Ngô Đình Diệm was a South Vietnamese politician who was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam (1954–1955) and later the first president of South Vietnam from 1955 until his capture and assassination during the CIA-backed 1963 South Vietnamese coup.
South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam, was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of the Cold War after the 1954 division of Vietnam. It first received international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam within the French Union, with its capital at Saigon, before becoming a republic in 1955. South Vietnam was bordered by North Vietnam to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and Thailand across the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest. Its sovereignty was recognized by the United States and 87 other nations, though it failed to gain admission into the United Nations as a result of a Soviet veto in 1957. It was succeeded by the Republic of South Vietnam in 1975. In 1976, the Republic of South Vietnam and North Vietnam merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
The Viet Cong was an armed communist organization and movement in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Formally organized as the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, it fought under the direction of North Vietnam against the South Vietnamese and United States governments during the Vietnam War. The organization had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized and mobilized peasants in the territory the Viet Cong controlled. During the war, communist fighters and some anti-war activists claimed that the Viet Cong was an insurgency indigenous to the South, while the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments portrayed the group as a tool of North Vietnam. According to Trần Văn Trà, the Viet Cong's top commander, and the post-war Vietnamese government's official history, the Viet Cong followed orders from Hanoi and were practically part of the People's Army of Vietnam, or North Vietnamese army.
Dương Văn Minh, popularly known as Big Minh, was a South Vietnamese politician and a senior general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and a politician during the presidency of Ngô Đình Diệm. In 1963, he became chief of a military junta after leading a coup in which Diệm was assassinated. Minh lasted only three months before being toppled by Nguyễn Khánh, but assumed power again as the fourth and last President of South Vietnam in April 1975, two days before surrendering to North Vietnamese forces. He earned his nickname "Big Minh", because at approximately 1.83 m (6 ft) tall and weighing 90 kg (198 lb), he was much larger than the average Vietnamese.
Hòa Hảo is a Vietnamese new religious movement. It is described either as a syncretistic folk religion or as a sect of Buddhism. It was founded in 1939 by Huỳnh Phú Sổ (1920–1947), who is regarded as a saint by its devotees. It is one of the major religions of Vietnam with between one million and eight million adherents, mostly in the Mekong Delta.
Major General Lê Văn Viễn, also known as Bảy Viễn, was the leader of the Bình Xuyên, a powerful Vietnamese criminal enterprise decreed by the Head of State, Bảo Đại, as an independent army within the Vietnamese National Army. Viễn's career trajectory was quite unique in coming from a criminal background to become a (non-Communist) leader of the Việt Minh's Zone 7, then later named a General, in charge of an auxiliary military force within the French Union, and, finally, named a General in the VNA. From 1951–55, he made arrangements with Bảo Đại, by which the Bình Xuyên was given control of their own affairs in return for their financial support of the government. In 1955, Viễn flew to Paris with the help of Savani and the Deuxième Bureau/SDECE after his unsuccessful attempt to oust the American-backed Premier, Ngô Đình Diệm.
Binh Xuyen Force, often linked to its infamous leader, General Lê Văn Viễn, was an independent military force within the Vietnamese National Army whose leaders once had lived outside the law and had sided with the Việt Minh. During its heyday, Bình Xuyên funded itself with organized crime activities in Saigon while effectively battling Communist forces.
On November 11, 1960, a failed coup attempt against President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam was led by Lieutenant Colonel Vương Văn Đông and Colonel Nguyễn Chánh Thi of the Airborne Division of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN).
Lê Quang Vinh, popularly known as Ba Cụt, was a Vietnamese military commander of the Hòa Hảo religious sect, which operated from the Mekong Delta and controlled various parts of southern Vietnam during the 1940s and early 1950s.
The McNamara–Taylor mission was a 10-day fact-finding expedition to South Vietnam in September 1963 by the Kennedy administration to review progress in the battle by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and its American advisers against the communist insurgency of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. The mission was led by US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and General Maxwell D. Taylor, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The 1954 to 1959 phase of the Vietnam War was the era of the two nations. Coming after the First Indochina War, this period resulted in the military defeat of the French, a 1954 Geneva meeting that partitioned Vietnam into North and South, and the French withdrawal from Vietnam, leaving the Republic of Vietnam regime fighting a communist insurgency with USA aid. During this period, North Vietnam recovered from the wounds of war, rebuilt nationally, and accrued to prepare for the anticipated war. In South Vietnam, Ngô Đình Diệm consolidated power and encouraged anti-communism. This period was marked by U.S. support to South Vietnam before Gulf of Tonkin, as well as communist infrastructure-building.
