Ngo Dinh Can
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Ngô Đình Cẩn was a younger brother and confidant of South Vietnam
’s first president, Ngo Dinh Diem
, and an important member of the Diem government. Diem put Cẩn in charge of central Vietnam, stretching from Phan Thiết
in the south to the border at the 17th parallel
, with Cẩn ruling the region as a virtual dictator
. Based in the former imperial capital of Huế
, Cẩn operated private armies and secret police
that controlled the central region and earned himself a reputation as the most oppressive of the Ngô brothers.
In his youth, Cẩn was a follower of the nationalist Phan Boi Chau
. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he worked to organise support for Diem as various Vietnamese groups and international powers sought to stamp their authority over Vietnam. Cẩn, who succeeded in eliminating alternative nationalist opposition in central Vietnam, became the warlord of the region when his brother became president of the southern half of the partitioned nation
in 1955. He became notorious for his involvement in smuggling and corruption, as well as his autocratic rule. Cẩn was regarded as an effective leader against the Viet Cong communist insurgency, which was much weaker in central Vietnam than in other parts of South Vietnam. His Popular Force militia was regarded as a successful counter to the communists.
Cẩn's influence began to wane after his elder brother Ngo Dinh Thuc was appointed Archbishop of Huế. Thục overshadowed Cẩn and desecularised the region with aggressive promotion of Roman Catholicism, which came to a head with the banning of the Buddhist flag
in 1963 during Vesak
, the celebration of the birthday of Gautama Buddha
. Cẩn's forces opened fire
on a crowd who were protesting the ban, killing nine and precipitating the Buddhist crisis
. Ongoing demonstrations intensified throughout the summer as the regime responded with increased brutality, sparking the toppling of the Diem regime in a November 1963 coup
. Cẩn had been offered asylum by the US Department of State, but the US ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
had CIA
agent Lucien Conein
arrest the fallen Ngô in Saigon. Cẩn was turned over to the military junta
, which tried
and executed
him in 1964.
Cẩn was the fifth of six sons born to Ngo Dinh Kha, who was a mandarin
in the imperial court of Emperor Thanh Thai
, who was ruling under French control. Khả retired from the court in protest at French interference, taking up farming. Cẩn's first and third brothers—Ngo Dinh Khoi
and Diem—rose to become provincial governors under French rule. However, Diem, like his father, resigned in protest in 1933, while Khôi was assassinated in 1945 by Ho Chi Minh
's communists. The second brother Ngo Dinh Thuc became a Roman Catholic cleric and later strongly influenced the family's religious policies. A fourth brother Ngo Dinh Nhu
later became the family's chief political strategist, while the youngest, Ngo Dinh Luyen
was a diplomat when the family held power in South Vietnam
.
Details about Cẩn's early life are scarce. In his youth, he had studied the writings and opinions of the renowned anti-French Vietnamese nationalist Phan Boi Chau
, who spent his last years in Huế. Regarded as the leading revolutionary of his time, Châu had been captured and sentenced to death, before having his sentence reduced to house arrest. Cẩn regularly travelled to Châu's sampan
on the Perfume River
with gifts of food and listened to Châu's political lectures. Regarded as the least educated of his family, Cẩn had never travelled outside Vietnam and was the only Ngô brother not to have studied at a European-run institution.
Vietnam was in chaos after the Japanese invaded the country during World War II and displaced the French colonial administration. At the end of the war, the Japanese left the country and France, severely weakened by political turmoil within the Vichy regime, was unable to exert control. Ho's Vietminh declared independence as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and battled other Vietnamese nationalist groups as well as French forces for control of the nation. During this time, Cẩn actively organised a clandestine support base for Diệm in central Vietnam. At the time, Diệm was one of many nationalists who were attempting to stake a claim to national leadership, having spent a decade in self-imposed exile from public affairs. Cẩn helped to weaken other anti-communist nationalist groups, such as the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng
(Vietnamese Nationalist Party) and the Đại Việt Quốc Dân Đảng
(Nationalist Party of Greater Vietnam), which competed with Diệm for support. On October 23, 1955, Diệm toppled Bảo Đại
in a fraudulent referendum orchestrated by Nhu, and declared himself President of the newly proclaimed Republic of Vietnam three days later. Cẩn's men helped to cow the populace into voting for his brother. Those who disobeyed were often chased down and beaten, with pepper sauce and water sometimes being forced into their nostrils. The violations were particularly flagrant in Cẩn's area, which was the home of the Nguyễn Dynasty and a source of sympathy towards Bảo Đại. Cẩn ordered the police to arrest 1,200 people for political reasons in the week leading up to the vote. In the city of Hoi An
, some people were killed in election day violence.
