, while Frances FitzGerald felt it was the only sensible government action during the crisis.
On April 19, clashes erupted in Quang Ngai between the Buddhists and the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang
(VNQDD, Vietnamese Nationalist Party), who supported the continuation of the anti-communist war, prompting Dinh to forcibly restrain the two groups.
However, the easing tensions did not last. Ky was still looking to make a show of force. Without telling the figurehead President Thieu or Westmoreland, Ky ordered General Cao Van Vien
to lead a force into Da Nang. On May 15, government Vietnamese marines and airborne units were airlifted from the capital to Da Nang. Landing at dawn, they proceeded into the city centre and captured the local ARVN headquarters.
Washington called Walt to ask for an update on the situation. According to Ky, the American general was "furious at an assault without warning on what he regarded as his territory." Ky ordered a plane to fly over the positions of the pro-Buddhist forces and drop messages threatening to liquidate them if they shot at his men. At the time the Viet Cong were quiet, and did not take advantage of the situation.
The surprised Dinh abandoned his post and flee to the headquarters of US General Lewis Walt. Dinh asked Walt for help and was flown to Hue, where the pro-Thi and pro-Buddhist elements were still in control. Ky's surprise attack led to conflict between the ARVN rebels and loyalists, with the American ground forces caught in the middle, effectively creating a civil war within a civil war. Ky eventually quelled the rebellion and briefly jailed Dinh.
On May 16, Ky rejected Walt's request and formally replaced Dinh as I Corps commander with General Huynh Van Cao
, another Catholic and Diem loyalist.
The next day, Cao flew to Hue to visit the headquarters of ARVN 1st Division. A hostile pro-Buddhist crowd rioted and broke into the division's command post as Cao prepared to depart south for Da Nang. As the American helicopter lifted off, a pro-Buddhist ARVN lieutenant hit it with two pistol shots. In response, the US Army door gunner fired a burst that killed the lieutenant and wounded two adjacent soldiers. Struggle Movement supporters railed against the Americans for what they regarded as inappropriate interference in internal South Vietnamese dispute.
Still unwilling to remove his forces and seek a peaceful solution, Ky relised the opportunity for a confrontation with the American military. According to his memoirs, Ky told his loyalist officers in Da Nang to train their heaviest artillery at the American Marine base. If the Americans took action to hinder the aggressive pro-Ky aircraft, the commanders should "destroy the Marine base. That is an order." Ky then claimed that he flew to the city to reprimand Walt for improperly interfering in a domestic matter.
During the sporadic fighting that followed, the marines gradually pushed the rebel soldiers towards the east of the Tourane River. By that time, the government soldiers had already retaken the Da Nang City Hall and radio station.
The rebel soldiers then seized a bridge across the Tourane River, heavily used by the US military, they mined the bridge and the ammunition dump—which contained 6,000 tons— to prevent government soldiers from crossing to the other side.
On May 18 the government soldiers were preparing to cross the bridge and rebel gunners opened fire on them. The rebels then warned the government forces of the charges. In an effort to prevent the destruction of the bridge, General Walt attempted to ease the hosilities between the two sides by sending Chaisson back to the scene.
Chaisson talked Ky's marines into pulling back, and relieved them with a company of his marines on the western banks of the bridge. He then asked permission from rebel officer to place his marines on the other side of the bridge, but was rejected. Chaisson ignored the rebel officer and ordered his men to deploy to the Struggle Movement positions anyway. The Americans simply sat down on the road among the rebels without using any force. Walt then arrived and he and Chaisson walked across the bridge. They never reached the other side, as a rebel warrant officer ordered them to halt, threatening to explode the bridge. In the meantime, the rebels fired machine guns low at the Americans, briefly forcing them to duck.
Walt began debating with the warrant officer who mined the bridge but it was fruitless; the Vietnamese rebel told him "General, we will die together" and brought his hand down. Another rebel officer, a military engineer, plunged the detonator. Walt recalled that "There was no doubt he expected the bridge to blow on his signal". However, the Americans had sent military engineers to defuse the explosives on the bridge and at the munitions dump, ending the standoff.
The Struggle Movement still controlled held several key strategic positions in Da Nang. Sporadic machine gun fire was exchanged between the two Vietnamese factions. On May 21, Walt heard that Ky had decided to use airstrikes against the rebels, and feared that the ordnance would cause civilian casualties; at the time, there were more than 1,000 American civilians in the city. Walt told Cao of his concerns. However, Cao was afraid of his own men killing him, and fled to Walt’s headquarters seeking protection from Ky's airstrikes.
Walt went to talk to the VNAF commander at Da Nang Air Base, but could not dissuade him. Instead, VNAF planes took off from the base loaded with rockets and bombs. As a result, Walt ordered the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing to arm four jet fighters in preparation for air-to-air combat.
Rebel machine gunners located near US positions opened fire on loyalist troops, prompting two VNAF planes to fire rockets, but they were missed and instead three projectiles instead hit American positions, wounding eight marines. Walt ordered two jets into the air and tail Ky's pilots and shoot them if they fired onto Da Nang. The VNAF responded by sending more planes into the air to trail the Americans and responded with a counterthreat, to which Walt reacted by sending more planes into the air. After two hours, the Vietnamese planes returned to the ground. Washington received a complaint from Saigon over Walt's interference, but after the general explained his position, he was given permission to act as he saw fit.
Thi met with Westmoreland on May 24, and with Ky three days later at Chu Lai, after the Americans had organised a meeting in an attempt to get Thi to support Ky or end his opposition, hoping that it would end the unrest without Ky having to attack Hue. The meeting resulted in the deposed general agreeing to leave the region for the good of the country. Before his departure for exile, Thi tried to convince Cao to return corps command. Cao, refused, fearing for his family's safety, and asked Westmoreland for asylum in America, saying that he wanted "to become an American citizen, to join the Marines or Army, to fight against the Communists" after returning to Vietnam.
Ky's junta then appointed General Hoang Xuan Lam
to replace Cao. The new corps commanders then focused on fighting the communists instead of other ARVN units and the Americans.
On May 26, a large pro-Buddhist crowd attended the funeral of the rebel ARVN lieutenant who was killed after shooting at General Cao’s departing helicopter. Afterward, the protestors rioted and burned down the US Information Service Library. Over the next week, three Buddhist clergy self-immolated in protest at US policies. The Buddhist activist leader Thich Tri Quang
, went on a hunger strike, denouncing American support for the Ky-Thieu junta, which he viewed as inappropriate interference in domestic affairs.
The ARVN 1st Division sent guards to protect the US Consulate in Hue, but they fled when an anti-Ky mob rioted and overran the mission, setting it ablaze. With the assistance of the Americans, Ky sent Vietnamese marine and airborne battalions to the army base at Phu Bai. By June 19, the old imperial capital was under government control. US Ambassador Lodge publicly praised Ky regime for suppressing the Struggle Movement, calling it "a solid political victory".
