Phạm Ngọc Thảo Colonel Phạm Ngọc Thảo ( IPA : , ) , also known as Albert Thảo ( 1922 – 1965 ) , was a communist agent of the Viet Minh ( and , later , of the Vietnam People ' s Army ) 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 Ðình 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 . 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 south and quickly rose through the ranks . Nominally Catholic , Thảo befriended Diệm ' s elder brother , Archbishop Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục — the devoutly Roman Catholic Ngô family strongly favored co - religionists and had great trust in Thảo , unaware that he was still loyal to the communists . He went on to serve as the chief of Bến Tre Province , and gained fame after the area — traditionally a communist stronghold — suddenly became peaceful and prosperous . Vietnamese and American officials , as well as journalists hostile to or supportive of Saigon , misinterpreted this as a testament to Thảo ' s great ability , and he was promoted to a more powerful position where he could further his sabotage . Thảo and the communists in the local area had simply decided to stop fighting , so that the communists could quietly recuperate , while Thảo would appear to be very skillful and be given a more important job where he could do more damage . Through intrigue , Thảo also helped destabilise and ultimately unseat two South Vietnamese regimes — Diem ' s and the military junta of Khánh . As the Diệm regime began to unravel in 1963 , Thảo was one of the officers planning a coup . His plot was ultimately integrated into the successful plot , his activities promoted infighting which weakened the government and distracted the military from fighting the Viet Cong insurgency . Throughout 1964 and 1965 , as South Vietnam was struggling to establish a stable state after the ouster of Diệm , Thảo was involved in several intrigues and coup plots which diverted the government from implementing its programs . In 1965 , he went into hiding after a failed attempt to seize power from Khánh and was sentenced to death " in absentia " . Although this coup also failed , the subsequent chaos forced Khánh ' s junta to collapse . Thảo died the same year he was forced into hiding ; it is believed that he was murdered after a bounty was placed on his head . After Vietnam was reunified at the end of the Vietnam War , the victorious communists claimed Thảo as one of their own and posthumously made him a one - star general . Early Vietminh years . Born Phạm Ngọc Thuần , Thảo was one of eleven children of a northern Vietnamese Roman Catholic family . At the time , Vietnam was a French colony . The family held French citizenship but opposed French colonialism . His father , an engineer , once headed an underground communist organisation in Paris , which assisted the Viet Minh ' s anti - French pro - independence activities outside Vietnam . After attending French schools in Saigon , Thuần changed his named to Thảo and renounced his French citizenship . In his high school years at the Lycée Chasseloup - Laubat , Thảo met Trương Như Tảng , who later became a high - ranking member of the Viet Cong , a communist guerrilla organisation in South Vietnam . Tảng described Thảo as " my dearest friend " and recalled that they had " spent endless hours talking about everything under the sun . We were closer than brothers . " Thảo spent his teenage years obsessed with his motorcycle . Despite being educated at an upper - class school that served children of French colonial administrators and privileged Vietnamese — French was the medium of instruction and Gallic culture and history a major part of the curriculum — Thảo was attracted to nationalist politics . He participated in Hồ Chí Minh ' s revolutionary campaigns for Vietnamese independence and joined the Vietminh . In September 1945 , Hồ declared independence under the Democratic Republic of Vietnam ( DRV ) following the withdrawal of Imperial Japan , which had seized control of the country from France during the Second World War . At the time , there was a power vacuum , as both Japan and France had been decimated by the war . There was an outbreak of nationalist fervour in Vietnam ; Tảng and Thảo joined the Vanguard Youth , an impromptu independence militia . Tảng was assigned to be the leader of the local unit , but he left the movement soon after , leaving Thảo in command . During this period , Saigon was regularly engulfed in riots . In 1946 , France attempted to reassert control over its colony and conventional military fighting broke out . Thảo served with the Vietminh in the Mekong Delta in the far south of Vietnam during the war against French rule from 1946 – 54 . He almost met his end before he had started ; he was apprehended by the local communists in Mỹ Tho , who saw his French - style dress and mistook him for a colonial agent . They tied him up and chained him to a block of stone before throwing him into a river to drown . However , Thảo broke free of the weight and swam to safety . Thảo proceeded further south and deeper into the Mekong Delta to the town of Vĩnh Long , where he was again arrested by the local Vietminh . Just as Thảo was about to be executed by drowning , one of the communists realised he was a brother of one of their comrades . Thảo was released and rejoined his family , who lived in the region . As a leader of the resistance , Thảo was allocated the responsibility of indoctrinating the 1947 batch of recruits with Vietminh ideology . One of Thảo ' s students was his future enemy , South Vietnamese General and President Nguyễn Khánh . This group became the 410th Battalion and went on to fight near Cà Mau , the southernmost part of Vietnam . By 1949 , Thảo was in charge of the Vietminh espionage apparatus around Saigon and organised the guerrilla companies in the countryside . Thảo was also involved in procuring arms . Filipino traders brought arms into southern Vietnam in return for rice , shrimp , pork , gold and banknotes . Following the French defeat in 1954 at Điện Biên Phủ , Thảo helped evacuate communist fighters from South Vietnam and Cambodia in accordance with the terms of the Geneva Conference . Under these Accords , Vietnam was to be temporarily divided at the 17th parallel pending national elections to reunify the country in 1956 , and military personnel were to be evacuated to their respective sides of the border . In the meantime , Hồ Chí Minh ' s Vietminh controlled the north under the DRV while the south was under the French - sponsored State of Vietnam . However , Thảo remained in the anti - communist south when Vietnam was partitioned and made a show of renouncing communism . He became a schoolteacher and later worked in a bank , as well as the Department of Transport . He consistently refused to turn in the names of his former comrades , claiming that they were merely patriots fighting against the French and were not communists . At the same time , one of Thảo ' s brothers had been appointed as North Vietnam ' s ambassador to East Germany , having served as vice chairman of the Vietminh ' s Resistance Committee for the South during the war against the French . In October 1955 , Prime Minister Diệm ousted Emperor Bảo Đại in a fraudulent referendum to determine the form of government of the State of Vietnam . " Republic " received almost 99 % of the vote and " monarchy " received a little over 1 % . Diệm declared himself president of the newly proclaimed Republic of Vietnam . He scrapped the national elections , citing the fact that South Vietnam was not a signatory to the Accords of the Geneva Conference . Undercover communist in the South Vietnamese army . The U . S . - backed Diệm was passionately anti - communist . In 1957 , He initiated an " Anti - Communist Denunciation Campaign " to root out Vietminh members and their sympathisers . Thousands of people were killed or jailed , and in time Diệm ' s campaigns created more sympathy for the Vietminh . Before 1960 , various small - scale pro - Communist uprisings were taking place in the countryside . Thảo went on the run and hid in Vĩnh Long , worried that Diệm ' s men were after him . In December 1960 , North Vietnam ' s Politburo authorised the creation of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam , popularly known as the Viet Cong . The Vietcong were dominated by communists , but portrayed itself as a nationalist militant organisation , stating its aim to be the " reunification of the fatherland " with the overthrow of the " disguised colonial regime of the U . S . imperialists and the dictatorial Ngo Dinh Diem administration " . The creation of the Vietcong marked an escalation in the scale and organisation of the insurgency that developed into the Vietnam War . Thảo ' s Catholic background helped him to avoid detection as a communist . He and his brother were the only members of the family who were not anti - communist . The remainder of the relatives were followers of Diệm ' s brother , Archbishop Thục , who had been Bishop of Vĩnh Long during the war against France . Thảo was known to have a face that revealed nothing of his inner feelings . Thục ' s intervention helped Thảo rise in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam ( ARVN ) . Thục put Thảo in touch with Trần Kim Tuyến , who was in charge of intelligence operations under Diệm ' s younger brother Nhu , who was the head