in 1955, Cẩn's stock rose. Cẩn had no formal position in the government but was effectively regarded as the warlord of central Vietnam. He had almost unlimited power in the region, often interfering with army operations against the Việt Cộng
in a style described as "feudal". Robert Scigliano, an academic from the Michigan State University advisory group
hired by Diệm, said that Cẩn, along with Nhu, Madame Nhu and eldest brother Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc formed "an extralegal elite which, with Diệm, directs the destiny of Vietnam". Cẩn sometimes vetoed government-appointed officials posted to central Vietnam from Saigon. He ran his own personal army and secret police, which fought the Viet Cong and imprisoned other anti-communist political opponents. Cẩn accumulated great wealth through corrupt practices such as graft, in awarding foreign aid contracts from the United States governments of Dwight D. Eisenhower
and John F. Kennedy
to Vietnamese businessmen. He required the businessmen to pay a fee to the National Revolutionary Movement—the official party of the regime—in return for the processing of applications for foreign aid contracts and import licenses. Cẩn was widely believed to be selling rice
to North Vietnam
on the black market, as well as organising the trafficking of opium
throughout Asia via Laos
and monopolising the cinnamon
trade.
Cẩn was also often in conflict with his siblings on internal matters, with Nhu, Diem's most influential adviser, controlling the southern part of the country. The brothers often competed with each other for US aid contracts and the rice trade, but did not interfere with matters in one another's territorial zone. Cẩn had once tried to set up an office for his secret police in Sài Gòn (which was in Nhu's southern region) by showing Diệm his long list of detained political opponents, but insisted that he not have to report to Nhu.
Cẩn was regarded as the most oppressive of the Ngô brothers, as he brutally suppressed dissent by using torture and re-education camps to achieve his aims. Comparing Cẩn to his brothers, Scigliano said that he "is also considered the most severe, some would say primitive, member of the family and he rules his domain with a strict and sometimes brutal hand". Referring to his autocratic style, a Vietnamese critic said that unlike Diệm, Cẩn was consistent and left his followers in no doubt as to what he wanted: "They are not confused by double talk about democratic ideals and institutions". This trait of creating a well defined system of incentive and deterrence was one of the reasons cited for his successful rule.
. Cẩn had created the Popular Force organisation to operate in central Vietnam. The Popular Force was an alternative to the Strategic Hamlet Program
which was used on a much larger scale in the south by Nhu, who moved peasants into fortified camps in an attempt to isolate Vietcong cadres from accessing the rural populace and intimidating or otherwise gaining their support. Cẩn assumed that around a third of the rural peasantry were Việt Cộng sympathisers, significant enough to render the hamlets ineffective by intimidating other villagers from within. Cẩn's Popular Force were a group of volunteers who underwent rigorous training similar to United States Marine Corps Recruit Training
. Those who passed the training were be put into units of 150 men and assigned to live and work in the villages by day. At night, they did defense patrols, using hit and run
tactics against the Việt Cộng. According to the report by US officials in central Vietnam, the program aroused popular support because of the integration of the Popular Force's personnel into the daily life of the village and the sense of security that the force provided. The units were generally regarded as being successful in their six month deployments, allowing them to be deployed to the next troublespot. Officials in Washington disagreed with the assessment of their subordinates in central Vietnam, alleging that Cẩn was mainly using the Popular Force for repressing dissidents.
s on May 8 to commemorate Vesak
—the birth of Gautama Buddha
—was banned. Cẩn's subordinates ordered government forces to fire on the unarmed Buddhist crowd protesting the ban, killing nine. Cẩn thought that the US—whose relations with South Vietnam had become strained—caused an explosion during the Vesak shootings, in order to destabilise his family's regime.
Another notable religious incident occurred in the central region under Cẩn's rule in 1963. A hugely oversized carp
was found swimming in a small pond near the central city of Đà Nẵng
. Local Buddhists began to believe that the fish was a reincarnation
of one of Gautama Buddha
's disciples. As pilgrimages to the pond became larger and more frequent, so did disquiet among Cẩn's district chief and his subordinates. The local law enforcement agencies mined the pond, but the fish survived. They raked the pond with machine gun fire, but the fish again survived. To deal with the tenacious fish, they called in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces
, led by Colonel Lê Quang Tung
under the direction of Nhu. The grenading of the pond finally killed the carp. The killing had the unintended effect of increasing the public profile of the carp, with newspapers across the world running stories about the miraculous fish. Army of the Republic of Vietnam
(ARVN) helicopters began landing at the site, with paratroopers filling their bottles with water that they believed to be magical.
Sparked by the killings in Huế on Vesak, the Buddhists organised nationwide mass protests against the religious bias of the Diệm regime throughout the summer of 1963, demanding religious equality. The protests were met with brutal crackdowns, including ARVN Special Forces attacks on Buddhist pagodas which left hundreds missing, presumed dead. As public discontent heightened, a group of ARVN officers planned and carried out a US-backed coup in November. This came about after Cẩn's protégé Tôn Thất Đính
, a 37-year old who became the youngest ever general in the ARVN due to his loyalty to the Diệm regime, switched sides and helped the coup when his corps was expected to remain loyal. Diệm and Nhu were executed at the conclusion of the coup.
