Nguyễn Chánh Thi

Nguyễn Chánh Thi (; 23 February 1923 – 23 June 2007) was an officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). He is best known for being involved in frequent coups in the 1960s and wielding substantial influence as a key member of various juntas that ruled South Vietnam from 1964 until 1966, when he was overpowered by Republic of Vietnam Air Force chief and Prime Minister Nguyễn Cao Kỳ in a power struggle and exiled to the United States. Known for his flamboyant style and hostility to US advice, Thi's ousting was supported by the American leadership, who backed Kỳ's pro-US regime.

Thi joined the French Army at the age of 17 and was captured by Japan after they invaded French Indochina during World War II. After several months, he escaped and later transferred to the Vietnamese National Army of the French-backed State of Vietnam, which, in October 1955, became the ARVN and Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), respectively. A paratrooper, he fought for then-Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm against the Bình Xuyên organized crime syndicate in the 1955 Battle for Saigon. Impressed by Thi's performance, Diệm referred to him as his own "son" and put him in command of the Airborne Brigade.

In November 1960, Thi led the paratroopers in a coup against Diệm, citing political interference in the military. The rebels gained the upper hand but Thi was reluctant to push for a complete victory, and the coup was defeated after Diệm falsely promised to make reforms in order to buy time for loyalists to rescue him. Thi fled into exile in Cambodia, but returned after Diệm was deposed and executed in November 1963. He became the deputy commander of the I Corps under Nguyễn Khánh, and helped his superior to overthrow Diệm's subjugators three months later. Thi became the commander of the 1st Division, before taking control of I Corps later in the year.

During the year after Khánh's rise to power, Thi helped Khánh stage or put down several coup attempts, making him a key player in South Vietnamese military politics. In September 1964, he and Kỳ helped rescue Khánh from a coup attempt by two disgruntled Catholic pro-Diệm generals, Lâm Văn Phát and Dương Văn Đức. This gave Kỳ and Thi increased leverage in the junta. Two months later, he was prominent in shutting down a junta-appointed civilian advisory body after they disapproved of a plan by younger officers to compulsorily retire old generals. In January 1965, he helped Khánh depose Prime Minister Trần Văn Hương, but by this time he had turned against Khánh. In February 1965, he helped defeat a coup attempt by Phát and Phạm Ngọc Thảo, and helped to force Khánh's resignation at the same time. Over the next year, Kỳ and Thi were the foremost officers in the junta, and in June 1965, Thi declined an opportunity to serve as prime minister after being nominated by his fellow officers following the resignation of Phan Huy Quát. Thi wanted to let a rival take the job and then step in after he had failed, but never received a second opportunity.

Thi oversaw I Corps with a great deal of autonomy, and the other officers felt threatened, which was accentuated by his alignment with Buddhist activist movements in his region, traditionally a Buddhist stronghold. The Buddhists were opposed to expansion of the Vietnam War and the American leadership viewed Thi negatively. In early 1966, feeling more confident about his hold on power, Kỳ orchestrated Thi's removal, and announced that Thi would be going to the US for medical treatment, but in reality into exile. Thi refused to go along with Kỳ's false story and wanted to stay in Vietnam, and this led to civil unrest in I Corps, where Thi was popular. The disquiet escalated into open rebellion by pro-Thi military units, allied to Buddhist anti-junta activists calling for civilian government and an end to the US-driven war expansion policy. After three months of virtual secession, Kỳ's forces quelled the dissidents, and Thi emigrated to the US, where he lived for the rest of his life.

Early life Thi was born on 23 February 1923 in Huế, then the capital of Vietnam and the seat of the Nguyễn dynasty. Thi was a Japanese prisoner of war for several months until he escaped amidst the confusion of an Allied bombing raid on the Japanese military jail. According to family documents, Thi was captured and imprisoned by the communist Viet Minh of Ho Chi Minh for three months at the end of the war in 1945 as they declared independence during the August Revolution. In the meantime, the State of Vietnam remained unstable. The Cao Đài and Hòa Hảo religious sects had their own private armies and de facto states in the Mekong Delta, while the Bình Xuyên organized crime syndicate controlled the national police, had their own military, and dominated the rampant drug trade, prostitution and illegal gambling in the southern capital Saigon. In April and May 1955, Thi fought in VNA airborne units for Prime Minister Diệm against the Binh Xuyen in the Battle for Saigon after Diệm gave them an ultimatum to surrender. When they did not, the VNA attacked and decisively dispersed the Binh Xuyen after a few days of heavy street fighting. This performance so impressed the lifelong bachelor Diệm that he thereafter referred to Thi as his "son". Diệm promoted Thi to the rank of colonel and put him in charge of the Airborne Brigade, An American military advisor assessed Thi as "tough, unscrupulous, and fearless, but dumb".