of the secret police and controlled the ARVN Special Forces . Thảo began as a propagandist for various units of the army and for the secret Catholic Cần lao Party , whose system of informants and secret cells helped create the atmosphere of a police state and maintained the Ngô family ' s grip on power . Tảng believed that Thục " undoubtedly considered that Thảo ' s Catholic and family loyalties were stronger and more durable than his youthful enthusiasm for revolution " . He felt that Thảo had tricked Thục into believing that he was no longer a communist , and that his inside knowledge would be useful to the Ngô family . Thảo started by training the Civil Guard . As a result of his family ' s Catholic connections , Thảo rose steadily in the ARVN , since Diệm ' s regime had always promoted officers primarily on religious preference and loyalty . Nhu sent him to Malaysia to study counterinsurgency techniques , and upon his return , Thảo became a vital part of Nhu ' s efforts to purge the army of disloyal officers . As Thảo kept a close watch on those who commanded troops , lest they use their personnel in a coup , the leading officers were keen to maintain a good relationship with him , which increased his effectiveness as a spy . Thảo rose even further when the troops he commanded helped put down the November 1960 coup attempt against Diệm . Thảo assisted Khánh and Trần Thiện Khiêm to put down the revolt . All three were promoted , with the latter pair gaining the leadership of the ARVN and of the combined forces , respectively . This cemented the trio ' s close ties . Thảo was promoted to the post of chief of Bến Tre Province . He covertly worked with the cadres of Nguyễn Thị Định , a Vietcong leader who later became the highest ranking female communist in post - war reunified Vietnam . The area was a traditional communist stronghold , and anti - government attacks had increased in recent times , but it suddenly became peaceful when Thảo arrived . There were rumours that Thảo and the communists had decided to cease fighting for their mutual benefit ; the guerrillas could quietly strengthen themselves , while Thảo would appear to be successful and he would be promoted to a more powerful position where he could cause more damage to Diệm . The lack of fighting between Thảo ' s forces and the Vietcong proved to beneficial to the communist cause . In a three - month period in 1963 , the Vietcong were able to recruit 2 , 000 men in Bến Tre and formed two more battalions . Thảo was praised by the Ngô family and U . S . military advisors , unaware of his ruse . He received another promotion , and with it , more influence and contacts among the officer corps . The US ambassador , Elbridge Durbrow , described Bến Tre Province as an " agricultural showplace " and advised journalists to travel there to see Thảo ' s successful administration . The influential American journalist Joe Alsop changed his plans so that he could spend more time in Bến Tre , saying that the province " particularly inspires hope " . In one operation by Thảo ' s ARVN forces , American field journalists covering the battle saw their hours - long attempt to box in a Vietcong battalion yield only one farmer who lived in a hut with antigovernment slogans . Despite this , the American journalists and Vietnamese officers remained unaware that Thảo was a double agent . In fact , the Pulitzer Prize - winning journalist David Halberstam misinterpreted the lack of attacks in Bến Tre , while other provinces were being ravaged , as proof that Thảo was one the few capable government officials in the Mekong Delta . Journalist Robert Shaplen wrote : " In all respects , Thao is one of the most remarkable Vietnamese around , being a conspiratorial revolutionary figure straight out of a Malraux novel and , at the same time , a highly sophisticated and astute man , whose talents , if only they were properly channeled , could profitably be used right now . " As Thảo was a former leader of the Vietminh , outsiders thought that his apparent success was due his first - hand knowledge of communist tactics . During his period as the province chief , Thảo set up the Council of Elders , a consultative body of 20 – 200 men and women , who were allowed to criticise local officials . He advocated the creation of the Council of Patrons , a philanthropic body to raise money for community projects . Strategic Hamlet Program . In 1962 , Nhu began work on the ambitious Strategic Hamlet Program , an attempt to build fortified villages that would be secure zones for rural Vietnamese . The objective was to lock the Vietcong out so that they could not operate among the villagers . Thảo supervised these efforts , and when told