Do Mau
Encyclopedia
Brigadier General Ðỗ Mậu (born 1917) was an officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam
(ARVN) best known for his roles as a recruiting strategist in both the 1963 coup
that toppled President Ngo Dinh Diem
and the 1964 coup
led by General Nguyen Khanh
that deposed the junta of General Duong Van Minh
. He was born in Quang Binh Province
.
Having abandoned the Communist led Viet Minh resistance to join the Vietnamese National Army
, the predecessor of the ARVN, Mau rose to be head of military security under Diem. At that time a colonel with no troops to command, Mau was nevertheless an important member of the conspiracy due to his liaisons with a wide number of officers, which allowed him to recruit widely for coup participants. He initially tried to organize a coup group himself with Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao
, an undetected communist agent bent on maximising infighting, and disillusioned intelligence director Tran Kim Tuyen
mainly consisting of mid-level officers. Later this group was integrated into the main plot led by a group of generals; Mau had helped to liaise between some of these generals. He also concocted false data to convince Diem to send the ARVN Special Forces—mainly used to defend Diem and his family from coups in Saigon—into the countryside to battle a non-existent large-scale communist attack. The coup was successful and Diem was captured and executed
.
After the coup, Mau was promoted to brigadier general and made one of 12 members of the ruling junta. Fearing his political skills, the leading generals tried to sideline him and placed him in the low-key and uninfluential post of Information Minister, where he censored newspapers. Mau responded by plotting his own coup, joining forces with Khanh and other disgrunted Generals Duong Van Duc
and Tran Thien Khiem
, and Colonels Nguyen Chanh Thi
and Duong Ngoc Lam. Three months after Diem was deposed, the next coup was successful without needing a battle. Mau was then made one of three deputy prime ministers, overseeing social and cultural affairs.
Disillusioned with Khanh’s tendency toward military dictatorship, and isolated by the young generals, he retired from the military for good in 1964.
(VNA) of the State of Vietnam
and trained at a French military academy. A quietly spoken officer, Mau rose up the ranks, and the VNA became the ARVN after the State of Vietnam became the Republic of Vietnam when Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem
deposed Bao Dai
and declared himself president in a fraudulent referendum organised by his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu
.
that deposed and executed
President Ngo Dinh Diem
and his brother and chief adviser Ngo Dinh Nhu
. The ruling Ngo family came under pressure in the Buddhist crisis
of 1963, when discontent among the country's Buddhist majority towards the pro-Catholic regime erupted into civil unrest.
There were many conspiracies against Diem in 1963, many of them by different cliques of military officers independent from one another. According to Ellen Hammer
, there were "perhaps as many as six and possibly more" different plots, and these spanned the gamut of society to include civilian politicians, union leaders, and university students.
In mid-1963, one group consisted of mid-level officers such as colonels, majors, and captains. Mau was in this group, which was coordinated by Tran Kim Tuyen
, South Vietnam's director of intelligence. Tuyen had been a palace insider, but a rift had developed in recent years, and he began to plot as early as 1962. As South Vietnam was a police state, Tuyen was an extremely powerful figure and had many contacts. Another person in this group was Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao
, an undetected communist agent who was deliberately fomenting infighting among the officers and mismanaging the Strategic Hamlet Program
in order to destabilise the Saigon government.
Tuyen's group had many officers who were members of the opposition Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang
and Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang
, who had been discriminated against on issues of promotions, which were preferentially given to members of the regime's secret Can Lao Party
. These included commanders of airborne
, marine
and tank units from the 5th Division
, mostly at battalion
level.
As Mau was in a role that involved coordinating with other senior officers, he was an effective conduit for coup plotting. He was popular and needed by the other officers as he was able to keep compromising information about them from Ngo Dinh Nhu
's, Diem's younger brother and main strategist.
When Tuyen's machinations were discovered, he was exiled by Nhu. Mau and Thao took over but their initial coup plans for July 15 were shelved when American CIA agent Lucien Conein
instructed Thao's superior, General Tran Thien Khiem
, the head of the army, to stop the coup on the grounds that it was premature. Thao and Mau's group resumed plotting, intending to move on October 24, and they recruited a total of 3,000 men. They augmented their forces with an assortment of officers from auxiliary units such as from the Signal Corps, Transportation Corps and some Vietnam Air Force
pilots. Mau also enlisted the help of Khiem following Tuyen's departure into exile.
