Word: diem
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...boom of temple gongs. Appeals for aid were broadcast to President Kennedy, Pope Paul VI, and U.N. Secretary-General U Thant. At a grisly, well-organized press conference in Saigon, Buddhist leaders introduced a tiny, withered Buddhist nun as a candidate for self-immolation in protest against the Diem government. When one Buddhist spokesman who had studied at Yale wanted to pass out the latest communiqués from the pagoda, he would stroll up to a Yale-educated U.S. newsman and say: "Boola, boola...
...early phases of the quarrel, Diem probably could and should have conciliated the Buddhists. But he vacillated. His brother and sister-in-law, Ngo Dinh Nhu and Mme. Nhu, insisted that unless the Buddhists were crushed, there would be a coup threatening the very existence of the family's rule. Mme. Nhu's fiery philippics lent impetus to the Buddhist movement just as it appeared to be flagging. By last week, after three Buddhist suicides spurred new protest demonstrations throughout the country, it was clearly too late for conciliation. Even if Diem had wanted it, the Buddhist leaders...
...Diem still seemed in complete charge and in a cable to the New York Herald Tribune's Marguerite Higgins he declared, "I trust in the army and in fact I maintain control over the situation." But it looked increasingly likely that the key figure behind the government's move had been Brother Nhu, head of the 10,000-strong special forces and secret police. For weeks there had been hints that he might try a coup of his own-supposedly to forestall the anti-Diem coup that he kept predicting unless the Buddhists were put down. Any change...
...special forces that sacked the pagodas; regular army troops were only called in after the job was done to help keep order. Theoretically, under the martial law proclamation, it is now the army that runs the country, and, again theoretically, Diem placed top authority in Major General Tran Van Don, 46, a highly respected, onetime corps commander who has had great military success against the Viet Cong. But Don may merely be a figurehead. Hostile to the government, he was pulled out of his field command last December and kicked upstairs to a staff job, where he would have...
...Diem and Nhu evidently intended to vest real military power in another, very different officer, whose loyalty the Ngo family can count on, Colonel Le Quang Tung, commander under Nhu of the special forces. A devout Catholic, Tung comes from central Viet Nam, birthplace of the Ngo family, apparently has no political ambitions, and was once a top official in Nhu's secret organization, the Can Lao Party. As long as a month ago, large units of special forces were moved into Saigon under Colonel Tung's command. The big question is whether Tung can keep control...