In mid June, the Saigon-based Buddhist leader Thich Tam Chau, regarded as being more moderate than Thich Tri Quang, called for passive resistance instead of rioting, and denounced any peace talks with the communists as a "surrender”. However, he then called for the resignations of Ky and Thieu within 48 hours, threatening that all Buddhist monks would otherwise nominate for "voluntary imprisonment".
Thich Tri Quang responded to the situation by calling on Buddhists in Hue to place their altars onto the street to block the junta’s troops. Thousands complied, and the police did not stop them. For two days, the altars stopped all road traffic and prevented convoys from travelling north of the city for a military buildup. He later relented and allowed a few hours a day for such traffic. He then penned a letter accusing the US of "imperialism" and went on a hunger strike. Ky ignored the Buddhist protests and sent 400 combat police to secure the city. They entered unopposed, arrested dissident policemen and removed the altars.
Around 150 Vietnamese from each faction were killed in the uprising; another 700 were wounded. The Americans suffered 23 wounded, 18 of them marines.
Thich Tri Quang was arrested and taken to a local military hospital. He was later taken to Saigon and permanently put under house arrest. The collapse of the Buddhist Uprising effectively ended the Buddhists as a political force.
South Vietnam
South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the "State of Vietnam" and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" . Its capital was Saigon...
, largely focused in the I Corps
I Corps (South Vietnam)
The I Corps Tactical Zone was a corps of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam , the army of the nation state of South Vietnam that existed from 1955 to 1975. It was one of four corps which the ARVN oversaw. This was the northernmost region of South Vietnam, bordering North Vietnam...
area in the north of the country in central Vietnam. The area is a heartland of Vietnamese Buddhism and at the time, activist Buddhist monks and civilians were at the forefront of opposition to a series of military juntas that had been ruling the nation, as well as prominently questioning the escalation of the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
.
During the rule of the Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngô Đình Diệm was the first president of South Vietnam . In the wake of the French withdrawal from Indochina as a result of the 1954 Geneva Accords, Diệm led the effort to create the Republic of Vietnam. Accruing considerable U.S. support due to his staunch anti-Communism, he achieved victory in a...
, the discrimination against the majority Buddhist population generated the growth of Buddhist institutions as they sought to participate in national politics and gain better treatment. In 1965, after a series of military coups that followed the fall of the Diem regime in 1963, Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky
Nguyen Cao Ky
Nguyễn Cao Kỳ served as the chief of the Vietnam Air Force in the 1960s, before leading the nation as the prime minister of South Vietnam in a military junta from 1965 to 1967...
and General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu
Nguyen Van Thieu
Nguyễn Văn Thiệu was president of South Vietnam from 1965 to 1975. He was a general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam , became head of a military junta, and then president after winning a fraudulent election...
finally established a stable junta, holding the positions of Prime Minister and figurehead Chief of State respectively. During that time, there were still much suspicion and tension between the Buddhist and Catholic factions in Vietnamese society.
The religious factor combined with a power struggle between Ky and General Nguyen Chanh Thi
Nguyen Chanh Thi
Lieutenant General Nguyễn Chánh Thi was an officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam . He is best known for frequently being involved in coups in the 1960s and wielding substantial influence as a key member of various juntas that ruled South Vietnam from 1964 until 1966, when he was...
, the commander of I Corps, a Buddhist local to the region and popular in the area. Thi was a strong-willed officer regarded as a capable commander, and Ky saw him as a threat, as did others within the junta. In March 1966, Ky fired Thi and ordered him into exile in the United States under the false pretense of medical treatment. This prompted both civilians and some I Corps units to launch widespread civil protests against Ky's regime and halt military operations against Vietcong. Ky gambled by allowing Thi to return to I Corps before departing for the US, but the arrival of the general to his native area only fuelled anti-Ky sentiment. The Buddhist activists, students and Thi loyalists in the military coalesced into the "Struggle Movement", calling for a return to civilian rule and elections. Meanwhile Thi stayed in I Corps and did not leave; strikes and protests stopped civilian activity in the area, government radio stations were taken over and used for anti-Ky campaigning, and military operations ceased. Riots also spread to the capital Saigon and other cities further south.
At the start of April, Ky decided to move. He declared that Da Nang
Da Nang
Đà Nẵng , occasionally Danang, is a major port city in the South Central Coast of Vietnam, on the coast of the South China Sea at the mouth of the Han River. It is the commercial and educational center of Central Vietnam; its well-sheltered, easily accessible port and its location on the path of...
, the main centre in I Corps, to be under communist control and publicly vowed to kill the mayor, who had expressed support for the Struggle Movement. He moved military forces into the city and travelled there to prepare for an assault, but had to withdraw and then start discussions with Buddhist leaders regarding when it was obvious that he was not strong enough to crush the opposition. In the meantime, he fired Thi's successor Nguyen Van Chuan
Nguyen Van Chuan
Major General Nguyen Van Chuan was an officer of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. He served as the commander of I Corps, which oversaw the northernmost part of the country, from 14 March 1966 until 9 April of the same year, when he was replaced by Lieutenant General Ton That Dinh.Tucker, pp....
because he wanted a firmer attempt to regain control, and appointed Ton That Dinh
Ton That Dinh
Major General Tôn Thất Đính is a retired officer who served in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam . He is best known as one of the key figures in the November 1963 coup that deposed and resulted in the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, the first president of the Republic of Vietnam .A favourite of...
to replace him. Dinh claimed to have calmed the situation, but Ky viewed the situation as appeasement and on May 15, his forces drove off Dinh and took over. During the past month, the American forces had also become involved in the stand-off and the Struggle Movement viewed their participation as biased towards Ky, tending to some tense confrontations.
In the second half of May, Ky's forces began to force the issue and gradually wore down the Struggle Movement as the rebel I Corps forces were worn down, despite some American objections that his aggressive attacks had the potential to cause too much collateral damage. At one stage, Ky's forces ended up in a skirmish with American forces, and later, the Americans were in the middle of a stand-off between the Vietnamese factions regarding a mined bridge. As Ky's forces took back Da Nang and Hue in street fighting, Struggle Movement supporters saw American intervention as being pro-Ky and anti-US riots resulted in some American buildings being burnt down. Ky's triumph ended the Buddhist movement's influence on politics and he confined their leader Thich Tri Quang
Thich Tri Quang
Thích Trí Quang is a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk best known for his role in leading South Vietnam’s Buddhist population during the Buddhist crisis in 1963....
to house arrest thereafter, while Thi left for the US.
Background
The Buddhist activist movement in South Vietnam came about as a result of the administration of President Ngo Dinh DiemNgo Dinh Diem
Ngô Đình Diệm was the first president of South Vietnam . In the wake of the French withdrawal from Indochina as a result of the 1954 Geneva Accords, Diệm led the effort to create the Republic of Vietnam. Accruing considerable U.S. support due to his staunch anti-Communism, he achieved victory in a...
, who ruled the country from 1955 to 1963.