Mau also gained the cooperation of an assortment of military and civilian dissidents known as the Military and Civilian Front for the Revolution in Vietnam (MCFRV). The MCFRV had started to plot independently in August and their leader was a cousin of Mau.
Following the Xa Loi Pagoda raids
, the senior generals started their own plot in earnest, having only had vague plans prior to this. General Tran Van Don
, nominally a high-ranking general, but in a position without command of troops because the palace distrusted him, was sought out by Mau, who wanted to collaborate. Mau later accompanied the ranking general in the plot, Duong Van Minh
, on recruitment campaigns. Despite his high rank, Minh was out of favour and served as the Presidential Military Advisor, a meaningless desk job where he had no subordinates in the field and no access to soldiers. Mau helped Minh to secure the cooperation of General Nguyen Khanh
, who commanded the II Corps
that oversaw the central highlands
of the country, and Colonel Nguyen Van Thieu
, who commanded the 5th Division
based just outside the capital Saigon in Bien Hoa
. According to Thieu, Mau and Minh had promised to establish a more strongly anti-communist government to expulge Nhu and his wife out of the country and keep Diem as a figurehead president.
In October, the younger officers' plot was integrated into the generals' larger group, which was more likely to succeed, because Khiem and Mau were involved with both groups. The coup was successfully executed on 1 November 1963 under the leadership of Generals Duong Van Minh
and Tran Van Don
.
When the coup was about to take place, Mau helped to get to weaken loyalist forces. Mau concocted military intelligence reports with false data that claimed that the communist Vietcong were massing outside the capital for an offensive. He then convinced Diem and Nhu to send several companies of ARVN Special Forces personnel out of the capital to fight the communists.
The US had cut off funding for the CIA-trained Special Forces because Diem used them to stop coups, repress dissidents and attack Buddhist pagodas in the capital instead of combating the communists in rural areas. Mau's trick meant that what was effectively a private unit of the Ngo family would be unable to defend them.
Another of Diem's brother, Ngo Dinh Can
, began to suspect Mau and told the palace, which told army chief General Tran Thien Khiem
to have Mau arrested. However, Khiem, who was also part of the plot, deliberately procrastinated and Mau remained free. In the meantime, it was too late for the brothers to bring their loyalists back into the capital. Mau helped to organise a lunchtime meeting at Joint General Staff Headquarters at Tan Son Nhut Air Base
and invite senior officers to the event. There, at 13:45 on November 1, the coup was launched, and those who remained loyal to Diem were arrested.
Mau found himself on the opposite side to his nephew and Air Force
Lieutenant Do Tho, Diem's aide de camp. Late in the evening, Tho accompanied the Ngo brothers as they escaped the rebel siege on Gia Long Palace and absconded to the home of a Chinese supporter in Cholon. The next day the brothers were captured and executed. Tho died in action a few months later in a plane crash.
After the coup was completed, the media found out about the conspiracy organised by Tuyen and Thao that had been more advanced than that of the generals before being integrated into the main plot. Don thought that the younger officers had publicised their well-advanced plot in order to gain personal acclaim and distract attention from the generals' success, so he threatened to have them arrested. Mau intervened to protect them.
Mau was one of the principal tacticians in the coup. He did not explicitly command troops, but had a thorough knowledge of the backgrounds of most of the ARVN officers and their strengths and weaknesses. This had allowed him to help recruit rebels, avoid loyalists and engineer the previous coup. The Military Revolutionary Council (MRC) of General Duong Van Minh
respected Mau, but their fears about his shrewdness led them to place him in the relatively powerless post of Minister of Information, even though he was one of 12 members of the MRC. Mau's closest aides were posted further away from any real power.
