Nguyen Van Nhung Major Nguyễn Văn Nhung ( 1919 or 1920 – 31 January 1964 ) was an officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam ( ARVN ) . After joining the French Army in 1944 during the colonial era of Vietnam , he soon met and became the " aide - de - camp " and bodyguard of Dương Văn Minh , and spent the rest of his career in this role as Minh rose up the ranks to become a general . Nhung and Minh later transferred to the French - backed Vietnamese National Army ( VNA ) during the First Indochina War and he became an officer ; the VNA then became the ARVN after the creation of the Republic of Vietnam ( South Vietnam ) . A soft - spoken man , Nhung was a professional military hitman who was reputed to have etched a line on his revolver for each of his killings , and ended the lives of 50 people during his career . Nhung was best known for his role in the November 1963 " coup d ' état " led by Minh that ousted President Ngô Đình Diệm from office . At the end of the coup , Nhung executed Diệm and his brother Ngô Đình Nhu , having shot Colonel Lê Quang Tung , the loyalist commander of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces , into a grave at Tân Sơn Nhứt Air Base the day before . An investigation led by General Trần Văn Đôn , another coup plotter , determined that Nhung had repeatedly stabbed and shot the Ngô brothers while escorting them back to military headquarters after having arrested them . It was widely believed that Minh had ordered Nhung to execute the Ngô brothers . Following Nguyễn Khánh ' s successful January 1964 coup against Minh ' s military junta , Nhung died in mysterious circumstances , the only fatality in the regime change . Early career . Nhung was born in either 1919 or early 1920 . At the time , Vietnam was a French colony within French Indochina ; and , in 1944 , Nhung joined the French Army , where he soon met Dương Văn Minh , who became his superior for the next two decades . Nhung would spend most of his career as Minh ' s " aide - de - camp " and bodyguard . He was described as a quiet and slightly built man who smoked a pipe . Following the end of World War II , the French set up the State of Vietnam , an associated state within the French Union , and created the Vietnamese National Army ( VNA ) , and both Minh and Nhung transferred to the VNA , where they were trained and commissioned as officers . As of November 1963 , Nhung had risen to the rank of captain . Tung assassination . On 1 November 1963 , a group of ARVN generals , led by Minh , orchestrated a coup against President Ngô Đình Diệm . The plotters summoned a group of ARVN officers to the Joint General Staff headquarters at Tân Sơn Nhứt Air Base , on the pretext that they were going to attend a lunch meeting . Among those invited was the loyalist commander of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces , Colonel Lê Quang Tung . At 13 : 30 ( UTC 06 : 30 ) , General Trần Văn Đôn announced that a coup was taking place . Most of the officers rose to applaud , but Tung did not , refusing to join the coup . He was taken away by Nhung , all the while shouting , “ Remember who gave you your stars ! ” At 16 : 45 , Tung was forced at gunpoint to talk to Diệm on the phone , telling the president that he had ordered his special forces to surrender . Minh then ordered Nhung to execute the Diệm loyalist . Tung had failed to convince the president to surrender and still commanded the loyalty of his men . The other generals had little sympathy for Tung , because the special forces ' commander had disguised his men in regular army uniforms and framed the generals for the Xá Lợi pagoda raids in August . The generals were well aware of the threat that Tung posed ; they had discussed his elimination during their planning , having contemplated waging an offensive against his special forces . At nightfall , Nhung took Tung , and his brother and deputy , Major Lê Quang Triệu , with their hands tied , to a jeep and drove them to the edge of the air base . Forced to kneel over two freshly dug holes , the brothers were shot into their graves and buried . Diệm and Nhu assassination . By the next morning , the loyalist forces had collapsed . Diệm and his younger brother and chief adviser , Ngô Đình Nhu , agreed to surrender , and coup plotter Đôn promised them safe passage out of the country . In the meantime , Minh left Joint General Staff ( JGS ) headquarters and travelled to Gia Long Palace in a sedan , accompanied by Nhung . He arrived at the palace at 08 : 00 in full military uniform to supervise the arrest of Diệm and Nhu for the surrender ceremony . However , the Ngô brothers were not there — they had escaped from Gia Long Palace via a secret tunnel to a safehouse in Cholon the previous night . Diệm and Nhu had communicated with the generals via a direct