In a country where the Buddhist majority was estimated to be between 70 and 90 percent, Diem ruled with a strong religious bias. As a member of the Catholic Vietnamese
Roman Catholicism in Vietnam
The Roman Catholic Church in Vietnam is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope and curia in Rome. Vietnam has the fifth largest Catholic population in Asia, after the Philippines, India, China and Indonesia....
minority, he pursued pro-Catholic policies that antagonized many Buddhists. The government as being biased towards Catholics in public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business favors and tax concessions. Many military officers converted in the belief that their military prospects depended on it. Forgetting that he was talking to a Buddhist, Diem once told a high-ranking officer, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." In addition, the distribution of firearms to village self-defence militias intended to repel Vietcong guerrillas resulted in weapons only being given to Catholics. Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and in some areas, forced conversions, looting, shelling and demolition of Buddhist pagoda
Pagoda
A pagoda is the general term in the English language for a tiered tower with multiple eaves common in Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and other parts of Asia. Some pagodas are used as Taoist houses of worship. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most commonly Buddhist,...
s occurred. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse in order to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime.
The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country, and the "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French colonial authorities, which required official permission to conduct public Buddhist activities and restricted the construction of Buddhist temples, was not repealed by Diem. Furthermore, the land owned by the Catholic Church was exempt from redistribution under land reform
Land reform
[Image:Jakarta farmers protest23.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Farmers protesting for Land Reform in Indonesia]Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution,...
programs. Catholics were also de facto exempt from the corvée
Corvée
Corvée is unfree labour, often unpaid, that is required of people of lower social standing and imposed on them by the state or a superior . The corvée was the earliest and most widespread form of taxation, which can be traced back to the beginning of civilization...
labor that the government obliged all citizens to perform and the government disproportionately allocated funding to Catholic majority villages. Under Diem, the Catholic Church enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and in 1959, he dedicated the country to the Virgin Mary. The Vatican flag was regularly flown at major public events in South Vietnam.
Buddhist flag
The Buddhist flag is a flag designed in the late 19th century to symbolise and universally represent Buddhism. It is used by Buddhists throughout the world.-History:...
on Vesak
Vesak
Vesākha is a holiday observed traditionally by Buddhists in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the South East Asian countries of Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Burma, and Indonesia...
, the birthday of Gautama Buddha
Gautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
. This caused Buddhist indignation, as Vatican flags had been flown a week earlier at a celebration for Diem's brother, Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc. On May 8, in Huế, a crowd of Buddhists protested against the ban on the Buddhist flag. The police and army opened fire and threw grenades at the demonstrators, leaving nine dead.
Diem's denial of responsibility for the incident—he blamed it on the communist Vietcong—led to more discontent among the Buddhist majority. The incident spurred a protest movement against the religious discrimination
Religious discrimination
Religious discrimination is valuing or treating a person or group differently because of what they do or do not believe.A concept like that of 'religious discrimination' is necessary to take into account ambiguities of the term religious persecution. The infamous cases in which people have been...
of Diem's Roman Catholic-dominated regime. The dispute came to be known as the Buddhist crisis
Buddhist crisis
The Buddhist crisis was a period of political and religious tension in South Vietnam from May 1963 to November 1963 characterized by a series of repressive acts by the South Vietnamese government and a campaign of civil resistance, led mainly by Buddhist monks....
, and it provoked widespread and large-scale civil disobedience. The objective of the protests was to have Decree Number 10 repealed, and to gain religious equality. However, the standoff persisted, and in August, the ARVN Special Forces of Colonel Le Quang Tung
Le Quang Tung
Colonel Lê Quang Tung was the commander of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces under the command of Ngo Dinh Nhu, the brother of South Vietnam's president, Ngo Dinh Diem. A former servant of the Ngô family, Tung's military background was in security and counterespionage...
, loyal to Diem’s brother and chief adviser Ngo Dinh Nhu
Ngo Dinh Nhu
Ngô Ðình Nhu was the younger brother and chief political advisor of South Vietnam's first president, Ngô Ðình Diệm. Nhu was widely regarded as the architect of the Ngô family's nepotistic and autocratic rule over South Vietnam from 1955 to 1963...
, raided temples across the country, killing an estimated hundreds and arresting thousands of Buddhist laypeople and monks. After this, the American government began to turn against Diem and secretly encouraged a coup. On November 1, Diem was deposed and he and Nhu were assassinated the next day.
After Diem, South Vietnam went through a period of persistent and heavy instability, as multiple coups, as well as other failed uprisings, occurred for 18 months. Apart from personal rivalries between the senior officers, the infighting was also stoked by conflict between religious pressure movements. The Buddhists lobbied for the removal of Diem’s pro-Catholic policies, as well as the those officers who had risen up the ranks quickly because they converted to Catholicism and vigorously enacted Diem’s policies. On the other hand, Catholics, whose privileges were rolled back post-Diem, accused the regime of General Nguyen Khanh
Nguyen Khanh
Nguyễn Khánh is a former general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam who variously served as Head of State and Prime minister of South Vietnam while at the head of a military junta from January 1964 until February 1965. He was involved in or against many coup attempts, failed and successful,...
of persecuting them on behalf of the Buddhists. At times, religious riots broke out during this period.
In September 1964, the Catholic Generals Lam Van Phat
Lam Van Phat
Major General Lâm Văn Phát served as an officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam . He is best known for leading two coup attempts against General Nguyễn Khánh in September 1964 and February 1965...
and Duong Van Duc
Duong Van Duc
Major General Dương Văn Đức was an officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. He is best known for leading a coup attempt against General Nguyễn Khánh on September 14, 1964...
tried to overthrow Khanh after he had removed them under Buddhist pressure. This failed, but in February 1965, the Phat tried again with the help of fellow Catholic, Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao
Pham Ngoc Thao
Colonel Phạm Ngọc Thảo, known to friends as Albert Thảo , a major provincial leader in South Vietnam and infiltrator of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, was a communist agent of the Vietminh and later the Vietnam People's Army...
, publicly invoking the memory of Diem in launching their coup. Phat’s second attempt also failed, and the pair went on the run, but the inability of Khanh to secure a decisive victory forced him into exile.
In mid-1965, Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky
Nguyen Cao Ky
Nguyễn Cao Kỳ served as the chief of the Vietnam Air Force in the 1960s, before leading the nation as the prime minister of South Vietnam in a military junta from 1965 to 1967...
and General Nguyen Van Thieu
Nguyen Van Thieu
Nguyễn Văn Thiệu was president of South Vietnam from 1965 to 1975. He was a general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam , became head of a military junta, and then president after winning a fraudulent election...
took charge as prime minister and figurehead president, respectively, and continuity began to arise.
Because of the fractious nature of Vietnamese politics in the period after Diem’s overthrow, no officer could rule decisively without regard for the opinions of his peers without being deposed.
The generals who commanded South Vietnam’s four corps oversaw separate geographical regions, and were given wide-ranging powers. In the absence of civilian government, they were virtual warlords in their regions. The corps commanders were happy with this federated arrangement; Ky was acceptable to the US, and he would pass American military aid to them while allowing them substantial regional autonomy.
Despite, the steady control of Ky and Thieu, the religious tension remained. After one month, Thich Tri Quang began to call for the removal of Thieu because he was a member of Diem’s Catholic Can Lao Party
Can Lao Party
The Cần lao Nhân vị Cách Mạng Ðảng, or Personalist Labor Revolutionary Party, was a secret party formed to support the Ngô Đình Diệm regime in South Vietnam, and largely operated by his brother, Ngô Đình Nhu...