Mau's main responsibility was to stifle anti-government sentiment. Saigon newspapers, which been able to operate liberally in the post-Diem era, reported that the junta was paralysed because all 12 generals in the MRC had equal power. They strongly attacked Prime Minister Nguyen Ngoc Tho
, accusing his civilian government of being "tools" of the MRC. They also questioned Tho's activities under Diem's presidency, accusing him of personally benefiting from corruption under Diem's land policy. Mau's ministry had already circulated a long list of topics that were not to be reported on. Tho could no longer withstand what the reporting about him and called journalists into his office and assailed them for what he regarded as inaccurate, irresponsible and disloyal reporting. Tho accused them of lying, and claimed that one of the journalists was a communist while another was a drug addict. He said that his administration would "take steps to meet the situation" if the media did not behave responsibly. The next day Mau's ministry closed down three newspapers for "disloyalty". During this time, Mau enacted the "Golden Rules" to govern media conduct: Do not promote Communism or neutralism. Do not endanger national security or the army's morale. Do not spread false news of any kind. Do not slander individuals. Do not bolster vices.
, who was moved from the II Corps
in the central highlands
to the I Corps
in the far north of South Vietnam. This, it was speculated, was to keep him far away from Saigon. This was contrary to Khanh's request for a transfer to the Mekong Delta
close to Saigon. Khanh made no attempt to hide his annoyance at not being given a more important job by the MRC. Khanh had long been regarded as an ambitious and unscrupulous officer by his colleagues, and he had a well-known reputation for switching sides in high-level disputes for personal gain.
The most important link in Mau's plan was Colonel Nguyen Chanh Thi
, the former paratroop commander who had fled to Cambodia in the wake of the failed 1960 coup attempt
against Diem. Mau persuaded the junta to install Thi as Khanh's deputy in I Corps. He tricked the junta into doing so by reasoning that Khanh had largely been responsible for putting down the 1960 revolt and that Thi would be an ideal mechanism for keeping Khanh in check, whom they distrusted. Privately, Mau predicted that Thi would be a bridge between him in Saigon and Khanh in Hue. He was correct in thinking that the 1960 conflict would be irrelevant in the shifting of allegiances of time and that the pair would work together for their current aims. Mau recruited General Tran Thien Khiem
, who had worked with him during the November 1963 coup. Khiem had assisted Diem in putting down the 1960 plot and had since been demoted from being Chief of Staff of the ARVN to the commander of the III Corps
that surrounded Saigon following Diem's fall. Khiem readily joined the plot and controlled the divisions surrounding the capital. Khiem, Khanh and Mau kept in touch surreptitiously on a regular basis, supplementing their forces with an assortment of Marine
, Air Force and Special Forces officers. Mau also recruited the chief of the Civil Guard, Duong Ngoc Lam who was under investigation by the junta for swindling military funds, and General Duong Van Duc
, who had recently returned from Paris and was an assistant to General Le Van Kim
, the chief of the junta's general staff.
At the time, there was innuendo that some generals in the MRC would become neutralist and stop fighting the communists, and that they were plotting with French President Charles de Gaulle
, who supported such a solution in order to remove the US presence. Duc used his French experience to concoct some plausible sounding and incriminating documents for Mau, which purported to show that some junta members were French agents. Some of the documents were leaked to some senior American officials.
On January 1964, troops led by Khanh, Khiem and Thi overthrew the MRC in a bloodless coup. Khanh assumed control of a new junta, and Mau was one three Deputy Prime Ministers, overseeing social and cultural affairs.
Army of the Republic of Vietnam
The Army of the Republic of Viet Nam , sometimes parsimoniously referred to as the South Vietnamese Army , was the land-based military forces of the Republic of Vietnam , which existed from October 26, 1955 until the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975...
(ARVN) best known for his roles as a recruiting strategist in both the 1963 coup
1963 South Vietnamese coup
In November 1963, President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam was deposed by a group of Army of the Republic of Vietnam officers who disagreed with his handling of the Buddhist crisis and, in general, his increasing oppression of national groups in the name of fighting the communist Vietcong.The...
that toppled President 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...
and the 1964 coup
1964 South Vietnamese coup
Before dawn on January 30, 1964, General Nguyen Khanh ousted the military junta led by General Duong Van Minh from the leadership of South Vietnam without firing a shot. It came less than three months after Minh's junta had themselves come to power in a bloody coup against then President Ngo Dinh...
led by 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,...
that deposed the junta of General Duong Van Minh
Duong Van Minh
Minh was born on 16 February 1916 in Mỹ Tho Province in the Mekong Delta, the son of a wealthy landowner who served in a prominent position in the Finance Ministry of the French colonial administration...