that the peasants resented being forcibly removed from their ancestral lands and put into forts that they were forced to build , he advised Nhu and Tuyến that it was imperative to build as many hamlets as fast as possible . This pleased the Vietcong , who felt that Thảo ' s efforts were turning the rural populace against Saigon . Thảo specifically had villages built in areas that he knew had a strong Vietcong presence . This increased the number of communist sympathisers who were placed inside the hamlets and given identification cards . As a result , the Vietcong were able to more effectively penetrate the villages to access supplies and personnel . Later in 1962 , United States Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara visited South Vietnam and was taken on an inspection tour of the country , accompanied by Diệm and Thảo . Perhaps because Thảo divulged the tour details to Vietcong guerrillas , each of McNamara ' s stopovers was punctuated by bloody attacks on nearby ARVN installations . For example , when McNamara was in Bình Dương Province , five government soldiers were killed . As he flew from Đà Lạt north to Đà Nẵng near the Demilitarized Zone , he was greeted by a Vietcong bombing of a southbound troop train , which killed 27 and wounded 30 Civil Guard members . The fall of Diệm . 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 agent 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 . Participation in military junta . After the fall of the Diệm regime , Thảo was designated by the head of state Minh and the civilian Prime Minister Nguyễn Ngọc Thơ to create the nucleus of a group called the Council of Notables , and promote it to the public . which , as an interim body of prominent civilians , would advise the military junta before it handed over power to an elected legislature under civilian rule . The Council of 60 people , 58 men and 2 women , held its first meeting on 1 January 1964 in Saigon . The council was composed almost entirely of well - known professionals and academics and , as such , was hardly representative of South Vietnamese society ; there were no delegates from the agricultural or labour sectors of the economy . It gained a reputation for being a forum of debate , rather than a means of enacting policy change and government programs for the populace . Thơ and Minh assigned Thảo with the task of encouraging a transition to democracy by facilitating the formation of a few political parties . This was ineffective , as many political parties with only a handful of members sprang up and squabbled . Within 45 days of the coup , 62 parties had formed but nothing meaningful resulted . In the end , these efforts proved to be irrelevant as Minh ' s junta and the accompanying Council of Notables were overthrown before the end of the month . During this period , Thảo served as the head of military security and played a role in replacing Colonel Đỗ Khắc Mai with Nguyễn Cao Kỳ as the head of the Vietnam Air Force . In the aftermath of the coup , Vietcong attacks increased markedly amid infighting among the Saigon leadership , which Thảo had helped to stir up . The generals sent Thảo to Fort Leavenworth in the United States for six months to learn conventional warfare tactics . He also spent a month in England before returning to Vietnam . By this time , Minh ' s junta had been replaced in a 1964 January coup by Khánh . It is suspected that one of the generals ' motives for deploying Thảo overseas was his continual involvement in plotting . Khánh appointed Thảo as his press officer as well as an unofficial political adviser . Later that same year , Khánh became involved in a power struggle with his deputy Khiêm as well as Minh , who had been retained as the titular head of state . Thảo was a close friend of Khiêm , so when Khánh prevailed in the power struggle , Khánh despatched Khiêm to Washington as the ambassador with Thảo was his press attaché . In August 1964 , Khánh ' s leadership became increasingly troubled after he tried to augment his powers by declaring a state of emergency . This only provoked large - scale protests and riots calling for an end to military rule , with Buddhist activists at the forefront . Fearful of losing power , Khánh began making concessions to the protesters and promised democracy in the near future , which encouraged more groups to demand changes , and Khánh demoted certain Catholic pro - Diệm supporters . On 13 September , a Catholic - dominated group led by Generals Lâm Văn Phát and Dương Văn Đức , both of whom had been demoted , moved troops into Saigon but then withdrew after it became obvious they did not have the numbers to remove Khánh . Khiêm and Thảo were implicated in helping to plot Phát and Đức ' s attempted putsch ; both were sent abroad by Khánh . 