, decrying his “fascistic tendencies”, and claiming that Can Lao members were undermining Ky.
For Thich Tri Quang, Thieu, was a symbol of the Diem era of Catholic domination, when advancement was based on religion. He had desired that General Thi, known for his pro-Buddhist position would lead the country, and denounced Thieu for his alleged past crimes against Buddhists. The Buddhist leader Thich Tri Quang
Thich Tri Quang
Thích Trí Quang is a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk best known for his role in leading South Vietnam’s Buddhist population during the Buddhist crisis in 1963....
said that “Thi is nominally a Buddhist, but does not really care about religion”.
The Buddhist activists wanted to end the war through a negotiated settlement with the communists and the departure of the Americans, putting them at odds with the pro-war, pro-American generals. It was clear that the Buddhists would stage some kind of protest against Ky and Thieu, and the prime minister regarded the Buddhist activists as traitors, so he welcomed confrontation as an opportunity to break their influence.
Rivalry between Ky and Thi
Within the circle of the South Vietnamese government, General Nguyen Chanh ThiNguyen Chanh Thi
Lieutenant General Nguyễn Chánh Thi was an officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam . He is best known for frequently being involved in coups in the 1960s and wielding substantial influence as a key member of various juntas that ruled South Vietnam from 1964 until 1966, when he was...
was a Buddhist and a competent commander regarded by Ky as a threat. Many political observers in Saigon thought that Thi wanted to depose Ky, and regarded him as the biggest threat to the other officers and the junta’s stability. According to Ky’s memoirs, Thi was a "born intriguer" who had "left-wing inclinations". Time magazine published a piece in February 1966 that claimed that Thi was more dynamic than Ky and could seize power at any time. The historian Robert Topmiller thought that Ky may have seen the article as destabilizing and therefore decided to move against Thi.
A native of central Vietnam, Thi was the commander of I Corps
I Corps (South Vietnam)
The I Corps Tactical Zone was a corps of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam , the army of the nation state of South Vietnam that existed from 1955 to 1975. It was one of four corps which the ARVN oversaw. This was the northernmost region of South Vietnam, bordering North Vietnam...
, which oversaw the five northernmost provinces of South Vietnam and the 1st and 2nd Divisions
2nd Division (South Vietnam)
The 2nd Division of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam —the army of the nation state of South Vietnam that existed from 1955 to 1975—was part of the I Corps that oversaw the northernmost region of South Vietnam, the centre of Vietnam....
. He was known to have the “deep-rooted” loyalty of his soldiers. A large part of the South Vietnamese military was the Regional and Popular Forces, which were militia who served in their native areas, and they appreciated a commander with a regionalistic rapport. The support from the Buddhists, his troops and the regional tendencies gave Thi a strong power base and made it hard for the other generals and the Americans to move against him.
Thi was a senior member in the ten-man ruling junta, which opposed the Buddhist activists. Thi performed a balancing act, and accommodated the Buddhists, wanting them to see him as a friend. He allowed the students to publish a magazine that was highly critical of military rule. Thi also manoeuvred to have a trusted subordinate installed as the head of the national police, increasing his political power.
The historian Stanley Karnow
Stanley Karnow
Stanley Karnow is an American journalist and historian.After serving with the United States Army Air Forces in Asia during World War II, he graduated from Harvard with a bachelor's degree in 1947; in 1947 and 1948 he attended the Sorbonne, and from 1948 to 1949 the Institut d'Études Politiques de...
said of Ky and Thi: "Both flamboyant characters who wore gaudy uniforms and sported sinister moustaches, the two young officers had been friends, and their rivalry seemed to typify the personal struggles for power that chronically afflicted South Vietnam. But their dispute mirrored more than individual ambition." Both were also known for their colourful red berets.
There were reports that Thi was showing insubordination towards Ky. The US military commander in Vietnam, General William Westmoreland
William Westmoreland
William Childs Westmoreland was a United States Army General, who commanded US military operations in the Vietnam War at its peak , during the Tet Offensive. He adopted a strategy of attrition against the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the North Vietnamese Army. He later served as...
, said that Thi once refused to report to Ky in Saigon when requested. On one occasion, Ky came to I Corps to remonstrate with him in early March, Thi addressed his staff and asked mockingly "Should we pay attention to this funny little man from Saigon or should we ignore him?" Thi made this comment rather loudly, within earshot of Ky, and the Vietnamese politician Bui Diem
Bui Diem
Bùi Diễm was South Vietnam's ambassador to the United States under President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu. He played a key role in the last desperate attempt to secure US$700 million in military aid to defend South Vietnam against the North in 1975...
thought that the prime minister viewed Thi’s comment as a direct challenge to his authority. In Vietnam, newspapers critical of the government of the day were routinely shut down so that only mouthpieces were left speaking, and many political leaders erroneously assumed that the US operated in the same manner. As a result, they often interpreted negative US media reports as the official position of Washington and thus encouragement of a coup.
Time magazine said that Thi "ran it [I Corps] like a warlord of yore, obeying those edicts of the central government that suited him and blithely disregarding the rest". The historian George McTurnan Kahin
George McTurnan Kahin
George McTurnan KahinSometimes referred to as George Kahin or George McT. Kahin. Some, but fewer, sources may also cite him as George M. Kahin. was an American historian and political scientist. He was one of the leading experts on Southeast Asia and a critic of United States involvement in the...
said that Ky may have feared that Thi would secede from Saigon and turn central Vietnam into an independent state. The CIA analyst Douglas Pike
Douglas Pike
Douglas E. Pike was a leading historian and foremost scholar on the Vietnam War and the Viet Cong based at Texas Tech University from 1997, was director of the Indochina Archive at the University of California, Berkeley from 1981 and prior to that served as Foreign Service Officer in Asia, with...
, who worked in Vietnam, speculated that this would have been a large part of Ky’s thinking, as Vietnamese people often had strong regional tendencies.
Dismissal of Thi
A combination of those factors resulted in Thi’s dismissal. Ky mustered the support of eight of the generals on the 10-man junta, meaning that along with his vote, there were nine officers in favour of Thi’s removal. With Thi the only non-supporter, Ky and his colleagues removed Thi from the junta and his corps command on March 10, 1966. Ky threatened to resign if the decision was not unanimous, claiming that the junta needed a show of strength, so Thi decided to vote for his sacking.Thi claimed that during this meeting, knowing that the other generals were not favourable to him, he nettled them by chastising their commitment to the country. He said that the population would never support the generals’ war effort as long as they lived so comfortably, and he mocked them for ostentatiously flying their female partners to Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
for shopping expeditions. The junta put Thi under house arrest pending his departure from the country, and then appointed General Nguyen Van Chuan
Nguyen Van Chuan
Major General Nguyen Van Chuan was an officer of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. He served as the commander of I Corps, which oversaw the northernmost part of the country, from 14 March 1966 until 9 April of the same year, when he was replaced by Lieutenant General Ton That Dinh.Tucker, pp....
