Word: coups
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Trip Postponed. As if that weren't enough, the Premier was next challenged by an angry delegation of Catholics headed by fiery Father Hoang Quynh. Quynh was burning over Quat's arrests of Catholics following last month's "coup attempt" (TIME, May 28). He was particularly incensed at Quat's contention that the Catholics had been in league with the Viet Cong in the plot. "Such a claim is ridiculous," Quynh snapped, "since Catholics would never work with Communists...
Quynh's militants demanded that Quat be dismissed, but since the Premier retains the support of the military and the nation's Buddhists, it was clearly the most serious crisis the government had faced since the abortive Feb. 19 coup. Indeed, it was serious enough for U.S. Ambassador Maxwell Taylor to postpone a trip to Washington until the situation settled down...
...there stood the government tanks in a protective cordon around national police headquarters; and there came the worried voice of the Premier over the radio, urging calm and asking help from all to "eliminate the traitors so as to maintain the stability which is necessary for final victory." Another coup had been nipped...
This one, according to Premier Phan Huy Quat, was instigated by the same group of dissident Catholic army officers who engineered the abortive coup d'état of Feb. 19-an upheaval that failed in its main purpose, but ultimately led to the ouster of goateed General Nguyen Khanh. Quat claimed that "rebels" this time had infiltrated his bodyguard and planned to assassinate him. Less believable was the government charge that two Viet Cong battalions were standing in the wings, ready to move into Saigon during the confusion that certainly would have followed...
Whether Quat's charges were true or not, one thing was sadly certain: the coup attempt and mass arrests shattered the fragile filigree of stability that had marked Quat's 14-week-old civilian regime and ended the restless truce between South Viet Nam's warring Buddhists and Catholics. Quat was forced to postpone the Cabinet reshuffle, planned for last week, that would have eliminated the last two military members of his government. At week's end the capital seethed with plots and counterplots, and few doubted that there would be an encore...