. He was born in Quang Binh Province
Quang Binh Province
Quảng Bình , formerly Tiên Bình under the reign of Le Trung Hung of the Lê Dynasty, this province was renamed Quảng Bình in 1604) is a province in the North Central Coast of Vietnam....
.
Having abandoned the Communist led Viet Minh resistance to join the Vietnamese National Army
Vietnamese National Army
On March 8, 1949, after the Elysee accords, the State of Vietnam was recognized by France as an independent country ruled by Vietnamese Emperor Bảo Đại. The Vietnamese National Army or Vietnam National Army was the State of Vietnam's military force created shortly after that. It was commanded by...
, the predecessor of the ARVN, Mau rose to be head of military security under Diem. At that time a colonel with no troops to command, Mau was nevertheless an important member of the conspiracy due to his liaisons with a wide number of officers, which allowed him to recruit widely for coup participants. He initially tried to organize a coup group himself with 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...
, an undetected communist agent bent on maximising infighting, and disillusioned intelligence director Tran Kim Tuyen
Tran Kim Tuyen
Dr. Trần Kim Tuyến was the chief of intelligence of South Vietnam under its first President Ngo Dinh Diem from 1955 to 1963. As a Roman Catholic, he was trusted by the Ngo family, and was part of their inner circle...
mainly consisting of mid-level officers. Later this group was integrated into the main plot led by a group of generals; Mau had helped to liaise between some of these generals. He also concocted false data to convince Diem to send the ARVN Special Forces—mainly used to defend Diem and his family from coups in Saigon—into the countryside to battle a non-existent large-scale communist attack. The coup was successful and Diem was captured and executed
Arrest and assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem
The arrest and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm, then president of South Vietnam, marked the culmination of a successful CIA-backed coup d’état led by General Dương Văn Minh in November 1963...
.
After the coup, Mau was promoted to brigadier general and made one of 12 members of the ruling junta. Fearing his political skills, the leading generals tried to sideline him and placed him in the low-key and uninfluential post of Information Minister, where he censored newspapers. Mau responded by plotting his own coup, joining forces with Khanh and other disgrunted Generals 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...
and Tran Thien Khiem
Tran Thien Khiem
General Trần Thiện Khiêm was an officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. During the 1960s he was involved in several coups. He helped President Ngo Dinh Diem put down a November 1960 coup attempt and was rewarded with promotion...
, and Colonels 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...
and Duong Ngoc Lam. Three months after Diem was deposed, the next coup was successful without needing a battle. Mau was then made one of three deputy prime ministers, overseeing social and cultural affairs.
Disillusioned with Khanh’s tendency toward military dictatorship, and isolated by the young generals, he retired from the military for good in 1964.
Early years and career
During the 1940s, he once joined the Viet Minh resistance as a Battalion Commanding officer in the Central Vietnam, but soon disillusioned by Communist cadres. He then joined the French-backed Vietnamese National ArmyVietnamese National Army
On March 8, 1949, after the Elysee accords, the State of Vietnam was recognized by France as an independent country ruled by Vietnamese Emperor Bảo Đại. The Vietnamese National Army or Vietnam National Army was the State of Vietnam's military force created shortly after that. It was commanded by...
(VNA) of the State of Vietnam
State of Vietnam
The State of Vietnam was a state that claimed authority over all of Vietnam during the First Indochina War, and replaced the Provisional Central Government of Vietnam . The provisional government was a brief transitional administration between colonial Cochinchina and an independent state...
and trained at a French military academy. A quietly spoken officer, Mau rose up the ranks, and the VNA became the ARVN after the State of Vietnam became the Republic of Vietnam when Prime Minister 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...
deposed Bao Dai
Bao Dai
Bảo Đại , born Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thụy , was the 13th and last ruler of the Nguyễn dynasty. From 1926 to 1945, he was king of Annam under French ‘protection’. During this period, Annam was a protectorate within French Indochina, covering the central two-thirds of the present-day Vietnam...
and declared himself president in a fraudulent referendum organised by his brother 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...
