Nguyễn Khánh (}; 8 November 192711 January 2013) was a Vietnamese military officer and politician. A general of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, he was the leader of South Vietnam from January 1964 until February 1965 while at the head of a military junta, serving during that time in various capacities, alternatively as head of state and as prime minister. He was involved in or against many coup attempts, failed and successful, from 1960 until his defeat and exile from South Vietnam in 1965. Khánh lived out his later years with his family in exile in the United States. He died in 2013 in San Jose, California, at age 85.
Early life and education
Khánh was born in Trà Vinh in the Mekong Delta region in the far south of Vietnam (then under jurisdiction of the French Cochinchina). His mother was a property manager in the Central Highlands resort town of Đà Lạt, and lived away from the family home in the deep south. Khánh's father was a wealthy landlord who lived in the Mekong Delta with a mistress, the popular cải lương performer Phùng Há. Khánh was brought up by his de facto stepmother. Trà Vinh is a border town near Cambodia and the family moved between both countries. Khánh began his education in Cambodia and when he grew up, he moved to Saigon to study at an elite French school, boarding with wealthy relatives. They started with only pieces of bamboo and had to capture or steal their weapons. Another account says that Khánh's unit was relieved by a larger and stronger unit that was better trained and indoctrinated in communist ideology, and that Khánh's band were "too tired" after their tour of duty and did not have the "proper discipline".
In 1946, he graduated from the French Military Academy Saint-Cyr/Coëtquidan and was promoted to "Indochine", and the Ecole des Troupes Aéroportées (Airborne forces) in France. In 1947, he graduated from the Vien Dong (Dap Da) Military Academy and Saumur (France) Military Academy, with the rank of lieutenant. His first assignment was as a Platoon Leader of the 1st Battalion, Attaché Officer to the Prime Minister.
Early years in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam
Khánh then joined the Vietnamese National Army (VNA) of the French-backed State of Vietnam under the leadership of former Emperor Bảo Đại. The State of Vietnam was an associated state of the French Union and fought in the First Indochina War alongside French forces against the Việt Minh.
Khánh was part of the first batch of Vietnamese officers trained by the French in the country. Of the 17 students who started the course, only 11 passed.
From 1949 to 1952, he was a lieutenant and commanded the first airborne unit in the VNA after being sent to France for training. In another interview with Karnow in 1981, Khánh stated he became disillusioned when he learned that as an Asian man the French would always look down on him, which led him to favor the idea of a "third force" of anti-Communist Vietnamese nationalists who would be equally opposed to the French. In 1957, he was chosen to attend the US Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas,
Anti-coup loyalist in 1960
In November 1960, mutinous paratroopers attempted to depose Diệm, and laid siege to Gia Long Palace. Khánh arrived on the scene and climbed over the palace wall to reach Diệm during the siege. During the standoff, Khánh met with rebel officers to keep abreast of their demands that Diệm share power. He then advised Diệm to resign due to the demands of the rebel forces and protestors outside the palace, but the president refused. Diệm advised Khánh to continue negotiating, and a ceasefire was organised. Diệm promised reforms,
Khánh's actions gained him a reputation of having helped the president, but he was later criticised for having a foot in both camps. Critics claimed that Khánh had been on good terms with the rebels and decided against rebelling when it was clear that Diệm would win. Khánh was later dispatched to the Central Highlands as the commander of the II Corps. His American advisers were impressed with him and regarded him as an effective force against the Việt Cộng. Khánh also tried to win over the indigenous Montagnard tribesmen, trying to learn their languages. In mid-December he was moved from the II Corps in the central highlands to the command of the I Corps of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, based around Huế and Đà Nẵng in the far north of the Republic of Vietnam. This, it was speculated, was to keep him as far away from Saigon as possible, as he was regarded by the others as being untrustworthy.
