Word: ngo
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Essence of what the French called "total agreement": 1) France said it would loyally support Nationalist Premier Ngo Dinh Diem, 2) the U.S., with unconcealed distaste for Bao Dai, agreed that he should stay on as absentee chief of state until a Vietnamese assembly could be elected to decide his fate...
...Free Viet Nam is immortal! Righteous nationalism will triumph!" cried Premier Ngo Dinh Diem last week as his elated young troops cleared his enemies out of Saigon. In the streets of the city, "Da Dao Bao Dai" (Down with Bao Dai) was now the throbbing cry. As for Chief of State Bao Dai during this dark hour in his young nation's history, he continued to make his Valley Forge in sunny Cannes...
...showdown began at siesta time on a warm, summery day. Premier Ngo Dinh Diem was sitting down to a late lunch at Freedom Palace when nine 81-mm. mortar shells thumped down around the grounds, killing a civilian and wounding a couple of soldiers. The Premier rushed to the phone. "The palace is being shelled," he told French Commissioner-General Paul Ely, his voice disrupted on the line by adjacent explosions...
Twenty-five minutes later, more mortar shells dropped into the palace, and the private army of the Binh Xuyen, 2,000 terrorists in arsenic-green berets, opened concerted fire against three main Vietnamese Nationalist strongpoints. Ngo Dinh Diem, long criticized for pacifism and procrastination, first ordered counterfire against the Binh Xuyen defenses. One hour later he sharply raised the stakes, and told the army to clear the Binh Xuyen out of the city...
...shroud of smoke, the Nationalists concentrated four battalions and 18 armored cars against the sandbagged Binh Xuyen strongpoints. In the European quarter, French colonials and a few Americans sipped apéritifs on balconies and watched the distant show-most Frenchmen rooting for the terrorists and most Americans for Ngo Dinh Diem. Soon the news looked bad for the French: the young Nationalists, it seemed, were fighting with efficiency and fervor. During the night the Nationalists attacked and knocked out half a dozen Binh Xuyen strongpoints, one after the other. Paratroopers stormed the big Binh Xuyen garrison at Petrusky High...