Ngo Dinh Diem

Killed on 2 November 1963 in Saigon by officers of the coup that the United States had signalled it would not oppose; the president of South Vietnam died with his brother in an armored carrier.

Overview

Diem, the Catholic mandarin president backed by Washington since 1955, had lost Buddhist support after the Thich Quang Duc self-immolation and the pagodas raids by his brother secret police, while the strategic hamlet program faltered against the Viet Cong insurgency. Generals led by Duong Van Minh seized the joint general staff on 1 November; the American cables of the day made clear a coup would not be defended against. Captured at St Francis Xavier church in Cholon, Diem and brother Nhu were shot and stabbed in the personnel carrier en route to headquarters. Kennedy, recorded as shocked by the murders, was himself killed three weeks later. The revolving-door juntas that followed crippled South Vietnam through 1967, to the advantage of Hanoi.