Failed coup against Diệm

In 1960, Thi led a revolt against Diệm after lobbying by his Airborne Division deputy commander, Lieutenant Colonel Vương Văn Đông. The coup was organized with the help of some VNQDĐ and Đại Việt Quốc Dân Đảng (Nationalist Party of Greater Vietnam, known as Đại Việt) members, civilians and officers alike. Most of Thi's soldiers had been tricked into thinking that they were attacking in order to save Diệm from a Presidential Guard mutiny.

Apparently poised for a military victory, the rebels hesitated. Đông wanted to storm the palace and capture the president and his family. Thi felt that despite Diệm's shortcomings, he was South Vietnam's best available leader and thus was worried Diệm could be killed in an attack. Thi thought that enforced reform was the best outcome. Thi demanded that Diệm appoint an officer as Prime Minister and remove Madame Nhu from the palace. Saigon Radio broadcast a speech authorized by Thi's Revolutionary Council, claiming that Diệm was being removed for corruption and suppression of liberty. Worried by the uprising, Diệm sent representatives to negotiate. After lengthy talks, the parties agreed to a ceasefire. In the meantime, loyalist forces headed towards the capital. After a brief, violent battle that killed around 400 people, the coup attempt was crushed. Diệm promptly reneged on his promises, and intensified his authoritarian rule and crackdowns on dissidents. In the meantime, Thi lived self-sufficiently in Cambodia for three years. allowing Thi to return to South Vietnam and resume his military service. Soon after arriving home, Thi found himself involved in another coup plot, acting as the link between Khánh and Đỗ Mậu, two generals disgruntled with their position under the military junta of Minh, who oversaw the overthrow of Diệm. Mau was one of the principal tacticians in the 1963 coup; although he did not command troops, he had a thorough knowledge of the backgrounds of the ARVN officers and their strengths, weaknesses and characteristics through his role as Diệm's director of military security, Mau persuaded the junta to install Thi as Khánh's deputy in I Corps. He tricked the junta by telling them that as Khánh had played a large part in putting down the 1960 coup attempt, Thi would still be harboring resentment. According to Mau, Thi would thus be an ideal mechanism for keeping the disliked Khánh in check. Privately, Mau predicted that Thi would act as a bridge between him in Saigon, and Khánh in Huế. He was correct in thinking the 1960 conflict would be irrelevant as allegiances shifted over time and that the pair would work together for their current aims. and an assortment of Marine, Air Force and Special Forces officers and their units. Other notable recruits were Diem loyalist and former chief of the Civil Guard, Duong Ngoc Lam, who was under investigation for corruption, and General Đức, who had recently returned from exile in Paris. The cabal scheduled the coup for 04:00, 30 January. On 29 January, Thi followed Khánh to the capital. The plotters and their agents met in obscure locations spots around town. On the night of 29 January, the rebel troops assumed their positions around Saigon. A number of American officers and embassy officials were alerted to be in their offices at 2:00. At 03:00, Khánh took over the Joint General Staff Headquarters at Tan Son Nhut, and by dawn, the coup had succeeded without a shot being fired as Minh's junta was caught unaware. The popular Minh was allowed to stay on as a ceremonial but powerless head of state, but his colleagues were taken into custody. Nevertheless, Minh remained disgruntled and persistently tried to regain his influence through political means. On 2 February 1964, Thi was appointed to be commander of the 1st Division based in Huế, as part of I Corps. He stayed in the post until 21 October and on 14 November, he took control of the entire corps. This corps oversaw the five northernmost provinces of central Vietnam and the 1st and 2nd Divisions. Among those demoted were Generals Phát and Đức, both Catholic. They launched a coup attempt backed mainly by Catholic elements against Khánh before dawn on 13 September. They took over the city without firing a shot, and used the national radio station to proclaim the deposing of Khánh's junta. There was little initial reaction from most of the military commanders, including Thi.