, the erstwhile commander of 1st Division and a Thi subordinate, as the new I Corps commander. General Pham Xuan Nhuan was then made the 1st Division commander.
At first, Ky said that Thi was leaving the country to receive medical treatment for his nasal passages. An official announcement said that the junta "had considered and accepted General Thi's application for a vacation". Thi retorted that "The only sinus condition I have is from the stink of corruption." Ky gave a series of reasons for dismissing Ky, accusing him of being too left-wing, of ruling the central regions like a warlord, of having a mistress who was suspected of being a communist, and being too conspiratorial. Ky did not say that Thi supported negotiations as a means of ending the war, but he did have a history of removing officials and military figures who promoted such a policy.
Despite Thi's good relations with the Buddhists in his area, most notably the leading activist monk Thich Tri Quang, Ky reportedly had the monk's support for Thi's removal. If Ky thought that Thich Tri Quang would not organize demonstrations against Thi's dismissal, he turned out to be wrong, as the monk used to crisis to highlight Buddhist calls for civilian rule. There were claims that Thich Tri Quang had always intended to challenge Ky, regardless of whether or not Thi had been cast aside.
US Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. was a Republican United States Senator from Massachusetts and a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, South Vietnam, West Germany, and the Holy See . He was the Republican nominee for Vice President in the 1960 Presidential election.-Early life:Lodge was born in Nahant,...
, the US military commander in Vietnam General William Westmoreland
William Westmoreland
William Childs Westmoreland was a United States Army General, who commanded US military operations in the Vietnam War at its peak , during the Tet Offensive. He adopted a strategy of attrition against the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the North Vietnamese Army. He later served as...
and the Defense Secretary Robert McNamara
Robert McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara was an American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, serving under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, during which time he played a large role in escalating the United States involvement in the Vietnam War...
were supportive of the Ky-Thieu regime and their prosecution of the war against the communists, and they opposed Thi, regarding him as not being firm enough against communism. The Americans wanted to ease Thi’s out of the corridors of power in South Vietnam by offering him an economic future in the US and an education for his children. On the other hand, Thi did have the support of Marine Lieutenant General Lewis Walt, who commanded American forces in I Corps and was the senior adviser to Thi’s ARVN forces. Walt thought highly of Thi’s abilities as an officer.
The dismissal caused widespread demonstrations in the northern provinces. Initially, the pro-Buddhist demonstrations in I Corps and Saigon were mild and orderly. However, the unrest steadily grew, as civil servants, disaffected military personnel, and the working under-class, in part upset with the economic problems, joined the anti-government demonstrations. At first, Prime Minister Ky tried to ignore the demonstrations and wait for them to peter out, and to do not fight the dissidents, so as to "not to provide any martyrs". Thi was immensely popular in the Buddhist stronghold of Hue. A general strike had incapacitated 90% of Da Nang, the largest city in central Vietnam and the second biggest in the entire country. In Saigon, 10,000 attended a Buddhist rally to call for elections and civilian rule and the monks used Thi's dismissal to focus attention on the junta's rule.
Meanwhile in the capital in mid to late March, Ky took the lead in trying to dampen discontent, meeting Buddhist leaders and promising elections and social reform; however, he also warned that street demonstrations would be suppressed. Showing the Americans' concern that the situation may deteriorate, Lodge met with Thich Tri Quang to warn him about taking aggressive actions. Although the leading activist monk Thich Tri Quang accused Ky of "indulging in a cult of personality", most of the Buddhist banners focused their criticism against the Catholic figurehead chief of state Thieu.
Ky then decided to allow Thi to return to Da Nang, the largest city in the region and the second largest in the country on March 16, ostensibly to restore order. Ky claimed that he allowed Thi to return to his old area of command as a goodwill gesture, to keep central Vietnamese happy, and because he promised Thi a farewell visit before going into exile. Given Thi's popularity, Ky's gesture was regarded as a political gamble. In any case, Thi made a tongue-in-cheek speech, filled with sarcastic references about his need to go to the US for healthcare.
The next day, he went to the former imperial capital of Hue in his corps. Around 20,000 supporters, in a town of around 130,000 mobbed him, shouting and trying to touch him. A Buddhist student leader cried "Do you want the general to stay with us?" to which the students and other protestors answered, "Yes! Yes!" Neil Sheehan
Neil Sheehan
Cornelius Mahoney "Neil" Sheehan is an American journalist. As a reporter for The New York Times in 1971, Sheehan obtained the classified Pentagon Papers from Daniel Ellsberg. His series in the Times revealed a secret U.S. Department of Defense history of the Vietnam War and resulted in government...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
said that the crowd display "left no doubt that the ruling Saigon junta was in trouble". Thi told the large crowd "Think about our country, not about me". He told a journalist that he would accept "any position which is useful for the country", leading some to think that he wanted Ky or Thieu’s job. According to Time magazine, Thi's speeches showed that he "was obviously torn between a desire to rally support for a comeback and his soldier's distaste for adding to dissension". Thi’s speech was followed by presentations by student and Buddhist leaders, who called for the removal of Thieu and Defense Minister Nguyen Huu Co
Nguyen Huu Co
Lieutenant General Nguyễn Hữu Có served as an officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and was prominent in several coups and juntas in the 1960s....
. Both were Catholic generals notorious known for their rampant corruption. However, despite the large-scale demonstrations and support for Thi, there had been no clashes or strong tensions at the time. One prominent Buddhist leader said "We are very grateful to the generals...Ky brought about some stability in the last eight months" after he became the leader of South Vietnam.
The various dissidents formed a pro-Thi, anti-Ky organization called the Military-Civilian Struggle Committee, better known as the Struggle Movement. Their message and influence quickly spread. Some of them took over the government radio station in Da Nang and made anti-junta broadcasts, and they were joined by university students. Initially this dissident soapboxing was not treated with much alarm and it was thought that the regime had decided to wait for the protests to peter out instead of risking an escalation by trying to suppress it. The administrator at Da Nang's radio station allowed the Thi supporters to make a broadcaster when only ten student protesters turned up, a minuscule amount of popular pressure. The opposition groups were not well organized at this time and seemed unsure of their objectives. They were also conducting themselves placidly at this point.
The challenge to Saigon increased when the Struggle Movement claimed authority over the military forces in Quang Nam Province
Quang Nam Province
Quảng Nam is a province on the South Central Coast of Vietnam. It is bordered by Thua Thien-Huế province to the north, the nation of Laos to the west, Kon Tum Province to the southwest, Quảng Ngãi Province to the southeast, the South China Sea to the east, and the city of Da Nang to the...
, which included Da Nang and the military bases there. Buddhists in Hue joined in and took control of the radio station and joined the Struggle Movement. Four hundred students took control of the radio station for two days, disseminating speeches criticizing Ky's junta. Despite assailing the Americans for their support of the junta, ironically during breaks in the speeches, John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as "The March King" or the "American March King" due to his British counterpart Kenneth J....
's The Stars and Stripes Forever was played. By the end of March the situation had worsened.