.
1963 coup
As the director of military security, Mau was a participant in the 1963 South Vietnamese coup1963 South Vietnamese coup
In November 1963, President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam was deposed by a group of Army of the Republic of Vietnam officers who disagreed with his handling of the Buddhist crisis and, in general, his increasing oppression of national groups in the name of fighting the communist Vietcong.The...
that deposed and executed
Arrest and assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem
The arrest and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm, then president of South Vietnam, marked the culmination of a successful CIA-backed coup d’état led by General Dương Văn Minh in November 1963...
President 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...
and his 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...
. The ruling Ngo family came under pressure in 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....
of 1963, when discontent among the country's Buddhist majority towards the pro-Catholic regime erupted into civil unrest.
There were many conspiracies against Diem in 1963, many of them by different cliques of military officers independent from one another. According to Ellen Hammer
Ellen Hammer
Ellen Joy Hammer was an American historian who specialized in 20th-century Vietnamese history. She is best known for writing the two history texts The Struggle for Indochina and A Death in November...
, there were "perhaps as many as six and possibly more" different plots, and these spanned the gamut of society to include civilian politicians, union leaders, and university students.
In mid-1963, one group consisted of mid-level officers such as colonels, majors, and captains. Mau was in this group, which was coordinated by Tran Kim Tuyen
Tran Kim Tuyen
Dr. Trần Kim Tuyến was the chief of intelligence of South Vietnam under its first President Ngo Dinh Diem from 1955 to 1963. As a Roman Catholic, he was trusted by the Ngo family, and was part of their inner circle...
, South Vietnam's director of intelligence. Tuyen had been a palace insider, but a rift had developed in recent years, and he began to plot as early as 1962. As South Vietnam was a police state, Tuyen was an extremely powerful figure and had many contacts. Another person in this group was 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...
, an undetected communist agent who was deliberately fomenting infighting among the officers and mismanaging the Strategic Hamlet Program
Strategic Hamlet Program
The Strategic Hamlet Program was a plan by the governments of South Vietnam and the United States during the Vietnam War to combat the Communist insurgency by means of population transfer.In 1961, U.S...
in order to destabilise the Saigon government.
Tuyen's group had many officers who were members of the opposition 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...
and Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang
Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang
Đại Việt Quốc dân đảng , often known simply as Đại Việt, was a nationalist and anti-communist political party and militant organisation that was active in Vietnam in the 20th century. The party was founded by Trương Tử Anh, known as Anh Cả Phương...
, who had been discriminated against on issues of promotions, which were preferentially given to members of the regime's secret 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...
. These included commanders of airborne
Vietnamese Airborne Division
The Vietnamese Airborne Division was one of the earliest components of the State of Vietnam's military forces . The Vietnamese Airborne Division began as companies organised in 1948, prior to any agreement over armed forces in Vietnam...
, marine
Republic of Vietnam Marine Corps
The Republic of Vietnam Marine Corps ) was part of the armed forces of the Republic of Vietnam . It was established by Ngo Dinh Diem in 1954 when he was Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam, which became the Republic of Vietnam in 1955. The longest-serving commander was Lieutenant General Le...
and tank units from the 5th Division
5th Division (South Vietnam)
The Fifth 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 III Corps that oversaw the region of the country surrounding the capital, Saigon....
, mostly at battalion
Battalion
A battalion is a military unit of around 300–1,200 soldiers usually consisting of between two and seven companies and typically commanded by either a Lieutenant Colonel or a Colonel...
level.
As Mau was in a role that involved coordinating with other senior officers, he was an effective conduit for coup plotting. He was popular and needed by the other officers as he was able to keep compromising information about them from 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...
's, Diem's younger brother and main strategist.
