Ngo Dinh Nhu - Coup and Death

Coup and Death

By this time, Diệm and Nhu knew that a group of ARVN generals and colonels were planning a coup, but didn't know Tôn Thất Đính was among them. Nhu ordered Đính and Tung to plan a fake coup against the Ngo family. One of Nhu's objectives was to trick dissidents into joining the false uprising so that they could be identified and eliminated. Another objective of the stunt was to give a false impression of the strength of the regime.

Codenamed Operation Bravo, the first stage of the scheme would involve some of Tung's loyalist soldiers, disguised as insurgents led by apparently renegade junior officers, faking a coup and vandalising the capital. During the orchestrated chaos of the first coup, the disguised loyalists would riot and in the ensuing mayhem, kill the leading coup plotters, such as Generals Dương Văn Minh, Trần Văn Đôn, Lê Văn Kim and junior officers assisting them. The loyalists and some of Nhu's underworld connections were also to kill some figures who were assisting the conspirators, such as the titular but relatively powerless Vice President Nguyễn Ngọc Thơ, CIA agent Lucien Conein, who was on assignment in Vietnam as a military adviser, and Lodge. These would then be blamed on "neutralist and pro-communist elements". Tung would then announce the formation of a "revolutionary government" consisting of opposition activists who had not consented to being named in the government, while Diệm and Nhu would pretend to be on the run and move to Vũng Tàu. A fake "counter-coup" was to follow, whereupon Tung's men, having left Saigon on the pretext of fighting communists, as well as Đình's forces, would triumphantly re-enter Saigon to reaffirm the Diệm regime. Nhu would then round up opposition figures.

Đình was put in charge of the fake coup and was allowed the additional control of the 7th Division based in Mỹ Tho, south of the capital, which was previously assigned to Diệm loyalist General Huỳnh Văn Cao, who was in charge of the IV Corps in the Mekong Delta. The reassignment of the 7th Division to Đính gave his III Corps complete encirclement of Saigon. The encirclement would prevent Cao from storming the capital to save Diệm as he had done during the 1960 coup attempt.

Nhu and Tung, remained unaware of Đình's switch in loyalties and were fooled. Đình told them fresh troops were needed in the capital, opining that "If we move reserves into the city, the Americans will be angry. They'll complain that we're not fighting the war. So we must camouflage our plan by sending the special forces out to the country. That will deceive them." Nhu had no idea that Đình's real intention was to engulf Saigon with rebel units and lock Tung's loyalists in the countryside where they could not defend the Ngô family. Tung and Nhu agreed to send all four Saigon-based special forces companies out of the capital on 29 October 1963.

On 1 November 1963, the real coup went ahead, with Cao and Tung's troops isolated outside Saigon, unable to rescue Diệm and Nhu from the rebel encirclement. By the time the Ngô brothers realised that coup was not the fake action organised by the loyalists, Tung had been called to the Joint General Staff headquarters at the airbase, under the pretense of a routine meeting, and was seized and executed. Attempts by Diệm and Nhu to make contact with Đình were blocked by other generals, whose staff claimed that Đình was elsewhere, leading Nhu and Diệm to believe he had been captured. Around 20:00, with the Presidential Guard hopelessly outnumbered, Diệm and Nhu hurriedly packed and escaped the palace, with two loyalists: Cao Xuân Vy, head of Nhu's Republican Youth, and Air Force Lieutenant Ðỗ Thơ, Diệm's aide-de-camp. Thơ's uncle was Colonel Ðỗ Mậu, the director of military security and a participant in the coup plot. The brothers were believed to have escaped through a secret tunnel, and emerged in a wooded area in a nearby park, where they were picked up and taken to a supporter's house in the Chinese merchant district of Cholon. Nhu was reported to have suggested to Diệm that the brothers split up, arguing that this would enhance their chances of survival. Nhu proposed that one travel to join Cao's IV Corps, while the other would go to the II Corps of General Nguyễn Khánh in the central highlands. Nhu believed the rebel generals would not dare kill one of them while the other was free, in case the surviving brother were to regain power. Diệm turned down this idea.

The brothers sought asylum from the embassy of the Republic of China, but were turned down and stayed in the safehouse as they appealed to ARVN loyalists and attempted to negotiate with the coup leaders. Nhu's agents had fitted the home with a direct phone line to the palace, so the coup generals believed that the brothers were still besieged inside Gia Long. Neither the rebels nor the loyalist Presidential Guard had any idea that at 21:00 they were about to fight for an empty building, leading to futile deaths. Diem and Nhu refused to surrender, so the 5th Division of Colonel Nguyễn Văn Thiệu besieged the palace and captured it by dawn.

In the early morning of 2 November, Diệm and Nhu agreed to surrender. The ARVN officers had promised the Ngô brothers safe exile and an "honorable retirement". The U.S. did not want Diệm and Nhu near Vietnam "because of the plots they will mount to try to regain power". When Dương Văn Minh found the palace empty, he was angered, but was soon informed of the Ngô brothers' location. Nhu and Diệm fled to the nearby Catholic Church of St. Francis Xavier, where they were taken into custody and put into an armoured personnel carrier, to be taken back to military headquarters. The convoy was led by General Mai Hữu Xuân and the brothers were guarded inside the APC by Major Dương Hiếu Nghĩa and Captain Nguyễn Văn Nhung, Minh's bodyguard. Before the convoy had departed for the church, Minh was reported to have gestured to Nhung with two fingers. This was taken to be an order to kill both brothers. An investigation by General Trần Văn Đôn later determined that Nghĩa shot the brothers at point-blank range with a semi-automatic firearm and that Nhung sprayed them with bullets before repeatedly stabbing the bodies with a knife.

Nghia gave his account of what occurred during the journey back to the military headquarters: "As we rode back to the Joint General Staff headquarters, Diệm sat silently, but Nhu and the captain began to insult each other. I don't know who started it. The name-calling grew passionate. The captain had hated Nhu before. Now he was charged with emotion." Nghia said that " lunged at Nhu with a bayonet and stabbed him again and again, maybe fifteen or twenty times. Still in a rage, he turned to Diệm, took out his revolver and shot him in the head. Then he looked back at Nhu, who was lying on the floor, twitching. He put a bullet into his head too. Neither Diệm nor Nhu ever defended themselves. Their hands were tied." According to historian Howard Jones, the fact "that the killings failed to make the brothers into martyrs constituted a vivid testimonial to the depth of popular hatred they had aroused." Some months later, Minh reportedly confided to an American source that "We had no alternative. They had to be killed. Diệm could not be allowed to live because he was too much respected among simple, gullible people in the countryside, especially the Catholics and the refugees. We had to kill Nhu because he was so widely feared—and he had created organizations that were the arms of his personal power."

The two brothers (Nhu and Diệm) were buried by the junta in a location that remains unknown. The speculated burial places include a military prison, a local cemetery, and the grounds of the JGS headquarters at Tan Son Nhut; there are also reports of cremation.