The movement became anti-American as well as anti-Saigon government, and it increased in influence until most of I Corps was operating independently of central Vietnamese government control. Washington became alarmed and Ky decided to act. The Mayor of Da Nang then started openly supporting the rebelling ARVN soldiers of the I Corps who refused to obey Ky.
Ky then sacked the police chief of Hue, a Thi loyalist. The local policemen responded by going on strike and demonstrating against their chief's removal. On the weekend, 20,000 civilians along with some military personnel in uniform in the imperial capital. They carried banners proclaiming "Down with [Chief of State] Thieu and Ky". The Struggle Movement called a two-day general strike, which was taken up by public servants. This cut down traffic and hindered stevedoring operations at Da Nang Port. The large turnout was in part attributed to economic discontent over rapid inflation rates rather than strictly religious or democracy desires. Ky responded to this on nationwide by warning that the junta would "move strongly" to quell agitation. However, he moderated his words by promising a new constitution by no later than November and that the national elections might be held at the end of the year, bringing it one year forward.
However, the supporters of Thich Tri Quang appeared unwilling to wait for Ky's schedule, calling for the Constituent Assembly that would draft the new constitution to be chosen from provincial and city councils, where Buddhists did well in elections, but Ky refused. While Thich Tri Quang seemed unlikely to see eye-to-eye with Ky, the Saigon-based Buddhist leader Thich Tam Chau appeared open to an accommodation with Ky.
Military threats by Ky and ongoing unrest
On April 1, Ky despatched General Pham Xuan Chieu to I Corps in an attempt to get Thi to rally to the Saigon junta. However, when Chieu entered Hue, he was ambushed by a group of anti-Ky students, who captured him and transported him around the city in a cycloCyclo
Cyclo may refer to:* Cycle rickshaw* Cyclo , a 1995 Vietnamese film* Cyclo , a 2001 album by Ryoji Ikeda and Carsten Nicolai* A chemical compound with a cyclic structure such as a cycloalkane* Cyclo-cross bicycle* Cyclo Industries...
before releasing him.
On the public holiday that commemorates Emperor Hung Vuong, the legendary founder of Vietnam, Saigon's Buddhists used a trick to stage protests against Ky and Thieu's junta. They asked for a permit for a public gathering to celebrate the occasion at the market, and were granted approval on the grounds that at most 600 people took part and that no anti-government sentiment was expressed. However, a few thousand people turned up to the event and then erected pictures of Ky and the senior junta generals on the posts used for public executions, adding a poster that read: "This is the plaza of demagogy. Ky, Thieu and Co. must be executed." The civilian protestors then used megaphones to transform the event into an anti-junta, anti-American, anti-war demonstration through the capital, complete with pre-prepared banners.
Ky also recalled the police chief of Hue, a Thi ally, to Saigon, prompting his men to protest. On the weekend, some 20,000 people, mostly civilians but also including some uniformed soldiers, staged a demonstration, carrying large banners reading "Down with Thieu and Ky". in 12-ft. banners. Another two-day general strike was called for public servants with much success in Hue.
On April 3, Ky held a press conference during which he claimed that Da Nang was under communist control and vowed to stage a military operation to regain the territory. He thus implied that the Buddhists were communist agents. He then vowed to kill the mayor of Da Nang, saying "Either Da Nang's mayor is shot or the government will fall."
The following evening, Ky deployed three battalions of marines to Da Nang using American military transport aircraft. The marines stayed at Da Nang Air Base
Da Nang Air Base
Da Nang Air Base was a Republic of Vietnam Air Force facility. The United States used it as a major base during the Vietnam War , stationing Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine units there...
and made no moves against the rebels in the city. Soon after, they were joined by two battalions of Vietnamese Rangers
Vietnamese Rangers
The Vietnamese Rangers, properly known in Vietnamese as the Biệt Ðộng Quân, more commonly known as the ARVN Rangers, were the Rangers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. Trained and assisted by American Special Forces and Ranger advisers, the Vietnamese Rangers infiltrated beyond enemy lines in...
, as well as some riot police and paratroopers.
Meanwhile, civil unrest continued in the cities of South Vietnam. Around 5,000 turned out in Hue to demonstrate, while another 10,000 took to the streets of Da Nang. A mob of 10,000 looted government buildings in the south central coast town of Qui Nhon
Qui Nhon
Qui Nhơn , also Quy Nhơn, is a coastal city in Binh Dinh province in central Vietnam. It is composed of 16 wards and five communes with a total of 286 km². Quy Nhon is the capital of Bình Định province. As of 2009 its population was 280,900. Historically, the commercial activities of the city...
, while some 2,000 soldiers as well as some senior officers demonstrated.
The protests were at their most violent in the capital Saigon, where pro-Buddhist students rioted, using bicycle chains and sticks as weapons, vandalised cars, threw rocks and shouted anti-American slogans. Street battles erupted between Ky's loyalist police and troops, as the dissidents fought tear gas with rocks, homemade spears, glass bottles and sometimes a hand grenade. The police frequently lost the ascendancy to the rioters, who dispersed them and forced them to flee. At one stage, the military mayor of Saigon went onto the streets in attempt to try to convince the rioters to stop, but he was pelted with projectiles as well. Often the protesters wore makeshift masks made of plastic bags and threw tear gas canisters back at the police and military, and regardless of who was on the receiving end, this often necessitated momentary retreats due to eye irritation. Some 300 Buddhists staged a sit-down protest at the national radio station in capital before the police used clubs to disperse them. The riots were repeated in the central highlands
Tây Nguyên
Tây Nguyên, translated as Western Highlands and sometimes also called Central Highlands, is one of the regions of Vietnam. It contains the provinces of Đắk Lắk, Đắk Nông, Gia Lai, Kon Tum, Lâm Đồng....
towns of Da Lat, Pleiku
Pleiku
Pleiku is a town in central Vietnam, located in that nation's central highland region. It is the capital of the Gia Lai Province; it is inhabited primarily by the Bahnar and Jarai ethnic groups, sometimes known as the Montagnards or Degar....
and Ban Me Thuot.
Ky took personal command and found that the roads leading into the city as being blocked by Buddhist civilians and pro-Thi portions of the I Corps. After a stand-off, Ky realized that he could not score a decisive victory and had lost face. He arranged a meeting and media event with Chuan, and various Struggle Movement supporters.
During the unrest of early April, the Buddhists called for a constitution, for the junta to hand power to an elected civilian executive and legislature, which Ky had repeatedly promised to honour in the future. The Buddhists wanted the Constituent Assembly, which would draft the constitution, to be chosen from regional and city councils, which were dominated by Buddhists, something that Ky objected to. Having miscalculated in his deployment of marines and paratroopers to Da Nang for a show of force, the humiliated Ky arrived back in Saigon, where he met with Buddhist leaders for negotiations. The Buddhists demanded an amnesty for rioters and mutinous soldiers, and for Ky to withdraw the marines from Da Nang back to Saigon where they formed part of the strategic reserve. The monks said they would order the Struggle Movement "temporarily suspend all forms of struggle to prove our good will". Thich Tam Chau took a moderate line on the matter of the constitution, however, Thich Tri Quang refused and the protests continued.
