Word: minh
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Minh, 59, has long been one of South Viet Nam's most durable and well-liked leaders. A southerner, born in My Tho, 35 miles southwest of Saigon, and a Buddhist, he was educated in a French lycee and served in the French colonial army. He was once a student of President Tran Van Huong, whom he generally addresses by the respectful term "Master." Imprisoned by the Japanese during World War II, Minh had half of his teeth yanked out by torturers. He now wears a bridge...
Under the Diem regime, Minh gained renown as a brave "soldier's soldier" in the campaign he led in the 1950s against the notorious Binh Xuyen bandits, a kind of Vietnamese Cosa Nostra (also known as the "whorehouse gang") that pillaged the countryside and controlled vice in Saigon. Blunt, athletic and honest, he was given the sobriquet "Big" by U.S. military advisers because he was unusually large for a Vietnamese-nearly 6 ft. tall and 200 Ibs. Minh impressed Diem and in 1958 was appointed the first boss of a field-operations command that coordinated the mounting war against...
After Diem was executed in the 1963 coup, Minh became chief of state. He was ousted a mere three months later, having proved himself to be an ineffective administrator, and went into exile in Thailand. When he attempted to return in 1965, the tower at Saigon's Tan Son Nhut airport refused to grant his plane landing clearance; he had to return, humiliated to Bangkok. Three years later, Thieu-in what he described as part of a move toward national reconciliation-invited Minh back to Saigon. There Minh bided his time, tending the orchid garden at his spacious villa...
Portraits of Ho Chi Minh abound, as do Viet Cong flags. The ten rules of behavior for soldiers (be polite to people, respect their property, among others) are posted everywhere. Moviehouses show revolutionary films exclusively. Schoolteachers are being "re-educated" to teach the new Marxist credo. ARVN officers who did not manage to escape are being held in custody, but enlisted men so far have only to carry an identity card issued by the P.R.G...
During World War II, Tra at first led a 200-man guerrilla band near the Laotian border but rose rapidly in the ranks of the Viet Minh, the Communist-led liberation movement. In 1945, as the leader of a Viet Minh force that occupied the imperial capital of Hue, he was quartered in the former French Resident's master bedroom. After the first night, Tra complained that the bed was too soft; he wound up sleeping on the floor. In 1946 Tra became chief of staff of the Viet Minh in central Viet Nam. Not long after...