When Tuyen's machinations were discovered, he was exiled by Nhu. Mau and Thao took over but their initial coup plans for July 15 were shelved when American CIA agent Lucien Conein
Lucien Conein
Lt. Col. Lucien Emile Conein was a noted U.S. Army officer and Office of Strategic Services / Central Intelligence Agency operative...
instructed Thao's superior, General Tran Thien Khiem
Tran Thien Khiem
General Trần Thiện Khiêm was an officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. During the 1960s he was involved in several coups. He helped President Ngo Dinh Diem put down a November 1960 coup attempt and was rewarded with promotion...
, the head of the army, to stop the coup on the grounds that it was premature. Thao and Mau's group resumed plotting, intending to move on October 24, and they recruited a total of 3,000 men. They augmented their forces with an assortment of officers from auxiliary units such as from the Signal Corps, Transportation Corps and some Vietnam Air Force
Vietnam Air Force
The Vietnam Air Force began with a few hand-picked men chosen to fly alongside French pilots during the State of Vietnam era. It eventually grew into the world’s sixth largest air force at the height of its power, in 1974...
pilots. Mau also enlisted the help of Khiem following Tuyen's departure into exile.
Mau also gained the cooperation of an assortment of military and civilian dissidents known as the Military and Civilian Front for the Revolution in Vietnam (MCFRV). The MCFRV had started to plot independently in August and their leader was a cousin of Mau.
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...
, the senior generals started their own plot in earnest, having only had vague plans prior to this. General Tran Van Don
Tran Van Don
Trần Văn Đôn was a general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, and one of the principal figures in the coup d'état which deposed Ngô Đình Diệm from the presidency of South Vietnam.-Family:...
, nominally a high-ranking general, but in a position without command of troops because the palace distrusted him, was sought out by Mau, who wanted to collaborate. Mau later accompanied the ranking general in the plot, Duong Van Minh
Duong Van Minh
Minh was born on 16 February 1916 in Mỹ Tho Province in the Mekong Delta, the son of a wealthy landowner who served in a prominent position in the Finance Ministry of the French colonial administration...
, on recruitment campaigns. Despite his high rank, Minh was out of favour and served as the Presidential Military Advisor, a meaningless desk job where he had no subordinates in the field and no access to soldiers. Mau helped Minh to secure the cooperation 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,...
, who commanded the II Corps
II Corps (South Vietnam)
The II Corps 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 in the ARVN, and it oversaw the region of the central highlands region, north of the capital Saigon...
that oversaw 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....
of the country, and Colonel 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...
, who commanded the 5th Division
5th Division (South Vietnam)
The Fifth 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 III Corps that oversaw the region of the country surrounding the capital, Saigon....
based just outside the capital Saigon in Bien Hoa
Bien Hoa
Biên Hòa is a city in Dong Nai province, Vietnam, about east of Ho Chi Minh City , to which Bien Hoa is linked by Vietnam Highway 1.- Demographics :In 1989 the estimated population was over 300,000. In 2005, the population wss 541,495...
. According to Thieu, Mau and Minh had promised to establish a more strongly anti-communist government to expulge Nhu and his wife out of the country and keep Diem as a figurehead president.
In October, the younger officers' plot was integrated into the generals' larger group, which was more likely to succeed, because Khiem and Mau were involved with both groups. The coup was successfully executed on 1 November 1963 under the leadership of Generals Duong Van Minh
Duong Van Minh
Minh was born on 16 February 1916 in Mỹ Tho Province in the Mekong Delta, the son of a wealthy landowner who served in a prominent position in the Finance Ministry of the French colonial administration...
and Tran Van Don
Tran Van Don
Trần Văn Đôn was a general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, and one of the principal figures in the coup d'état which deposed Ngô Đình Diệm from the presidency of South Vietnam.-Family:...
.
When the coup was about to take place, Mau helped to get to weaken loyalist forces. Mau concocted military intelligence reports with false data that claimed that the communist Vietcong were massing outside the capital for an offensive. He then convinced Diem and Nhu to send several companies of ARVN Special Forces personnel out of the capital to fight the communists.
The US had cut off funding for the CIA-trained Special Forces because Diem used them to stop coups, repress dissidents and attack Buddhist pagodas in the capital instead of combating the communists in rural areas. Mau's trick meant that what was effectively a private unit of the Ngo family would be unable to defend them.