The 1959 to 1963 phase of the Vietnam War started after the North Vietnamese had made a firm decision to commit to a military intervention in the guerrilla war in the South Vietnam, a buildup phase began, between the 1959 North Vietnamese decision and the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, which led to a major US escalation of its involvement. Vietnamese communists saw this as a second phase of their revolution, the US now substituting for the French.
The year 1961 saw a new American president, John F. Kennedy, attempt to cope with a deteriorating military and political situation in South Vietnam. The Viet Cong (VC) with assistance from North Vietnam made substantial gains in controlling much of the rural population of South Vietnam. Kennedy expanded military aid to the government of President Ngô Đình Diệm, increased the number of U.S. military advisors in South Vietnam, and reduced the pressure that had been exerted on Diệm during the Eisenhower Administration to reform his government and broaden his political base.
In 1960, the oft-expressed optimism of the United States and the Government of South Vietnam that the Viet Cong (VC) were nearly defeated proved mistaken. Instead the VC became a growing threat and security forces attempted to cope with VC attacks, assassinations of local officials, and efforts to control villages and rural areas. Throughout the year, the U.S. struggled with the reality that much of the training it had provided to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) during the previous five years had not been relevant to combating an insurgency. The U.S. changed its policy to allow the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) to begin providing anti-guerrilla training to ARVN and the paramilitary Civil Guard.
1959 saw Vietnam still divided into South and North. North Vietnam authorized the Viet Cong (VC) to undertake limited military action as well as political action to subvert the Diệm government. North Vietnam also authorized the construction of what would become known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail to supply the VC in South Vietnam. Armed encounters between the VC and the government of South Vietnam became more frequent and with larger numbers involved. In September, 360 soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) were ambushed by a force of about 100 VC guerrillas.
In 1955, the Prime Minister of South Vietnam Ngô Đình Diệm faced a severe challenge to his rule over South Vietnam from the Bình Xuyên criminal gang and the Cao Đài and Hòa Hảo religious sects. In the Battle of Saigon in April, Diệm's army eliminated the Bình Xuyên as a rival and soon also reduced the power of the sects. The United States, which had been wavering in its support of Diệm before the battle, strongly supported him afterwards. Diệm declined to enter into talks with North Vietnam concerning an election in 1956 to unify the country. Diệm called a national election in October and easily defeated Head of State Bảo Đại, thus becoming President of South Vietnam.
Ngo Dinh Diem consolidated his power as the President of South Vietnam. He declined to have a national election to unify the country as called for in the Geneva Accords. In North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh apologized for certain consequences of the land reform program he had initiated in 1955. The several thousand Viet Minh cadres the North had left behind in South Vietnam focused on political action rather than insurgency. The South Vietnamese army attempted to root out the Viet Minh.
In 1957 South Vietnam's President Ngô Đình Diệm visited the United States and was acclaimed a "miracle man' who had saved one-half of Vietnam from communism. However, in the latter part of the year, violent incidents committed by anti-Diệm insurgents increased and doubts about the viability of Diệm's government were expressed in the media and by U.S. government officials.
When 1954 began, the French had been fighting the insurgent communist-dominated Viet Minh for more than seven years attempting to retain control of their colony Vietnam. Domestic support for the war by the population of France had declined. The United States was concerned and worried that a French military defeat in Vietnam would result in the spread of communism to all the countries of Southeast Asia—the domino theory—and was looking for means of aiding the French without committing American troops to the war.
Đồng Khởi was a movement led by remnants of the Việt Minh that remained in South Vietnam and urged people to revolt against the United States and the Republic Of Vietnam, first of all in large rural areas in southern Vietnam and on highlands of South Central Coastal Vietnam. This movement took place from the end of 1959, culminating in 1960, rapidly spreading across the South, dissolving the rural government structure of the Republic of Vietnam under President Ngô Đình Diệm, resulting in a significant part of rural South Vietnam being controlled by the communists, leading to the foundation of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam.
South Vietnam 
Viet Minh cadres [2] 