This was contrary to Khánh's request for a transfer to the IV Corps in the Mekong Delta close to Saigon, where most of the unconventional fighting was taking place. In an interview with journalist Robert Shaplen, Khánh made no attempt to hide his annoyance at not being given a more important job. With respect to the 1963 coup, he cryptically commented,
"It is too soon yet to tell the whole story, but someday I will tell it to you". He claimed he had built up intelligence infrastructure to weed out the Việt Cộng under Diệm's rule, but that the other generals had disbanded it and released communist prisoners. All twelve generals in the MRC had equal power and the power of veto. The press strongly attacked Thơ, accusing his government of being "tools" of the MRC. Minh was criticised for being lethargic and uninterested in running the country, while communist attacks increased and the military situation deteriorated.
At the end of December, Khánh was approached by General Đỗ Mậu, one of the principal tacticians in the removal of Diệm. Mậu had been the head of military security under Diệm and had a deep understanding of most of the senior officers and their strengths and weaknesses. Khiêm, Khánh and Mậu kept in touch surreptitiously on a regular basis, supplementing their forces with an assortment of Marine, Air Force and Special Forces officers. Another notable recruit was the chief of the Civil Guard, Dương Ngọc Lâm. He was under investigation by the junta for swindling military funds and was readily converted. Another was General Dương Văn Đức, who had recently returned from exile in Paris.
At the time, there was innuendo that the MRC would become neutralist and stop fighting the communists, and that they were plotting with French President Charles de Gaulle, who supported such a solution in order to remove the US presence. De Gaulle had just recognized the People's Republic of China as the legitimate government of China, a move that angered the US government, which still recognized the Republic of China on Taiwan as the rightful government of China, and was supporting the neutralization of South East Asia. The French recognition of the People's Republic of China led American officials to see de Gaulle's neutralist plans as pro-communist. Khánh's allies concocted documents purporting to show that Generals Minh, Lê Văn Kim and Trần Văn Đôn were making neutralist moves, and the papers were leaked to some senior American officials. Khánh sometimes plotted while in Saigon on military affairs, and told various American officials that Đôn, Kim and General Mai Hữu Xuân, along with Minh, were "pro-French and pro-neutralist" and part of de Gaulle's plan. Khánh claimed the fact that Đôn had invited two members of the French National Assembly, both from de Gaulle's party, to dine with him, Kim and Minh as proof. The American ambassador in Saigon, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., believed in the rumors that Kim and Đôn favored neutrality for South Vietnam in the Cold War.
On 28 January, Khánh flew from Huế to Saigon in civilian clothes, ostensibly for a dental appointment.
Before dawn on 30 January, Khánh surrounded the military headquarters at Tân Sơn Nhứt Air Base. Meanwhile, Khiêm had overslept when he was supposed to seal off the homes of the junta members. Despite this, by daybreak, Khánh had taken over the government without a shot having been fired.
US officials in Washington were caught off guard by the coup. Although Khánh had already told CIA officer Lucien Conein (who helped to plan the coup against Diệm) in December 1963 that he intended to hold a coup, it was filed away among the many political rumour documents that were received by the American representatives. Following the coup, he was promoted by the Americans as South Vietnam's new hope. In a dispatch to Washington, Cabot Lodge wrote: "We have everything we need in Vietnam. The United States has provided military advice, training, equipment, economic and social help, and political advice...Therefore, our side knows how to do it. We have the means to it. We simply need to do it. This requires a tough and ruthless commander. Perhaps Khánh is it".
Setting up the junta
Khánh used de Gaulle's policy plans to enact retribution against Generals Đôn and Kim. Khánh had them arrested on grounds of neutralism. Khánh noted that they had served in the French-backed VNA, although he did as well. The generals were flown to My Khe beach, near Đà Nẵng, along with Generals Tôn Thất Đính and Mai Hữu Xuân, the interior minister and police chief, respectively, of the MRC.
Khánh also had Major Nguyễn Văn Nhung, the bodyguard of Minh, shot. Nhung had executed Diệm and his brother Ngô Đình Nhu in the 1963 coup, as well as the loyalist Special Forces head Colonel Lê Quang Tung, and claimed it to be suicide. Of the 14 Buddhist sects in South Vietnam, the heads of 11 of them agreed to form an alliance to oppose the Khánh regime, which was seen as favoring the same Vietnamese Catholics who had been favored under Diệm. Khánh decided to act as both Prime Minister and chairman of the reorganised MRC, which he expanded to include 17 generals and 32 further officers, giving a total of 50 members.