Another of Diem's brother, Ngo Dinh Can
Ngo Dinh Can
Ngô Đình Cẩn was a younger brother and confidant of South Vietnam’s first president, Ngo Dinh Diem, and an important member of the Diem government. Diem put Cẩn in charge of central Vietnam, stretching from Phan Thiết in the south to the border at the 17th parallel, with Cẩn ruling the region as...
, began to suspect Mau and told the palace, which told army chief General Tran Thien Khiem
Tran Thien Khiem
General Trần Thiện Khiêm was an officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. During the 1960s he was involved in several coups. He helped President Ngo Dinh Diem put down a November 1960 coup attempt and was rewarded with promotion...
to have Mau arrested. However, Khiem, who was also part of the plot, deliberately procrastinated and Mau remained free. In the meantime, it was too late for the brothers to bring their loyalists back into the capital. Mau helped to organise a lunchtime meeting at Joint General Staff Headquarters at Tan Son Nhut Air Base
Tan Son Nhut Air Base
Tan Son Nhut Air Base was a Republic of Vietnam Air Force facility. It is located near the city of Saigon in southern Vietnam. The United States used it as a major base during the Vietnam War , stationing Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine units there...
and invite senior officers to the event. There, at 13:45 on November 1, the coup was launched, and those who remained loyal to Diem were arrested.
Mau found himself on the opposite side to his nephew and Air Force
Vietnam Air Force
The Vietnam Air Force began with a few hand-picked men chosen to fly alongside French pilots during the State of Vietnam era. It eventually grew into the world’s sixth largest air force at the height of its power, in 1974...
Lieutenant Do Tho, Diem's aide de camp. Late in the evening, Tho accompanied the Ngo brothers as they escaped the rebel siege on Gia Long Palace and absconded to the home of a Chinese supporter in Cholon. The next day the brothers were captured and executed. Tho died in action a few months later in a plane crash.
After the coup was completed, the media found out about the conspiracy organised by Tuyen and Thao that had been more advanced than that of the generals before being integrated into the main plot. Don thought that the younger officers had publicised their well-advanced plot in order to gain personal acclaim and distract attention from the generals' success, so he threatened to have them arrested. Mau intervened to protect them.
Mau was one of the principal tacticians in the coup. He did not explicitly command troops, but had a thorough knowledge of the backgrounds of most of the ARVN officers and their strengths and weaknesses. This had allowed him to help recruit rebels, avoid loyalists and engineer the previous coup. The Military Revolutionary Council (MRC) of General Duong Van Minh
Duong Van Minh
Minh was born on 16 February 1916 in Mỹ Tho Province in the Mekong Delta, the son of a wealthy landowner who served in a prominent position in the Finance Ministry of the French colonial administration...
respected Mau, but their fears about his shrewdness led them to place him in the relatively powerless post of Minister of Information, even though he was one of 12 members of the MRC. Mau's closest aides were posted further away from any real power.
Mau's main responsibility was to stifle anti-government sentiment. Saigon newspapers, which been able to operate liberally in the post-Diem era, reported that the junta was paralysed because all 12 generals in the MRC had equal power. They strongly attacked Prime Minister Nguyen Ngoc Tho
Nguyen Ngoc Tho
Nguyễn Ngọc Thơ is a Vietnamese politician who was the first Prime Minister of South Vietnam, serving from November 1963 to late January 1964. Thơ was appointed to head a civilian cabinet by the military junta of General Dương Văn Minh, which came to power after overthrowing and assassinating Ngô...
, accusing his civilian government of being "tools" of the MRC. They also questioned Tho's activities under Diem's presidency, accusing him of personally benefiting from corruption under Diem's land policy. Mau's ministry had already circulated a long list of topics that were not to be reported on. Tho could no longer withstand what the reporting about him and called journalists into his office and assailed them for what he regarded as inaccurate, irresponsible and disloyal reporting. Tho accused them of lying, and claimed that one of the journalists was a communist while another was a drug addict. He said that his administration would "take steps to meet the situation" if the media did not behave responsibly. The next day Mau's ministry closed down three newspapers for "disloyalty". During this time, Mau enacted the "Golden Rules" to govern media conduct: Do not promote Communism or neutralism. Do not endanger national security or the army's morale. Do not spread false news of any kind. Do not slander individuals. Do not bolster vices.
