Word: diem
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...criticism brought against President Ngo Dinh Diem was that he kept some of his best officers in noncombat jobs for political reasons. One promise made by Diem's successors was to appoint aggressive new commanders and give them a free hand. Last week the first such new commander found him self sacked and ordered to a desk exile that even Diem had not thought of-military attache in Formosa...
Trails of Blood. One month after the death of President Ngo Dinh Diem, South Viet Nam's Communist guerrillas are displaying greater boldness than ever. Viet Cong "incidents" during November averaged 745 per week, double the rate for the preceding ten months, and the Reds are throwing bigger units into battle. In the north at Dakrode, 100 guerrillas assaulted one of the area's strategic hamlets-now renamed "combat hamlets" by the Saigon regime to create a more aggressive image. The attackers blew up barbed-wire defenses and overran the village after 550 montagnard tribesmen defending it fought...
Elsewhere government troops, many under new commanders, counterattacked more vigorously and even seized the initiative. Lieut. General Duong Van Minh and his ruling junta seemed more willing than Diem to risk casualties. In the south, 800 guerrillas staged a predawn assault on Chala, overran half the outpost, but were repulsed by savage machine-gun fire. When paratroopers and B-26 bombers hurried to the rescue, the Reds shot down one B26. Yet the counterblow was effective; villagers reported that the fleeing Viet Cong suffered approximately 400 casualties. Northeast of Saigon, government troops ambushed a Viet Cong battalion, killed or wounded...
After their coup, South Viet Nam's rebels announced that President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, were killed in an armored car when Nhu scuffled with an army captain over a gun. Hardly anyone believed that story. According to a likelier version, the brothers were taken to Joint General Staff Headquarters; Diem refused to announce his resignation and Nhu started cursing-whereupon one of the generals pulled his gun and shot them. In any case, the new government to this day terms their deaths "accidental suicide...
Still a mystery is the whereabouts of the bodies. Fortnight ago, a picture peddler appeared again, this time exhibiting photographs of two coffins, marked Ngo Dinh Diem and Ngo Dinh Nhu, on trestles, with an unidentified army officer standing near by. Other prints showed the coffins, decorated with flowers and candles, beside two freshly dug graves, and a European priest in the foreground along with a Vietnamese man and woman said to be Diem relatives. The site was said to be a cemetery within the compound of Joint General Staff Headquarters...