Khánh selected a cabinet of thirteen ministers and two Secretaries of State at Cabinet level and chose new provincial and district chiefs. He originally tried to include members of a variety of political and religious groups including representatives of the Cao Đài and Hòa Hảo, which still had remnants of their private armies intact after their dismantling by Diệm in 1955. Although Khánh insisted that he had no party affiliation, the orientation of his government was toward the Đại Việt, who held many key posts. This provoked bitterness from other anti-communist nationalists and groups that were banned under the Diệm period and were seeking a greater role in the public life of South Vietnam, as well as from younger citizens who felt that the established nationalist parties were responsible for divisions in the country.
In the meantime, the government continued to lose the war against the guerrillas of the National Liberation Front, better known as the Viet Cong, which increased the tempo of their operations in the countryside and began a campaign of assassinations and bombings in Saigon targeting government officials and American advisers. Speaking carefully memorized phrases in badly mangled Vietnamese (McNamara kept forgetting Vietnamese is a tonal language) in a series of speeches McNamara praised Khánh as the "best possible leader" that South Vietnam had and urged all South Vietnamese people to back his government. McNamara's visit was a disaster for Khánh's image as the Americans believed that the South Vietnamese people would back his government more effectively if they knew that the United States was supporting him; to Vietnamese ears, McNamara's speeches came across as arrogant and colonialist as it seemed that he was telling the Vietnamese that they should follow Khánh because the United States wanted them to do.
However, Khánh received little assistance from Minh, who resented his deposal by a younger officer whom he viewed as an unscrupulous upstart. Minh was also upset with the detention of his colleagues and around 30 of his junior officers. The latter were set free when Minh demanded that Khánh release them as a condition for his cooperation. Khánh attempted to avoid the issue of substantiating the alleged plot as long as he could, The tribunal "congratulated" the generals, but found that they were of "lax morality", unqualified to command due to a "lack of a clear political concept". They were chastised for being "inadequately aware of their heavy responsibility" and of letting "their subordinates take advantage of their positions". They were allowed to remain in Đà Lạt under surveillance with their families. Khánh's actions left divisions among the officer corps of the ARVN. When Khánh was himself deposed in 1965, he handed over dossiers proving that the generals were innocent. Shaplen said "the case ... continued to be one of Khánh's biggest embarrassments". Karnow wrote that Khánh as leader "...spent most of his time maneuvering against internal rivals, with the result that he neglected his administrative duties, which bored him anyway".
By 1964, the United States was giving South Vietnam aid worth some $2 million per day, yet owing to rampant corruption in the government most South Vietnamese civil servants were paid late if at all. to death. This occurred over the private objections of US Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., who thought that it was best for Khánh to take a mild line to dampen religious tensions. Cẩn was executed by firing squad on 9 May. Thích Trí Quang remained critical of what he saw as a lack of vigour on the part of Khánh in removing Diệmists from positions of authority.
Khánh had no prior political experience and turned to Lodge for advice. Lodge advised him to pursue a policy of inclusion of the various groups in Vietnamese society, and Khánh followed this counsel. During this time, Khánh's régime suffered several military setbacks, such as the Battle of Long Dinh.
In March, Khánh began privately advocating that the US attack jungle areas in Laos and North Vietnam near the border with South Vietnam to stop communist infiltration, saying that it was pointless to keep fighting defensively within the country without taking the initiative to stop incoming forces. Khánh made plans with conservative Laotian General Phoumi Nosovan for anti-communist incursions into eastern Laos, but the Americans stopped him and leaked false reports to the media that he was reluctant to attack. As a result, Khánh concluded that a military victory might not be feasible and one of his officials made contacts with the communists to see if negotiation was possible, but nothing came of this approach. He then led the demonstrators in shouting, "To the North" repeatedly. Khánh's call for an invasion of North Vietnam, deeply worried President Johnson, who feared an invasion of North Vietnam would cause a war with China in the same way that the approach of U.S. forces upon the Yalu river caused China to intervene in the Korean War in 1950. In a meeting with Ambassador Taylor, Khánh assured the American envoy that his was a political gesture that should be seen as a show. However, it spread to the government-moderated press, and some generals expressed similar sentiments. Khánh then told Taylor that he had to allow Southerners to express their aspirations to unify Vietnam on their own terms and that plans were being explored. Khánh publicly called on the Americans to strike back in order to project a strong image and avoid resembling a "paper tiger".