Walt was caught between the two Vietnamese military factions. On April 9 the tension escalated. Pro-Struggle Movement ARVN Colonel Dam Quang Yeu ordered a convoy of infantry, tanks and artillery to proceed north from Hoi An
Hoi An
Hội An , or rarely Faifo, is a city of Vietnam, on the coast of the South China Sea in the South Central Coast of Vietnam. It is located in Quang Nam province and is home to approximately 120,000 inhabitants...
to Da Nang. The Americans finally waded into the dispute when Major General Wood Kyle, the commanding officer of the 3rd Marine Division, ordered the 9th Regiment to block Route 1 and stop the convoy. A platoon from the 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines, supported by two antitank vehicles, blocked a truck on the bridge outside the city and took up positions on the northern bank. A group of VNAF fighter planes flew overhead the rebel convoy, threatening to bomb them. Colonel Yeu responded by aiming 155mm howitzers at the Da Nang Air Base where Ky's forces were located.
Walt dispatched Colonel John R. Chaisson to the standoff at the bridge. Chaisson warned Yeu not to raise the stakes any higher. To add weight to his arguments, a group of Vought F-8E attack aircraft flew over the bridge with rockets and bombs. Walt further told the marines to aim 155mm and 8-inch guns at the rebel position.
Yeu told Chaisson that he was a friend of the marines but that "he had come to fight the Saigon government troops who threatened the local people. He had come to lay down his own life if necessary." Yeu's men unpacked and fused their artillery shells. Chaisson warned Yeu that his rebels would be destroyed if they fired on his men, then returned to his helicopter and departed. Tensions eased over the next week. The Vietnamese marines returned to the capital and the I Corps forces resumed fighting against the communists. Thi publicly disassociated himself from the Buddhists. However, he remained in I Corps and was still regarded as a significant political influence.
Ky later claimed to be unconcerned by the apparent challenge to his authority by protestors and the military in I Corps, claiming that they represent a small fraction of Vietnamese society.
While the Johnson administration maintained a low-key approach during this period of stalemate and tension, mant American commentators and cartoonists blamed Johnson for situation, saying that his overt enthusiasm and support of Ky had made the South Vietnamese people view him as an American puppet. There Americans were publicly pretending to be uninvolved in the Vietnamese dispute, Secretary of State Dean Rusk
Dean Rusk
David Dean Rusk was the United States Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Rusk is the second-longest serving U.S...
saying "This is in part an effort by some civilian groups to carve out a certain position in relation to the steps that have been announced for some time by the military government to move toward a constitutional system."
Dinh takes command of I Corps
When General Chuan, the I Corps Commander, asked for the marines to be withdrawn from Da Nang, the others on the ten-man junta unanimously removed him; he also voted for his own ouster. Ky replaced him with General Ton That DinhTon That Dinh
Major General Tôn Thất Đính is a retired officer who served in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam . He is best known as one of the key figures in the November 1963 coup that deposed and resulted in the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, the first president of the Republic of Vietnam .A favourite of...
. Ky felt that General Ton That Dinh
Ton That Dinh
Major General Tôn Thất Đính is a retired officer who served in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam . He is best known as one of the key figures in the November 1963 coup that deposed and resulted in the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, the first president of the Republic of Vietnam .A favourite of...
's aggressive attitude following the Xa Loi Pagoda raids
Xa Loi Pagoda raids
The Xa Loi Pagoda raids were a series of synchronized attacks on various Buddhist pagodas in the major cities of South Vietnam shortly after midnight on August 21, 1963...
staged under the Diem regime in 1963 indicated a willingness to suppress Buddhist dissidents. Dinh arrived in Huế on April 15.
The Buddhists reacted to Dinh's appointment with dismay. They openly took responsibility for organising all future demonstrations, releasing a proclamation to that effect through the Vien Hoa Dao. They declared the country to be in "a state of emergency" and demanded civilian rule immediately, calling for an escalation in protests.
After a week, Dinh announced that he had restored Saigon's authority over the region. He proclaimed that he had regained control of the radio stations in Da Nang and Huế from the dissidents and that he had convinced the mayor of Da Nang to stay loyal to Saigon. Dinh announced a deal whereby the Buddhists would have regular air time in return for relinquishing control of the radio station. This move was interpreted in different ways. Some felt that Dinh was attempting to gain favour with the Buddhists in anticipation of Ky's fall from power, while Frances FitzGerald felt it was the only sensible government action during the crisis.
On April 19, clashes erupted in Quang Ngai between the Buddhists and the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang
Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang
The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng , also known as the Việt Quốc and the Vietnamese Kuomintang, is the Vietnamese Nationalist Party, a revolutionary socialist political party that sought independence from French colonial rule in Vietnam during the early 20th century...
(VNQDD, Vietnamese Nationalist Party), who supported the continuation of the anti-communist war, prompting Dinh to forcibly restrain the two groups.
However, the easing tensions did not last. Ky was still looking to make a show of force. Without telling the figurehead President Thieu or Westmoreland, Ky ordered General Cao Van Vien
Cao Van Vien
Cao Văn Viên was a Vietnamese soldier who served in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and rose to the position of Chairman of the South Vietnamese Joint General Staff...
to lead a force into Da Nang. On May 15, government Vietnamese marines and airborne units were airlifted from the capital to Da Nang. Landing at dawn, they proceeded into the city centre and captured the local ARVN headquarters.
Washington called Walt to ask for an update on the situation. According to Ky, the American general was "furious at an assault without warning on what he regarded as his territory." Ky ordered a plane to fly over the positions of the pro-Buddhist forces and drop messages threatening to liquidate them if they shot at his men. At the time the Viet Cong were quiet, and did not take advantage of the situation.
The surprised Dinh abandoned his post and flee to the headquarters of US General Lewis Walt. Dinh asked Walt for help and was flown to Hue, where the pro-Thi and pro-Buddhist elements were still in control. Ky's surprise attack led to conflict between the ARVN rebels and loyalists, with the American ground forces caught in the middle, effectively creating a civil war within a civil war. Ky eventually quelled the rebellion and briefly jailed Dinh.
Military climax
Later on the morning of May 15, two VNAF aircraft loyal to Ky strafed rebel ARVN units located near US Marine positions to the north of north of Da Nang. Wanting to avoid bloodshed, Walt asked Ky's junta to withdraw his loyalist forces from the city.On May 16, Ky rejected Walt's request and formally replaced Dinh as I Corps commander with General Huynh Van Cao
Huynh Van Cao
Major General Huỳnh Văn Cao was an officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. He was born on September 26, 1927.He is married and has ten children and more than 20 grandchildren. In 1950, he graduated from Military school in Huế. He then attended College of Tactics and graduated in Hanoi in...
, another Catholic and Diem loyalist.