1964 coup
Disgruntled, Mau began recruiting for a coup against Minh's MRC, sounding out exiles in Cambodia and France as well as those who had returned after the overthrow of Diem. Mau started by targeting General Nguyen KhanhNguyen 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,...
, who was moved from the II Corps
II Corps (South Vietnam)
The II Corps 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 in the ARVN, and it oversaw the region of the central highlands region, north of the capital Saigon...
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....
to 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...
in the far north of South Vietnam. This, it was speculated, was to keep him far away from Saigon. This was contrary to Khanh's request for a transfer to the Mekong Delta
Mekong Delta
The Mekong Delta is the region in southwestern Vietnam where the Mekong River approaches and empties into the sea through a network of distributaries. The Mekong delta region encompasses a large portion of southwestern Vietnam of . The size of the area covered by water depends on the season.The...
close to Saigon. Khanh made no attempt to hide his annoyance at not being given a more important job by the MRC. Khanh had long been regarded as an ambitious and unscrupulous officer by his colleagues, and he had a well-known reputation for switching sides in high-level disputes for personal gain.
The most important link in Mau's plan was Colonel 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 former paratroop commander who had fled to Cambodia in the wake of the failed 1960 coup attempt
1960 South Vietnamese coup attempt
On November 11, 1960, a failed coup attempt against President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam was led by Lieutenant Colonel Vuong Van Dong and Colonel Nguyen Chanh Thi of the Airborne Division of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam ....
against Diem. Mau persuaded the junta to install Thi as Khanh's deputy in I Corps. He tricked the junta into doing so by reasoning that Khanh had largely been responsible for putting down the 1960 revolt and that Thi would be an ideal mechanism for keeping Khanh in check, whom they distrusted. Privately, Mau predicted that Thi would be a bridge between him in Saigon and Khanh in Hue. He was correct in thinking that the 1960 conflict would be irrelevant in the shifting of allegiances of time and that the pair would work together for their current aims. Mau recruited General Tran Thien Khiem
Tran Thien Khiem
General Trần Thiện Khiêm was an officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. During the 1960s he was involved in several coups. He helped President Ngo Dinh Diem put down a November 1960 coup attempt and was rewarded with promotion...
, who had worked with him during the November 1963 coup. Khiem had assisted Diem in putting down the 1960 plot and had since been demoted from being Chief of Staff of the ARVN to the commander of the III Corps
III Corps (South Vietnam)
III Corps 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...
that surrounded Saigon following Diem's fall. Khiem readily joined the plot and controlled the divisions surrounding the capital. Khiem, Khanh and Mau kept in touch surreptitiously on a regular basis, supplementing their forces with an assortment of Marine
Republic of Vietnam Marine Corps
The Republic of Vietnam Marine Corps ) was part of the armed forces of the Republic of Vietnam . It was established by Ngo Dinh Diem in 1954 when he was Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam, which became the Republic of Vietnam in 1955. The longest-serving commander was Lieutenant General Le...
, Air Force and Special Forces officers. Mau also recruited the chief of the Civil Guard, Duong Ngoc Lam who was under investigation by the junta for swindling military funds, and General 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...
, who had recently returned from Paris and was an assistant to General Le Van Kim
Le Van Kim
Lieutenant General Lê Văn Kim is a former general of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. He was the brother in law of General Trần Văn Đôn and together with General Dương Văn Minh, the trio organised the 1963 South Vietnamese coup which toppled President Ngô Đình Diệm and ended in his arrest and...
, the chief of the junta's general staff.
At the time, there was innuendo that some generals in the MRC would become neutralist and stop fighting the communists, and that they were plotting with French President Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
, who supported such a solution in order to remove the US presence. Duc used his French experience to concoct some plausible sounding and incriminating documents for Mau, which purported to show that some junta members were French agents. Some of the documents were leaked to some senior American officials.
On January 1964, troops led by Khanh, Khiem and Thi overthrew the MRC in a bloodless coup. Khanh assumed control of a new junta, and Mau was one three Deputy Prime Ministers, overseeing social and cultural affairs.