Word: khiem
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They demanded the removal from Saigon's ruling triumvirate of Lieut. General Tran Thien Khiem, long a friend of Khanh and the man who planned and executed both the coup against Ngo Dinh Diem last November and Khanh's coup against General Duong Van ("Big") Minh in January. With a shrug, Khanh accepted the demands and promptly announced that Khiem would depart immediately for Paris and a protracted tour of countries aiding South Viet Nam in its war against the Viet Cong. Khanh hoped this further accommodation might still the noisy protests of his critics...
...wake of Khanh's departure. Harvard-educated Acting Premier Nguyen Xuan Oanh (known as Jack Owen) had only been going through the motions of governing, in fact wielded no real authority. The "triumvirate" of Khanh, General Duong Van ("Big") Minh and Defense Minister General Tran Thien Khiem, which supposedly replaced Khanh's junta, was not really working. The students were still restive, and the Buddhists were demanding-successfully, as it turned out-that all of their partisans jailed during the demonstrations be freed...
Jerry-Built Compromise. The generals meanwhile arrived at a jerry-built compromise: a triumvirate composed of Khanh, Big Minh and Defense Minister General Tran Thien Khiem should run the country for two months. Big Minh was included to placate the Buddhists, Khiem to please certain army factions. A bespectacled, tight-lipped cold fish, who served Diem as a division commander in the embattled south, Khiem, 39, was among the generals who turned against Diem. Last January, as commander of troops surrounding Saigon, Khiem made possible Khanh's coup, but has since become his foremost challenger...
...overlooking Cap St. Jacques on the South China Sea, 58 officers of South Viet Nam's Military Revolutionary Council sat on hard, schoolroom-style chairs and scribbled their votes on the ballots. A colonel chalked up the results on a blackboard: Khanh, 50; Defense Minister General Tran Thien Khiem, 5; General Duong Van ("Big") Minh, 1; General Do Cao Tri, 1: blank ballot...
...Minh, whom Buddhists and leaders of the nationalist Dai Viet Party had wanted to maneuver back into authority, hoping to use him as their puppet. At the same time, Khanh won over one of his most important and dangerous rivals, Defense Minister General Khiem, who got a fourth star and decided to throw in his lot with the Chairman-for the time being at least. Asked whether he was now a dictator, Khanh replied quizzically: "For six months I have been head of a totalitarian regime without being totalitarian. I can head a dictatorial regime without being a dictator...