However, Phát and Đức could not apprehend Khánh, and the Americans decided to support the incumbent after concluding that the rebels did not have a satisfactory plan to rule.

Some observers accused Kỳ and Thi of either allowing or deliberately orchestrating the plot to embarrass Khánh, portray themselves as heroes, and therefore gain prominence on the political stage. In later years, Cao Huy Thuan, a professor and Buddhist activist based in the city of Đà Nẵng in I Corps, claimed Kỳ and Thi met with him a few days before the coup, and had discussed their plans for joining a coup against Khánh. At the subsequent military trial of Phát and Đức's faction, the plotters were acquitted. According to the historian George McTurnan Kahin, Khánh rigged the trial so that Đức and Phát were acquitted so they would be used as a Catholic counterweight to the Young Turks faction of Kỳ and Thi, who in Khánh's eyes had become increasingly strong and ominous. Khánh decided to build an alliance with the generals from Minh's junta by releasing them from house arrest and recalling them to active roles. However, Thi and Kỳ were aware of the motives for these moves and adjusted accordingly.

The signature of the military-appointed civilian Chief of State Phan Khắc Sửu was required to pass the ruling, but Sửu referred the matter to the High National Council (HNC), a junta-appointed civilian advisory body, to get their opinion. On 19 December, the generals dissolved the HNC. The operation was commanded by Thi — who had traveled into Saigon from I Corps — and Kỳ. The national police, which was under the control and command of the military, moved through the streets before dawn, arresting five HNC members and other politicians and student leaders they deemed to be an obstacle to military rule. Minh and the other aging generals were arrested and flown to Pleiku, a Central Highlands town in a Montagnard area and forcibly retired, while other officers were simply imprisoned in the capital. The junta's forces also arrested around 100 members of the National Salvation Council (NSC) of the anti-war Lê Khắc Quyến party. The NSC was a new political party active in the I Corps region that opposed the expansion of the war and was aligned with Thi and the Buddhist activist monk Thích Trí Quang. As Thi was active in the purge, it was believed that the Quyen had fallen out with Thi.

The deposal prompted US Ambassador Maxwell D. Taylor to angrily berate Thiệu, Thi, Kỳ and Cang in a private meeting and threaten to cut off aid if they did not reverse their decision. Although nettled by the outburst, Thi took a perverse pleasure in riling Taylor. He was seen by a CIA officer soon after, grinning. When asked why he was happy, Thi said "Because this is one of the happiest days of my life ... Today I told the American ambassador that he could not dictate to us." However, the dispute galvanized the officers' nationalist sentiments and they rallied around the embattled Khánh for a time. They ignored Taylor's threats without suffering repercussions because the Americans were too intent on defeating the communists to cut funding in an attempt to force policy change in Saigon. Thi became notorious for his involvement in infighting. A CIA dossier compiled in the 1960s said that Thi "is like a card player, placing his bets now on this leader, then on another; he plays his subordinates in the same manner. His only real objective is to continue the game." Khánh decided to have the armed forces replace Huong, and on the morning of 27 January, Khánh staged a bloodless putsch with the support of Thi and Kỳ. However, many of the officers had agreed to Khánh's plan in hopes he would fail and discredit himself.

1965 coup against Nguyen Khanh

By this time, Taylor's relationship with Khánh had already broken down irreparably over the issue of the HNC, and the US became increasingly intent on a regime change as Khánh was becoming increasingly reliant on Buddhist support, which they saw as an obstacle to their war expansion plans. In the first week of February, Taylor told the leading South Vietnamese officers that the US was "in no way propping up General Khánh or backing him in any fashion". Despite their mutual alignment with Buddhist activists, Thi was known to have become personally hostile to Khánh by this time. During this time, many officers were organizing separate plots against Khánh.

