Lam Van Phat

Lâm Văn Phát (1920 – 30 October 1998) was a Major general in the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). He is best known for leading two coup attempts against General Nguyễn Khánh in September 1964 and February 1965. Although both failed to result in his taking power, the latter caused enough instability that it forced Khánh to resign and go into exile.

A member of the Roman Catholic minority, Phát joined the French-backed Vietnamese National Army which became the ARVN after the South Vietnam was established. After having been sent to the U.S. for further training in 1958, Phát returned home to head the Civil Guard, a paramilitary force then mostly used to protect the ruling family of President Ngô Đình Diệm, rather than to counteract the communist Viet Cong (VC) insurgency. Later commanding the 2nd Division, he was known for his loyalty to Diệm, who favored fellow Catholics. In 1963, Diệm knew some of the generals were about to launch a coup against him. He appointed Phát to command the 7th Division, located near the capital, Saigon, so he could help in the fighting, but the plotters successfully used delaying tactics so that the paperwork for the transfer of the division leadership could not occur before they proceeded to overthrow and execute Diệm. Despite Phát's pro-Diệm allegiance he was promoted to Brigadier general and given command of the 7th Division.

After the January 1964 coup against Dương Văn Minh, Phát was made the commander of III Corps and also Interior Minister for a time until he was dismissed in September 1964. This prompted him to join Dương Văn Đức, another general relieved of command, in launching a coup attempt against Khánh on 13 September. They initially took over the capital without a fight, but Khánh escaped, and after having received endorsements from the U.S., defeated Phát and Đức. At the military trial that followed, charges were dropped. In February 1965, Phát joined with fellow Catholic, Diệm protégé and Khánh opponent Phạm Ngọc Thảo – actually a communist agent intent on maximizing infighting in South Vietnam – in another coup attempt. After the forces deadlocked, Phát met with Republic of Vietnam Air Force chief Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, insisting on Khánh's assassination. After the meeting concluded, the coup collapsed, but Khánh was forced from office the next day. Phát and Thảo went into hiding and were sentenced to death in absentia by Kỳ's military tribunal. Thảo was killed under mysterious circumstances, but Phát evaded capture for three years until surrendering. By this time Kỳ's power had been eclipsed by another Catholic, General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, who freed Phát from prison.

Early military career Ngô Đình Diệm, the President of South Vietnam from 1955 to 1963, gave preferential treatment to Roman Catholics. Phát was a Diệm loyalist. alt=A portrait of a middle-aged man, looking to the left in a half-portrait/profile. He has chubby cheeks, parts his hair to the side and wears a suit and tie. The President of South Vietnam, Ngô Đình Diệm, heavily favored Catholics, and, as a result, Phát rose quickly up the ranks. Having started his career in the French-backed Vietnamese National Army of the State of Vietnam, Phát became a member of the ARVN after the State of Vietnam became the Republic of Vietnam. In 1958, holding the rank of colonel, Phát was sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas for officer training. Phát's habit of customarily being seen in public with a swagger stick and his reputation for autocratic leadership alienated most of his subordinate officers.

Overthrow of Diệm in 1963

By late 1963, Diệm knew a coup was brewing and that the 7th Division at Mỹ Tho outside Saigon might be involved. As it was close to the capital, it would play a crucial role in either attacking or defending Diệm, or blocking outlying units from entering the city. Diệm put Phát in command of the 7th Division on 31 October. According to tradition, Phát had to pay the corps commander a courtesy visit before assuming control of the division. However, General Tôn Thất Đính, commander of the III Corps was part of the plot and deliberately refused to see Phát and told him to come back at 14:00 the following day, by which time the coup had already been scheduled to start. In the meantime, Đính had General Trần Văn Đôn sign a counter-order transferring command of the 7th Division to his deputy and co-conspirator Nguyễn Hữu Có. He then phoned General Huỳnh Văn Cao, further south in the Mekong Delta's largest town, Cần Thơ, where the IV Corps was headquartered. Có, a central Vietnamese, imitated Phát's southern accent and tricked Cao into thinking that nothing unusual was happening. who was captured and executed the following day. Despite the fact that Đính saw Có as being more reliable for the purposes of staging the coup against Diệm, Minh promoted him to brigadier general immediately after the officers seized power.