1965 attempted coup . In late December 1964 , Thảo was summoned back to Saigon by Khánh , who correctly suspected him and Khiêm of plotting together with Washington . Thảo suspected Khánh was attempting to have him killed , so he went underground upon returning to Saigon , and began plotting in earnest , having been threatened with being charged for desertion . He sheltered in a house belonging to a friend of Truong Nhu Tang . The ruling junta appealed to Thảo in newspaper advertisements and broadcasts to follow orders to report , but he ignored them . In mid - January 1965 , the regime called for him to report to his superiors in the ARVN , warning that he would be " considered guilty of abandoning his post with all the consequences of such a situation " if he failed to do so . Due to his Catholic background , Thảo was able to recruit Diệm loyalists such as Phát . With Khánh ' s grip on power shaky , an anonymous source said that Thảo was worried about how he would be treated if someone else took over : " Thao acted first , out of fear that if he did not , the other generals would overthrow Khanh and get rid of him as well . He knew that if the others overthrew Khanh his fate would be worse than Khanh ' s . " During this time , Thảo kept in touch with elements of the CIA in an attempt to get American backing . Meanwhile , Khiêm had been putting pressure on Khánh for over two months by charging him and the Buddhists of seeking a " neutralist solution " and " negotiating with the communists " . At the same time , Khánh ' s relationship with the Americans — particularly Ambassador and retired General Maxwell Taylor — had broken down over a series of policy disputes and personal arguments , and the Americans were trying to encourage Khánh ' s colleagues to overthrow him so that more hawkish policies could be enacted . The other generals wanted to overthrow Khánh and were aware that Thảo — who was widely distrusted — was planning to make a move . They anticipated trouble in trying to keep their subordinates , who were becoming impatient with Khánh ' s ongoing tenure , from joining Thảo . Between January and February , Thảo continued to finalize the details of his own counter - coup , using the contacts he had cultivated over the past decades . Phát and other pro - Diệm officers opposed the Buddhist influence being exerted on Khánh . Thảo consulted Kỳ — who wanted to seize power for himself — before the plot , and exhorted him to join the coup , but the air force chief claimed that he was remaining neutral . Thảo thus believed Kỳ would not intervene against him , but Kỳ was strongly opposed to Thảo and Phát . American intelligence analysts had believed that General Don was involved in the coup with Phát and Thảo , but this was proven false when the action started . Eight months after the coup was over , Don told the American historian George McTurnan Kahin that he had been plotting with Thảo , who had planned for him to become Defense Minister and Chief of Staff of the military , but that the Đại Việt and Thảo ' s Catholic civilian allies had insisted on installing Khiêm , a Catholic . A month before the coup , American intelligence analysts had believed that Thảo was planning to replace Khánh as commander - in - chief with Don . Shortly before noon on 19 February , he used around fifty tanks , their crew and a mixture of infantry battalions to seize control of the military headquarters , the post office and the radio station of Saigon . He surrounded the home of General Khánh and Gia Long Palace , the residence of head of state Phan Khắc Sửu . The tanks were led by Colonel Dương Hiếu Nghĩa , a Catholic member of the Đại Việt . The country was still trying to find stability , with Phan Huy Quát being appointed prime minister just three days earlier . Khánh managed to escape and flee to Vũng Tàu . His plane lifted off from Tan Son Nhut Air Base , the country ' s military headquarters , just as rebel tanks were rolling in , attempting to block the runway . Thảo ' s men tried to capture the Saigon base of the Republic of Vietnam Navy , and its commander , Admiral Chung Tấn Cang , but were foiled , but they did capture a number of junta members at Tan Son Nhut . Thảo made a radio announcement stating that the sole objective of his military operation was to get rid of Khánh , whom he described as a " dictator " . He said that he intended to recall Khiêm to Saigon to lead the Armed Forces Council in place of Khánh , but would retain the civilian cabinet that answered to the generals . In doing so , he caught Khiêm off guard , asleep in his Maryland home . When informed of what was happening , Khiêm sent a cable in which he pledged " total support " to the plot . The coup group made pro - Diệm announcements , claiming then - U . S . Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge , Jr . " was wrong in encouraging the coup against Diem rather than correcting mistakes " . A Catholic rebel officer made a speech extolling Diệm , and mourning his loss . This gave the impression that the coup plotters wanted to roll back the country to a Diệm - era position and punish those who had been involved in Diệm ' s overthrow and execution . Thảo ' s group also promised to aggressively fight the Vietcong and cooperate with the United States . Throughout the day , a series of anti - Khánh speeches were broadcast on radio , and the rebels claimed to have the support of four divisions , something that was regarded as dubious . U . S . government analysts concluded that the rebellion was " primarily a move by die - hard neo - Diemists and Catholic military militants , disturbed at the rise of Buddhist influence , opposed to Gen . Khánh and — in a vague , ill - thought - out way — desirous of turning back the clock and undoing some of the results of the November 1963 ouster of Diem . " Among the civilians linked to Thảo ' s plot were Catholic academics and a militant priest . As Diệm had strongly discriminated along religious lines , the rebels ' commented caused a negative response among the Buddhist majority . The Buddhist activist monk Thich Tam Chau called on Buddhists to support the incumbent junta . The pro - Diệm speeches also alarmed pro - Buddhist and anti - Diệm generals , such as Nguyễn Chánh Thi and Nguyen Huu Co , who had been part of the failed 1960 and successful 1963 coups against Diệm respectively . They thought that Thảo and Phat might seek revenge , driving many anti - Diệm officers who may have otherwise been neutral or sympathetic to the coup , to swing more towards Khánh . Although Taylor and US military commander General William Westmoreland wanted Khánh out , the pro - Diệm political ideology expressed by Thảo ' s supporters alienated them , as they feared that the coup plotters would destabilize and polarize the country if they took power . The Americans worried that Phat and Thảo could galvanize support for Khánh through their extreme views , which had the potential to provoke large - scale sectarian divisions , playing into the hands of the communists and hindering wider American objectives . They were also worried by Thảo ' s intention to remove Quát and the civilian government , whom he saw was " too susceptible to Buddhist peacemongering " . The U . S . saw civilian participation in governance as a necessity . They worried that a Khánh victory would enhance his prestige , so they wanted to see some third force emerge and defeat both the Thảo and Khánh factions . Westmoreland and Taylor decided to work for the failure of both Thảo and Khánh , and helped organize US advisers for the purpose . Phat was supposed to seize the Bien Hoa Air Base to prevent air force chief Kỳ from mobilising air power against them , but he failed to reach the airfield before Kỳ , who circled Tan Son Nhut and threatened to bomb the rebels . Most of the forces of the III and IV Corps surrounding the capital disliked both Khánh and the rebels , and took no action . However as night came , senior military opinion began to turn against Thảo and Phát , although it was not clear at this stage whether the anti - Thảo forces being organised and led by Thi were hostile to Khánh as well . At 20 : 00 , Phát and Thảo met with Kỳ , and insisted that Khánh be removed from power . The coup collapsed when , between midnight and dawn , anti - Thảo forces swept into the city from the south along with some components of the 7th Airborne Brigade loyal to Kỳ from Bien Hoa in the north . Whether the rebels were genuinely defeated by the overwhelming show of strength or whether a deal was struck with Kỳ to end the revolt in exchange for Khánh ' s removal is disputed , although a large majority support the latter . According to the latter version , Phát and Thảo agreed to free the members of the Armed Forces Council that they had arrested and withdraw in exchange for Khánh ' s complete removal from power . Possibly as a means of saving face , Phát and Thảo were given an appointment with the figurehead chief of state Sửu , who was under close control by the junta , to " order " him to sign a decree stripping Khánh of his military leadership , and organizing a meeting of the junta and Prime Minister Quát ' s civilian cabinet . During the early morning , while the radio station was still in the hands of Thảo ' s men , a message attributed to Sửu was read out ; it claimed that the chief of state had sacked Khánh . However , the authenticity of the announcement was put into doubt when loyalists took control of the station and Sửu spoke in person , claiming otherwise . There were no injuries or deaths in the coup . Before fleeing , Thảo broadcast a premature message claiming the coup had been effective in removing Khánh , and the Armed Forces Council later adopted a vote of no confidence in Khánh later that day , and forced him into exile . Later in the morning , while on the run , Thảo made a broadcast using a military radio system to call for Khanh ' s departure and defend his actions , which he described as being in the best interest of the nation . Phat and Thảo were stripped of their ranks , but nothing was initially done as far as prosecuting or sentencing them for their involvement in the coup . In hiding , and death . While in hiding in Catholic villages , Thảo expressed his willingness to surrender and cooperate with Quát ' s government , if he and approximately fifty officers involved in the coup were granted amnesty . He also offered to go into exile in the United States , where his family had moved when he was sent there for training in 1964 . In May 1965 , a military tribunal sentenced both Thảo and Phát to death in absentia . The death sentence was attributed to the influence of Thi , who had assigned hit squads to look for him . After the conclusion of the trial , it was announced that the Armed Forces Council would disband and give the civilians more control in running the government . Thi was believed to have agreed to the transfer of power to a civilian government in return for Thảo ' s death . As a result , Thảo had little choice but to attempt to seize power in order to save himself and he and Thi began to manoeuvre against one another . On 20 May , a half dozen officers and around forty civilians , most or all of whom were Catholic , were arrested on charges of attempting to assassinate Quát and kidnap Thi and Kỳ . Several of the arrested were known supporters of Thảo and believed to be abetting him in evading the authorities . Despite this , Thảo himself managed to escape , even as a US $ 30 , 000 bounty was put on him by the junta . On 16 July 1965 , he was reported dead in unclear circumstances ; an official report claimed that he died of injuries while on a helicopter en route to Saigon , after being captured north of the city . However , it is generally assumed that he was murdered or tortured to death on the orders of some military officials . One report holds that a Catholic priest betrayed Thảo , while another claims General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu caught him . In his memoirs , Kỳ claimed Thảo had been captured by police in Saigon and " died in jail a few weeks later , probably from a beating " . After the Fall of Saigon in 1975 , a conspiracy theory emerged , maintaining that Thảo went underground and worked in counterintelligence for the communist Central Office of South Vietnam , helping to hunt down Vietcong cadres who had defected to Saigon . Legacy . Although Thảo ' s last plot failed , his activities in 1965 and the resultant infighting led to a series of internal purges within the ARVN . Amid the instability , the Vietcong made strong gains across the country throughout the year . In response to the deteriorating military situation , the Americans began to deploy combat troops to South Vietnam in large numbers . Thảo was posthumously promoted by the ARVN to the rank of one – star general and awarded the title of " Heroic war dead " ( ) . After the Fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War , the communist government awarded him the same title and paid war pensions to his family , claiming him as one of their own . In 1981 , the communists had his body exhumed and reburied in the " Patriots ' cemetery " in Ho Chi Minh City ( previously Saigon ) . Tảng believed Thảo " was a man who throughout his life fought single - mindedly for Vietnam ' s independence " . Tảng , who later abandoned communism , said that Thảo " was a nationalist , not an ideologue " , and credited him with turning the military tide towards the communists by helping to bring down Diệm and fomenting chronic instability and infighting for 18 months . Hồ Chí Minh had reacted to Diệm ' s death by saying " I can scarcely believe that the Americans would be so stupid " . A communist report written in March 1965 , soon after Thảo ' s revolt had caused Khánh to depart , stated that " The balance of force . . . has changed very rapidly in our favor . . . . The bulk of the enemy ' s armed forces . . . have disintegrated , and what is left continues to disintegrate " .