The next day, Cao flew to Hue to visit the headquarters of ARVN 1st Division. A hostile pro-Buddhist crowd rioted and broke into the division's command post as Cao prepared to depart south for Da Nang. As the American helicopter lifted off, a pro-Buddhist ARVN lieutenant hit it with two pistol shots. In response, the US Army door gunner fired a burst that killed the lieutenant and wounded two adjacent soldiers. Struggle Movement supporters railed against the Americans for what they regarded as inappropriate interference in internal South Vietnamese dispute.
Still unwilling to remove his forces and seek a peaceful solution, Ky relised the opportunity for a confrontation with the American military. According to his memoirs, Ky told his loyalist officers in Da Nang to train their heaviest artillery at the American Marine base. If the Americans took action to hinder the aggressive pro-Ky aircraft, the commanders should "destroy the Marine base. That is an order." Ky then claimed that he flew to the city to reprimand Walt for improperly interfering in a domestic matter.
During the sporadic fighting that followed, the marines gradually pushed the rebel soldiers towards the east of the Tourane River. By that time, the government soldiers had already retaken the Da Nang City Hall and radio station.
The rebel soldiers then seized a bridge across the Tourane River, heavily used by the US military, they mined the bridge and the ammunition dump—which contained 6,000 tons— to prevent government soldiers from crossing to the other side.
On May 18 the government soldiers were preparing to cross the bridge and rebel gunners opened fire on them. The rebels then warned the government forces of the charges. In an effort to prevent the destruction of the bridge, General Walt attempted to ease the hosilities between the two sides by sending Chaisson back to the scene.
Chaisson talked Ky's marines into pulling back, and relieved them with a company of his marines on the western banks of the bridge. He then asked permission from rebel officer to place his marines on the other side of the bridge, but was rejected. Chaisson ignored the rebel officer and ordered his men to deploy to the Struggle Movement positions anyway. The Americans simply sat down on the road among the rebels without using any force. Walt then arrived and he and Chaisson walked across the bridge. They never reached the other side, as a rebel warrant officer ordered them to halt, threatening to explode the bridge. In the meantime, the rebels fired machine guns low at the Americans, briefly forcing them to duck.
Walt began debating with the warrant officer who mined the bridge but it was fruitless; the Vietnamese rebel told him "General, we will die together" and brought his hand down. Another rebel officer, a military engineer, plunged the detonator. Walt recalled that "There was no doubt he expected the bridge to blow on his signal". However, the Americans had sent military engineers to defuse the explosives on the bridge and at the munitions dump, ending the standoff.
The Struggle Movement still controlled held several key strategic positions in Da Nang. Sporadic machine gun fire was exchanged between the two Vietnamese factions. On May 21, Walt heard that Ky had decided to use airstrikes against the rebels, and feared that the ordnance would cause civilian casualties; at the time, there were more than 1,000 American civilians in the city. Walt told Cao of his concerns. However, Cao was afraid of his own men killing him, and fled to Walt’s headquarters seeking protection from Ky's airstrikes.
Walt went to talk to the VNAF commander at Da Nang Air Base, but could not dissuade him. Instead, VNAF planes took off from the base loaded with rockets and bombs. As a result, Walt ordered the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing to arm four jet fighters in preparation for air-to-air combat.
Rebel machine gunners located near US positions opened fire on loyalist troops, prompting two VNAF planes to fire rockets, but they were missed and instead three projectiles instead hit American positions, wounding eight marines. Walt ordered two jets into the air and tail Ky's pilots and shoot them if they fired onto Da Nang. The VNAF responded by sending more planes into the air to trail the Americans and responded with a counterthreat, to which Walt reacted by sending more planes into the air. After two hours, the Vietnamese planes returned to the ground. Washington received a complaint from Saigon over Walt's interference, but after the general explained his position, he was given permission to act as he saw fit.
Thi met with Westmoreland on May 24, and with Ky three days later at Chu Lai, after the Americans had organised a meeting in an attempt to get Thi to support Ky or end his opposition, hoping that it would end the unrest without Ky having to attack Hue. The meeting resulted in the deposed general agreeing to leave the region for the good of the country. Before his departure for exile, Thi tried to convince Cao to return corps command. Cao, refused, fearing for his family's safety, and asked Westmoreland for asylum in America, saying that he wanted "to become an American citizen, to join the Marines or Army, to fight against the Communists" after returning to Vietnam.
Ky's junta then appointed General Hoang Xuan Lam
Hoang Xuan Lam
Hoàng Xuân Lãm was a general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and a native of the city of Huế. Given responsibility for the I Corps Tactical Zone in 1967, Lãm coordinated the South Vietnamese offensive known as Operation Lam Sơn 719 which aimed at striking the North Vietnamese logistical...
to replace Cao. The new corps commanders then focused on fighting the communists instead of other ARVN units and the Americans.
Victory for Ky
By the end of May, the marines under Premier Ky's command finally broken the remaining pockets of rebel soldiers and Buddhist militants in Da Nang, the Buddhist fighters managed to hold out for four hours against government ground assaults at Tan Ninh Pagoda.On May 26, a large pro-Buddhist crowd attended the funeral of the rebel ARVN lieutenant who was killed after shooting at General Cao’s departing helicopter. Afterward, the protestors rioted and burned down the US Information Service Library. Over the next week, three Buddhist clergy self-immolated in protest at US policies. The Buddhist activist leader Thich Tri Quang
Thich Tri Quang
Thích Trí Quang is a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk best known for his role in leading South Vietnam’s Buddhist population during the Buddhist crisis in 1963....
, went on a hunger strike, denouncing American support for the Ky-Thieu junta, which he viewed as inappropriate interference in domestic affairs.
The ARVN 1st Division sent guards to protect the US Consulate in Hue, but they fled when an anti-Ky mob rioted and overran the mission, setting it ablaze. With the assistance of the Americans, Ky sent Vietnamese marine and airborne battalions to the army base at Phu Bai. By June 19, the old imperial capital was under government control. US Ambassador Lodge publicly praised Ky regime for suppressing the Struggle Movement, calling it "a solid political victory".
In mid June, the Saigon-based Buddhist leader Thich Tam Chau, regarded as being more moderate than Thich Tri Quang, called for passive resistance instead of rioting, and denounced any peace talks with the communists as a "surrender”. However, he then called for the resignations of Ky and Thieu within 48 hours, threatening that all Buddhist monks would otherwise nominate for "voluntary imprisonment".
Thich Tri Quang responded to the situation by calling on Buddhists in Hue to place their altars onto the street to block the junta’s troops. Thousands complied, and the police did not stop them. For two days, the altars stopped all road traffic and prevented convoys from travelling north of the city for a military buildup. He later relented and allowed a few hours a day for such traffic. He then penned a letter accusing the US of "imperialism" and went on a hunger strike. Ky ignored the Buddhist protests and sent 400 combat police to secure the city. They entered unopposed, arrested dissident policemen and removed the altars.
Around 150 Vietnamese from each faction were killed in the uprising; another 700 were wounded. The Americans suffered 23 wounded, 18 of them marines.
Thich Tri Quang was arrested and taken to a local military hospital. He was later taken to Saigon and permanently put under house arrest. The collapse of the Buddhist Uprising effectively ended the Buddhists as a political force.