US President Lyndon Johnson was given more military powers as a result of the incident. Seeing the tense situation as an opportunity to concentrate more power in his hands, Khánh declared a state of emergency on 7 August, empowering the police to ban protests, search properties under any circumstances and arbitrarily jail "elements considered as dangerous to national security". However, Taylor despite his doubts, advised Johnson that Khánh was the best leader for South Vietnam at the present and to change the leadership again would be a "disaster". which would have augmented his personal power and hamstrung Minh of what authority he had left. However, this only served to weaken Khánh as large demonstrations and riots broke out in the cities, with the Buddhists prominent, calling for an end to the state of emergency and the new constitution. Information Ministry buildings and radio stations were set on fire.
During one protest in which thousands of people were chanting "down with military dictatorship", Khánh confronted the crowd and joined the opposition in their shouting, claiming that he was not what they claimed him to be, rather than cracking down on them. Fearing he could be toppled by the momentum of the protests, Khánh asked Quang, Chau and Minh to hold talks with him at Vũng Tàu on 24 August. They refused and Khánh had to go to Saigon to try to get them to stop protesting against him, demonstrating his weakness. They asked him to repeal the new constitution, reinstate civilian rule, and remove Cần Lao members from power.
Needing support to stay afloat, Khánh released a communiqué after the meeting, promising to revise the constitution, liberalise the press, permit protests and start special courts to look into past grievances. This prompted more protests by activists and Khánh responded with wider concessions, which he convinced the Military Revolutionary Council to assent to. Under this plan, the new constitution would be repealed, and the MRC would dissolve itself. He then paid US$300,000 to Buddhist groups in return for their public endorsement, which Khánh publicly used to highlight his support. In return, Khánh promised to create a National Assembly within a year.
Junta infighting
Khánh's concessions sparked opposition from Khiêm and Thiệu, both Catholic. They tried to remove him in favour of Minh, and they recruited many officers into their plot. Khiêm and Thiệu sought out Taylor and sought a private endorsement for a coup against Khánh, however the US ambassador did not want any more changes in leadership, fearing a corrosive effect on the government. This deterred Khiêm's group from staging a coup.
The division among the generals came to a head at a meeting of the MRC on 26/27 August. Khánh claimed that the government instability was due to troublemaking by Đại Việt members, whom he accused of putting partisan plotting ahead of the national interest and the struggle against the communists. Khiêm blamed Khánh's weakness in dealing with Buddhist activists as the reason for the demonstrations in the cities and the rural losses against the communists. Thiệu and General Nguyễn Hữu Có, also a Catholic, called for the replacement of Khánh with Minh, but the latter refused.
Attempted coup by Generals Phát and Đức and further instability
In September 1964, Khánh dismissed General Lâm Văn Phát as Interior Minister, while General Dương Văn Đức was about to be removed as IV Corps commander. Disgruntled, the pair launched a coup attempt before dawn on 13 September, using ten army battalions that they had recruited. They took over the city without any firing, and used the national radio station to proclaim the deposal of Khánh's junta. Phat said that he would use the ideology and legacy of Diệm to lay the foundation for his new junta. There was little reaction from most of the military commanders. Khánh imprisoned Lam and Đức for two months. He then removed three of the four corps commanders and six of the nine division commanders for failing to move against Lam and Đức. On 20 September, the Vietnamese Confederation of Labor and their 300,000 members staged a general strike for two days, causing electricity in the cities to be cut for two days. This prompted Khánh to make concessions to laborers.
