Word: coups
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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When a group of disaffected South Vietnamese paratroopers attempted a coup against Diem three years ago, one of their first demands was that...
...confusion; deliberate disorganization is his way of keeping possible enemies off balance. Cabinet ministers are undercut by a system of "superior subordinates." who actually outrank their nominal bosses because they get orders direct from the palace. But there is serious doubt whether any of this would change after a coup...
...would make a bid for power, and some Americans think that he might be more efficient, having shown administrative ability in the strategic-hamlets program. But the U.S. still doubts that any of the available alternatives to Diem would be a real improvement. American policymakers also suspect that a coup would only set off a chain reaction of other coups until some strongman finally emerged, and that in the meantime there would result a power vacuum in which only the Viet Cong could operate...
...Saigon cocktail parties, Army Boss General Hinh used to threaten a coup almost daily and joke that when he overthrew the government he would exile every member of Diem's family except Mme. Nhu, whom, he said, he would keep as a concubine. One day Mme. Nhu finally met Hinh face to face at a party. She walked over to him, recalls an observer, and said: "You are never going to overthrow this government because you don't have the guts. And if you do overthrow it, you will never have me because I will claw your throat out first...
...last week, when Syria experienced its twelfth attempted coup d'état in 14 years and the only one to throw away the script. Led by ex-Colonel Jassem Alwan, who had already staged an unsuccessful coup last year, a band of army officers and civilians launched a morning attack in Damascus on the radio station and the Defense Ministry. Diplomats in Britain's new green and yellow embassy got off a cable home: "Heavy fighting in the heart of the city...