phone link from the safehouse to the palace , giving the false impression that they were still besieged . Having been informed of Diệm and Nhu ’ s whereabouts , Minh dispatched a group of officers and troops — which included Nhung — to arrest them . He was aware that the brothers had left the safehouse to go to St . Francis Xavier ’ s Church . Led by General Mai Hữu Xuân , the officers took an M - 113 armoured personnel carrier ( APC ) , four jeeps , and several soldiers to Cholon . As they left , Minh gestured to Nhung with two fingers , taken to be an order to shoot the brothers . The soldiers arrived at the church and promptly arrested the brothers , tying them with their hands behind their backs . After the arrest , Nhung and Major Dương Hiếu Nghĩa sat with Diệm and Nhu inside the APC , and the convoy departed for Tân Sơn Nhứt . They stopped at a railroad crossing on the return trip where , by all accounts , the brothers were assassinated . An investigation by Đôn later determined that Nghĩa had shot the brothers at point - blank range with a semi - automatic firearm and that Nhung sprayed them with bullets before repeatedly stabbing their bodies with a knife . During the journey back , Nghĩa gave his account of the assassinations to military headquarters : “ As we rode back to the Joint General Staff headquarters , Diệm sat silently , but Nhu and the captain [ Nhung ] began to insult each other . I don ’ t know who started it . The name - calling grew passionate . The captain had hated Nhu before . Now he was charged with emotion . ” When the convoy reached a train crossing , Nghĩa said that Nhung “ lunged at Nhu with a bayonet and stabbed him again and again , maybe fifteen or twenty times . Still in a rage , he turned to Diệm , took out his revolver and shot him in the head . Then he looked back at Nhu , who was lying on the floor , twitching . He put a bullet into his head too . Neither Diệm nor Nhu ever defended themselves . Their hands were tied . ” Đôn and other officers were stunned when the corpses arrived at JGS headquarters . Đôn confronted Minh in his office , and while they were remonstrating , Xuân entered the room . Unaware of Đôn ’ s presence , Xuân snapped to attention and stated in French , " “ Mission accomplie ” " . Despite Đôn ' s investigation , no one was ever charged with the killings . Death . Following the coup , Nhung ' s commanding officer , General Minh , became the President of South Vietnam , ruling through a military junta known as the Military Revolutionary Council . After three months of rule , which was criticised for its lack of direction , General Nguyễn Khánh deposed Minh in a bloodless coup before dawn on 30 January 1964 . Minh was briefly put under house arrest , and the next day , reports surfaced that Nhung was dead , the only fatality in the coup or its aftermath . There was initially confusion as various conflicting reports of Nhung ' s demise surfaced , one source telling journalists that Nhung lived in a cottage within the grounds of Minh ' s villa and shot himself outside his house . These informants speculated that Nhung committed suicide to avoid having to live to see Minh being demoted or humiliated . The time of this incident was reported to be 21 : 00 . Other reports at the time said that Nhung was found dead as a result of strangulation at the Joint General Staff headquarters . According to variations of this line , Nhung either hanged himself in custody or was murdered by an unknown hand . More recently , historians have come to believe that Khánh ordered that Nhung be liquidated and that the earlier reports were deliberately false material disseminated by Khánh through his subordinates . According to this now - established account , one of Khánh ' s men took Nhung to the garden of a Saigon villa and forced him to kneel , before executing him with a single gunshot to the back of the head . Nhung ' s death led to protests among the Saigon public , who took the killing to be a signal that the remaining members of Diệm ' s regime would be reinstated to positions of authority . Nhung was buried on 1 February , the day after his death , in the presence of family and friends , at Gia Đính cemetery . Nhung ' s death was never formally investigated by an independent body and the official line of suicide continued to be propagated . Minh was said to have been deeply affected by the loss of his long - time aide , and it was reported that the general erected an altar dedicated to Nhung ' s memory in his office , with the major ' s portrait on it . Shortly after the coup , Khánh made Minh the figurehead head of state under American advice , hoping that the presence of the popular general would help to unify the armed forces , but Minh made little attempt to help Khánh , partly because of resentment over the loss of his aide .