Khánh and his generals created a semblance of civilian rule by creating the High National Council, an appointed advisory body. He put Minh in charge of picking the 17 members of the group, and he filled it with figures sympathetic to him. They then made a resolution to recommend a model with a powerful head of state, which would likely be Minh. Khánh did not want his rival taking power, so he and the Americans convinced the HNC to dilute the powers of the position so as to make it unappealing to Minh, who was then sent on an overseas diplomatic goodwill tour.
The HNC, which covered a wide cross-section of different social groups, selected the aging Phan Khắc Sửu as chief of state, and Sửu selected Trần Văn Hương as Prime Minister, a position with greater power, but the generals and Khánh retained the real power. At the same time, a group of Catholic officers was trying to replace Khánh with Thiệu. Hương took a firm line against the Buddhists, accusing Thích Trí Quang of being a Communist, who in turn charged Hương with being a Diệmist, and responded with mass protests against the new civilian administration, calling for its removal. Huong used the army to break up the demonstrations, resulting in violent confrontations.
By the end of the year, Khánh had sidelined Khiêm and Minh. He despatched Khiêm to Washington as the ambassador with Thảo, his main confidant, as his press attaché. In late December 1964, Khánh summoned Thảo back to Saigon. Thảo suspected Khánh was attempting to have him killed, while Khánh thought Khiêm and Thảo were plotting against him. Fearing he would be arrested upon arrival, Thảo went underground upon returning to Saigon. In mid-January 1965, Khánh called for Thảo 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.
Khánh and a group of younger officers called the "Young Turks", led by Kỳ and Thiệu wanted to forcibly retire officers with more than 25 years of service, as they thought them to be lethargic and ineffective.
One of the aims of this was to remove Generals Đôn, Minh, Kim and Xuân, who Khánh had put under arrest after his January coup but had now released and put into meaningless desk jobs with no work to do, although they were still being paid. According to Khánh and the "Young Turks", the group, led by Minh, who had returned from his overseas tour, had been making plots with the Buddhists to regain power. In any case, the HNC had already ceased to function in a meaningful way, as only 9 of the 17 members were still occasionally attending its meetings. Initially Taylor issued a thinly disguised threat to cut aid, releasing a public statement saying that Washington might reconsider its military aid if "the fabric of legal government" was not reinstated.
Khánh's quartet of delegates responded to Taylor by responding in a circumlocutory way. They remained calm and did not resort to direct confrontation. Kỳ said the change was necessary, as "the political situation is worse than it ever was under Diệm". Kỳ explained that the situation mandated the dissolution of the council, saying "We know you want stability, but you cannot have stability until you have unity". Thiệu said "I do not see how our action has hurt the Hương government ... Hương now has the full support of the Army and has no worries from the High National Council, which we have eliminated". When Taylor said that the moves detracted from Hương and Sửu's powers, the generals disagreed, and said that they supported the pair in full and that Hương had approved of the deposal of the HNC. Taylor was unimpressed by the reassurances, saying at the meeting's end, "I don't know whether we will continue to support you after this ... [Y]ou people have broken a lot of dishes and now we have to see how we can straighten out this mess".
The day after the press conference, Taylor met Khánh in a private meeting at the latter's office. He complained about the dissolution of the HNC and said that it did not accord with the values of the alliance and the loyalty that Washington expected of Saigon. Khánh replied that Vietnam was not a satellite of Washington and compared the situation to the US support of a coup against Diệm, saying that loyalty was meant to be reciprocated. Taylor then bemoaned Khánh, saying he had lost confidence in him. Taylor added that military supplies being shipped to Vietnam would be withheld after arriving at Saigon and that American help in planning and advising military operations would be suspended.
Khánh bristled and said that "You should keep to your place as Ambassador ... as Ambassador, it is really not appropriate for you to be dealing in this way with the commander-in-chief of the armed forces on a political matter, nor was it appropriate for you to have summoned some of my generals to the Embassy yesterday." However, Khánh later said he was open to the possibility of going abroad and asked Taylor if he thought this would be good for the country, to which the ambassador replied in the affirmative. Khánh ended the meeting, saying that he would think about his future. Khánh explicitly denounced Taylor in an interview published in the New York Herald Tribune on 23 December Taylor responded by stating that generals had participated in "improper interference" into the purview of civilian government, while embassy staff said that their head had done nothing improper, as did the State Department, effectively again threatening to cut aid.