Phát was regarded as a dour military tactician who persisted with his pre-devised battleplan once hostilities had commenced, refusing to change tactics even when difficulties arose. In one engagement in 1964 in Bến Tre Province in the Mekong Delta, Phát was blamed for the loss of an American helicopter in addition to heavy personnel losses after he proceeded with an attack despite advice to the contrary from his junior officers. U.S. military advisers who worked with Phát reportedly regarded him as competent, albeit dour and lacking in charisma.

September 1964 coup attempt

In September 1964, Phát was dismissed as Interior Minister, while General Dương Văn Đức was about to be removed as IV Corps commander. This came after Khánh attempted to augment his power in August by declaring a state of emergency and introducing a new constitution, which resulted in mass unrest and calls for civilian rule, forcing Khánh to make concessions in an attempt to dampen discontent. Disgruntled, the pair tried to launch a coup attempt of their own in the pre-dawn hours of 13 September, using 10 army battalions they had recruited. They gained the support of Colonel Lý Tòng Bá, head of the 7th Division's armored section. Another member of the conspiracy was Colonel Phạm Ngọc Thảo, who, while ostensibly a Catholic, was actually a communist double agent trying to maximize infighting at every possible opportunity. General Trần Thiện Khiêm, a member of the ruling triumvirate along with Khánh and Minh, but a rival of the dominant Khánh, was also believed to have supported the plot. Claiming to represent The Council for the Liberation of the Nation, Phát proclaimed the deposal of Khánh's "junta" over national radio, and accused Khánh of promoting conflict within the nation's military and political leadership. He promised to capture Khánh and pursue a policy of increased anti-communism, Phát stated he would return to the crypto-fascist, Catholic integrist ideology of the Ngô family to lay the foundation for his junta.

There was little reaction from most of the military commanders. In contrast to Phát's serene demeanour, his incoming troops prompted worshippers at the Roman Catholic cathedral attending mass to flee in panic. The Buddhists, however, made no overt reaction to a coup that would dent their rights. Air Force commander Kỳ had promised two weeks earlier to use his planes against any coup attempt, but there was no reaction early in the morning. Đức mistakenly thought Kỳ and his subordinates would join the coup, but later realized that he was mistaken. After he found out that he had been tricked into thinking that the plotters had great strength, he defected.

American officials followed Khánh to encourage him to return to Saigon and reassert his control. The general refused to do so unless the Americans publicly announced their support for him to the nation. They then asked Khánh about his plans for the future, but felt that he was directionless. After talking to Phát and Đức, they concluded the same and decided to back the incumbent and publicly released a statement through the embassy to endorse Khánh. In the early hours of 14 September, before dawn, Kỳ met senior coup leaders at Tân Sơn Nhất and told them to back down, which they did. On 16 September, Khánh had the plotters arrested; Phát returned to Saigon to turn himself in, the last to be taken into custody.

Air Force Chief Kỳ was one of the leading figures in putting down Phát's coup attempt. alt=Middle-aged man with side-parted black hair and moustache, in a black suit, white shirt and brown tie. To the left is a clean-shaven Asian man with black hair and a green military cap. Kỳ's role in putting down Phát and Đức's coup attempt gave him more leverage in Saigon's military politics. Indebted to Kỳ and his supporters for maintaining his hold on power, Khánh was now in a weaker position. Kỳ's group called on Khánh to remove "corrupt, dishonest and counterrevolutionary" officers, civil servants and exploitationists, and threatened to remove him if he did not enact their proposed reforms.

Phát and 19 others were put on trial in a military court; observers predicted that he would be the only one to face the death penalty. Phát's lawyers started by unsuccessfully moving for the charges against the conspirators to be dismissed, claiming the rebels had not been captured "red-handed". They were more successful in another demand, managing to persuade the five judges to allow witnesses to be called. The court agreed to their request to compel Khánh, Kỳ, and Deputy Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Oánh to appear before the hearing. The accused officers claimed they had only intended to make a show of force, rather than overthrow Khánh.

