page_title: Phạm Ngọc Thảo
section_title: The fall of Diệm
hierarchical_section_title: Phạm Ngọc Thảo / The fall of Diệm
caption_attribution_description: English: Ngô Đình Diệm after he was shot and killed in a 1963 coup
context_page_description: Colonel Phạm Ngọc Thảo, also known as Albert Thảo, was a communist sleeper agent of the Viet Minh who infiltrated the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and also became a major provincial leader in South Vietnam. In 1962, he was made overseer of Ngô Đình Nhu's Strategic Hamlet Program in South Vietnam and deliberately forced it forward at an unsustainable speed, causing the production of poorly equipped and poorly defended villages and the growth of rural resentment toward the regime of President Ngô Đình Diệm, Nhu's elder brother. In light of the failed "land reform" efforts in North Vietnam, the Hanoi government welcomed Thao's efforts to undermine Diem.
  During the First Indochina War, Thảo was a communist officer in the Vietminh and helped oversee various operations in the Mekong Delta in the far south, at one point commanding his future enemy Nguyễn Khánh, who briefly served the communist cause. After the French withdrawal and the partition of Vietnam, Thảo stayed in the south and made a show of renouncing communism. He became part of the military establishment in the anti-communist southern regime and quickly rose through the ranks.
context_section_description: In 1963, the Diệm regime began to lose its tight control over the country as civil unrest spread as a result of the Buddhist crisis. Large scale demonstrations by the Buddhist majority erupted in response to the government shootings of nine Buddhists in Huế who were protesting against a ban on the flying of the Buddhist flag during Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. With Diệm remaining intransigent in the face of Buddhist demands for religious equality, sections of society began calling for his removal from power. Thảo was part of the many plots that engulfed Saigon, destabilising the regime. Aiming for a 15 July coup, Tuyến consulted with Thảo regarding his plans, but Tuyến was too closely associated with Nhu to recruit the necessary military aid and he was subsequently exiled by Nhu.
  Tuyen's group ended up being led by Thảo but his initial coup plans were shelved when American CIA officer Lucien Conein instructed Thảo's superior, General Khiêm, to stop the coup on the grounds that it was premature. Thảo's motivation for involvement in the plotting is generally attributed to communist instructions for him to cause infighting within the ARVN whenever possible. He resumed plotting, intending to stage the coup on 24 October. He had recruited various infantry, marine and paratroop units for his scheme, totalling 3,000 men. Thảo's group did not carry out the coup after senior generals persuaded him to integrate his forces into their larger group, which was more likely to succeed. Thảo reasoned that aligning himself with a group of officers that were likely to successful would yield more influence in the resulting junta. The coup was successfully executed on 1 November 1963 under the leadership of Generals Dương Văn Minh and Trần Văn Đôn.
  Thảo commanded around two dozen tanks, which formed a column in the streets surrounding the Presidential Palace at midnight, and helped launch the full-scale attack at 03:30 on 2 November. The rebels eventually gained control of the building, and at daybreak Thảo's forces stormed the palace, but found it empty; Diệm and Nhu had escaped. A captured officer of the Presidential Guard revealed the brothers' hiding place and under the orders of Khiêm, Thảo went after them. Khiêm ordered Thảo to ensure the brothers were not physically harmed. Thảo arrived at the house in Cholon where the brothers were purportedly hiding and phoned the rebels back at the palace. Diệm and Nhu were apparently listening in on an extension in another room and escaped. The brothers subsequently surrendered to an ARVN convoy led by General Mai Hữu Xuân at a nearby Catholic church and were executed en route to military headquarters despite being promised safe exile.
  The US media's links to Thảo have been the source of historical debate. The journalists' reporting of Diệm's authoritarian rule, military failures, and attacks on Buddhists shifted American public opinion and put pressure on Washington to withdraw support for the Ngô family and seek a change of leadership. William Prochnau felt that the fall of Diệm was the biggest influence of the media on American foreign policy in over six decades. Thảo and Phạm Xuân Ẩn had been the source of much of the media's information. Conservative revisionist historians have accused the media of bringing down Diệm by publishing reports that, according to them, were based on false data disseminated by communist propagandists to unfairly malign Diệm's rule, which they claim was effective and fair towards the Buddhist majority.
caption: The body of Diệm, who was killed en route to military headquarters.
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