Khánh's defiance of Taylor saw his approval rise among the fellow generals, as the ambassador's actions were seen as being an insult to the nation. On the same day, the Việt Cộng bombed the Brinks Hotel, where United States officers were billeted. As a result, there was a suspicion among a minority that Khánh's junta had been behind the attack,
As a result of these tensions, a standoff started between the Americans and the Vietnamese generals. The US had hoped the generals would relent because they could not survive without aid from Washington, and that they would not be able to repel the communists or rival officers without bending to receive support. On the other hand, Khánh hoped the Americans would become more worried about the communists first and acquiesce to their fait accompli against the HNC. They also agreed that a new appointed civilian body would be created in the meantime and that those arrested in December would be released.
The South Vietnamese won in large part because the Americans had spent so much on the country, and could not afford to abandon it and lose to the communists over the matter of military rule, as it would be a big public relations coup for the Soviet bloc. According to Karnow, for Khánh and his officers, "their weakness was their strength".
Khánh decided to have the armed forces take over the government, and remove Hương. On the morning of 27 January, Khánh staged a bloodless putsch with the support of Thi and Kỳ. He promised to leave politics once the situation was stabilized and hand over power to a civilian body. It was believed some of the officers supported Khánh's return to power so that it would give him an opportunity to fail and be removed permanently. Khánh persisted with the facade of civilian government by retaining Sửu and replacing Huong with the economist Nguyễn Xuân Oanh.
Downfall
Between January and February 1965, Thảo began plotting against Khánh. Shortly before noon on 19 February, Thảo used tanks and infantry to seize control of the military headquarters at Tân Sơn Nhứt, the post office and the radio station of Saigon. He surrounded Khánh's home, and Sửu's residence.
The country was still seeking stability, with Phan Huy Quát having been appointed prime minister just three days earlier. Khánh managed to escape and flee to Vũng Tàu. His plane lifted off from Tân Sơn Nhứt Air Base just as rebel tanks were rolling in, attempting to block the runway. 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".
The attempt to seize Biên Hòa failed, and Kỳ circled Tân Sơn Nhứt, threatening to bomb the rebels. At 20:00, Phát and Thảo met with Kỳ in a meeting organised by the Americans, and insisted that Khánh be removed from power. The coup collapsed when, around midnight, loyal ARVN forces swept into the city from the south and some loyal to Kỳ from Biên Hòa in the north. Whether the rebels were genuinely defeated or a deal was struck with Kỳ to end the revolt in exchange for Khánh's removal is disputed. Before fleeing, Thảo broadcast a message stating that the coup had been effective in removing Khánh. This was not the case, but the chaos led the Armed Forces Council to adopt a vote of no confidence in Khánh the following day. This motion was precipitated by Thi, who gained the support of Kỳ, and the final vote was unanimous. Kỳ assumed control of a junta that continued with Suu and Quat as a civilian front, although General Trần Văn Minh was the nominal head as Commander in Chief of the armed forces. Khánh was then north of Saigon, inspecting a display of captured communist weapons.
Life in exile
After the demise of South Vietnam, Khánh lived in France for a time. In 1977, he relocated to the United States with his family. There, he worked for several businesses owned by Vietnamese-Americans. When Karnow interviewed him in 1981, Khánh was working as the manager of what Karnow called a "shabby" Vietnamese restaurant located on a "tawdry boulevard" in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Khánh remained active in anti-communist circles within the Vietnamese diaspora. On 2 January 2005, he became the "Chief of State" of the Government of Free Vietnam, an organization located in "Little Saigon" (Westminster, California). He held that position until his death.
Personal life
Khánh and his wife Nguyễn Lê Trần (née Phạm) had six children and one stepdaughter; one son died in a drowning accident in South Vietnam.