Phát was asked about the collapse of his coup attempt and he discussed his visit to the American Embassy along with labor union leader Trần Quốc Bửu. Phát claimed his discussion with deputy ambassador U. Alexis Johnson was "not too important" and played down its impact, claiming that Johnson's limited usage of French had limited any talks he would have wanted to have. However, Bửu contradicted Phát, telling journalists the meeting with Johnson had lasted around 90 minutes. because Khánh needed support for his fragile regime and wanted to have a counterweight against Kỳ and Thi. so he underground upon returning to Saigon, having been threatened with being charged for desertion. Due to his Catholic background, Thảo was able to recruit Catholic pro-Diệm loyalists such as Phát. Thảo was still successfully operating as a double agent.

Between January and February, Thảo began plotting his own counter-coup. Shortly before noon on 19 February, Thảo and Phát attacked, using some 50 tanks and a mixture of infantry battalions to seize control of the military headquarters, the post office and the radio station in Saigon. They surrounded Khánh's home as well as Gia Long Palace, the residence of head of state Phan Khắc Sửu. At the same time Phát headed towards Tân Sơn Nhất to capture the country's military headquarters with an assortment of marines, paratroopers and special forces troops. Generals Thi (left) and Thiệu (right) during the 1960s. Thi helped stop both of Phát's coup attempts. Thiệu later pardoned Phát after he had been sentenced to death. alt=Three Asian men with black hair standing from left to right. The first is in profile, wearing a beret. He has three stars as a Lieutenant General and has a moustache. The next man is facing towards the camera smiling. He is clean shaven and has three stars. A third man on the right has his back to the camera and is wearing a cowboy hat. All are wearing military fatigues. Some of the other senior officers in the Armed Forces Council were not so lucky, and they were caught by Phát's troops inside headquarters, while other buildings of the military complex remained under junta control. Khánh managed to escape to Vũng Tàu. His plane was just emerging from the hangar and lifted off just as rebel tanks were rolling in, attempting to block the runway and shut down the airport. Phát's ground troops also missed capturing Kỳ, who fled through the streets in a sports car with his wife and mother-in-law. Kỳ ended up at Tân Sơn Nhất, where he ran into Khánh; the pair flew off together to regroup. This turned American officials against the coup as they feared that the plotters would lead a divisive regime that would inflame sectarian tensions and play into the hands of the communists, so they decided to look for officers to defeat Thảo and Phát.

Phát was supposed to seize the second largest air force base in the country, located in the satellite city of Biên Hòa outside Saigon. This was to prevent Kỳ from mobilizing air power against them, Most of the forces of the III and IV Corps surrounding the capital disliked both Khánh and the rebels, and took no action. As nightfall came, it appeared that forces loyal to Khánh were strengthening as they began to move towards Saigon. According to the latter version, Thảo and Phát agreed to free the members of the Armed Forces Council whom they had arrested and to withdraw in exchange for Khánh's complete removal from power. The Armed Forces Council then adopted a vote of no confidence in Khánh and forced him into exile, while Kỳ assumed control.

Post-military life Thảo and Phát were stripped of their ranks, but nothing was initially done as far as prosecuting or sentencing them for their involvement in the coup for the time being. They went into hiding in Catholic villages and offered to surrender and support the government if they and their officers were granted amnesty. However, this failed to materialize, and in May 1965, a military tribunal loyal to Kỳ sentenced both to death in absentia.

In July 1965, Thảo was hunted down and is believed to have been executed in unclear circumstances. His last-known assignment was as Military Governor of Saigon from 28 to 30 April 1975, when Saigon fell, under General Dương Văn Minh.

Other Little is known of Phát's personal life except that he was married and, according to The New York Times, believed to have been in his late 30s when he made his coup attempts, implying he was born in the mid-to-late 1920s. He died in 1998.