Shortly before noon on 19 February, Colonels Thảo and Phát used tanks and some infantry battalions to seize control of the national military headquarters, post office and the radio station of Saigon. The rebels failed to capture Kỳ, who fled to Tan Son Nhut, where he ran into Khánh, and the pair flew off together, while some junta figures were arrested there. Thao made a radio announcement stating his desire to get rid of Khánh, whom he described as a "dictator",

The Americans decided that while they wanted Khánh out, they did not approve of Thảo and Phát, and their polarizing policies, so they began to lobby Kỳ and Thi, the two most powerful officers apart from Khánh, to defeat both sides. the Americans consulted with Thi and General Cao Văn Viên, the commander of III Corps surrounding Saigon. They wanted Thi and Vien to assemble units hostile to both Khánh and the rebels into a Capital Liberation Force. Early in the morning, Thi, who gained the support of Kỳ, proposed a motion within the junta to remove Khánh and force him into exile, and the final vote was unanimous—Khanh was absent from the meeting. Kỳ, Thi and Thiệu then became the key figures in a junta that continued with Sửu and Prime Minister Phan Huy Quát as a civilian front, although General Minh became the nominal commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Thi was a senior member in the ten-man ruling junta, which wanted to expand the military effort against the communists, something that was opposed by the Buddhist protestors. Thi performed a balancing act and accommodated the Buddhists, wanting them to see him as a friend. He allowed the students to publish a magazine that was highly critical of military rule. Thi also manoeuvred to have his trusted subordinate Colonel Pham Van Lieu installed as the head of the national police—a body controlled by the army and effectively a military unit—increasing his political power. Following his ascension, Lieu replaced most of the Saigon district police chiefs with Thi supporters, raising the ire of some other prominent officers. The Buddhist activist leader Thích Trí Quang said that "Thi is nominally a Buddhist, but does not really care about religion". In June 1965, Quat and Sửu resigned because of persistent disputes with the military and one another; Thi had an opportunity to take power. Quat resigned and tried to directly hand over power to Thi, but this was not allowed by the generals. Nevertheless, Thi was offered the prime ministerial position by his colleagues. Thi's blunder was a great relief to the Americans, who were aware of the fact that Thi—despite being anti-communist—had a hostility towards American advice. Kỳ and Thiệu, both pro-American and supportive of a drastic escalation in anti-communist military activity, became prime minister and head of state respectively, the latter post being largely ceremonial. Regardless of who held the top jobs, no officer had firm control over his peers, and the respective corps commanders were effectively allowed to independently rule their own regions in return for ongoing support of the junta. This resulted in Operation Starlite, generally regarded as the first offensive action undertaken by the Americans in the Vietnam War. Many political observers in Saigon thought Thi actively wanted to depose Kỳ, and regarded him as the biggest threat to the other officers' factions and the junta's stability. Time magazine published a piece in February 1966 claiming Thi was more dynamic than Kỳ and could seize power at any time. Historian Robert Topmiller thought Kỳ may have seen the article as destabilizing and therefore decided to move against Thi, 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. The historian Stanley Karnow said of Kỳ and Thi: "Both flamboyant characters who wore gaudy uniforms and sported sinister moustaches, the two young officers had been friends, and their rivalry seemed to typify the personal struggles for power that chronically afflicted South Vietnam. But their dispute mirrored more than individual ambition." Both were also known for their colorful red berets. Kahin thought Kỳ may have feared that Thi would secede from Saigon and turn central Vietnam into an independent state. The CIA analyst Douglas Pike, who worked in Vietnam, speculated that this would have been a large part of Ky's thinking, as Vietnamese people have often had strong regional tendencies. The junta put Thi under house arrest pending his deportation from the country, and appointed General Nguyễn Văn Chuân, the erstwhile commander of 1st Division and a Thi subordinate, as the new I Corps commander. On the other hand, Thi had the support of Walt, who commanded American forces in I Corps and was the senior advisor to Thi's forces. Unlike his countrymen, Walt thought highly of Thi, and his ability as an officer. A general strike incapacited 90% of Da Nang, the second biggest city in South Vietnam and the main port in central Vietnam. Kahin said that "despite the circumspection of his public addresses, [they] undoubtedly helped encourage the Struggle Movement."

The various dissidents formed a pro-Thi, anti-Kỳ organization called the Military-Civilian Struggle Committee, better known as the Struggle Movement. Their message and influence quickly spread as they called for the end of military rule and took over radio stations and government buildings in I Corps. While the Struggle Movement was finally ebbing away, Thi agreed to meet with Kỳ at an American air base in Chu Lai to reach a settlement, seeing as the junta was going to prevail in any case. Thi agreed to the original offers of subsidies and the cover story of a medical trip. However, The New York Times called it "shabby". Thi left his uniforms in his closet in Vietnam and disposed of all his medals. The only thing he kept from his military career was an army blanket. In Washington, Thi spent much of his time at the Library of Congress, reading books about Asian history.