Following the downfall of the Ngô family, the White House
came under pressure from the South Vietnamese public to take a hard line on Cẩn. Mass graves containing 200 bodies were found on his land. The US consul in Huế, John Helble, confirmed the existence of rows of 18th century style dungeons with filthy, dark cells in an old French arsenal. Although junta member General Trần Văn Đôn
asserted that the compound predated the Diệm era, the town's citizens saw Cẩn as a mass murderer. On November 4, two days after the coup ended, thousands of irate townspeople walked three kilometres to Cẩn's house on the city's southern outskirts—where he lived with his aged mother—demanding vengeance. The junta
had ringed the home with barbed wire and armoured cars, sensing that the populace would riot and attack Cẩn. By this time, Cẩn had already escaped to a Catholic seminary, but he was considering applying to the Americans for political asylum. The US State Department was faced with a dilemma: sheltering Cẩn would associate them with the protection of a corrupt and authoritarian regime that had killed and tortured hundreds of thousands of its own people. Allowing Cẩn to be attacked by angry mobs would damage the reputation of the new American-backed junta. The State Department instructed:
The White House sent a cable to the US Embassy, Saigon on November 4 agreeing that Cẩn and his mother needed evacuation. General Đổ Cao Trí
, the commander of the ARVN I Corps, who had repressed the Buddhists in Huế, privately told Cẩn that the junta would allow him safe passage out of Vietnam. On November 5, Cẩn sought refuge at the US consulate with a suitcase crammed with US currency. Trí was then told that Cẩn was not safe in Huế and that he was to send Cẩn to Saì Gòn immediately for his own protection. Trí would only promise safe passage in an American plane to Saì Gòn, where embassy officials would meet Cẩn. On the journey to the capital, Cẩn was accompanied by four Americans: a vice-consul, two military police
men and a lieutenant colonel. He intended to ask for asylum in Japan.
However, the US ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
—who had abetted the coup—had other ideas. Instead of sending embassy officials to Tân Sơn Nhứt airport, Lodge sent CIA agent Lucien Conein
, who had helped the Vietnamese generals to plan the coup. Conein turned Cẩn over to the junta. Lodge said that General Đôn had promised that Cẩn would be dealt with "legally and judicially". The ambassador told Washington that asylum was unnecessary, saying "It seems to me that our reason for giving him asylum therefore no longer exists". He said that the US could not interfere with justice, since Cẩn was "undoubtedly a reprehensible figure who deserves all the loathing which he now receives". Lodge reasoned that because Cẩn would not be killed, protecting him would give the impression that the US backed his activities. Lodge said that General Dương Văn Minh
, who was the President, had implied that Cẩn would receive clemency even if sentenced to death. This contradicted Conein's assertion that the ARVN officer corps felt that Cẩn should be executed. Cẩn's case was damaged by the release of tens of thousands of political prisoners, who recounted tales of torture at the hands of the Ngô brothers.
—who had deposed Minh in a January 1964 coup
—offered Cẩn exile if he handed over his foreign bank deposits. Cẩn protested, saying that he had no money. Đôn later claimed that Khánh would have executed Cẩn anyway, as Cẩn would have known of the corruption that the generals were party to. During the Ngô era, Khánh commanded the ARVN II Corps
, which operated in the central highlands
under Cẩn's supervision. Despite having helped to arrest Cẩn, Lodge began to advise Khánh to be restrained in his handling of the case for fear of stoking religious resentment or upsetting international opinion with a death penalty. Lodge later claimed that the South Vietnamese prosecutors had failed to make any case against Cẩn. The Vietnamese leader also had to contend with the other side of the arguments, from those who considered themselves to be victims of the Diệm regime. During the trial, Thích Trí Quang, along with other opponents of the old regime, lobbied for a death sentence for Cẩn. He argued that if Cẩn lived, he could regain power along with his late brothers’ supporters. He told Lodge that if the Americans did not support a tough sentence, then the Vietnamese Buddhist community's opinion of Washington would fall. Lodge was very critical of the actions of Thích Trí Quang in campaigning against Cẩn, saying that it bordered on anti-Catholicism. Eventually, Cẩn received a death sentence.
Having been condemned to death, Cẩn appealed to the head of state for clemency; his lawyers used a provision in the legal code to make the appeal. This placed Minh—who was still the titular head of state—in the position of approving a third death in the Ngô family, having already ordered his bodyguard Nguyễn Văn Nhung
to execute Diệm and Nhu during the coup. Cẩn's diabetic condition worsened during the course of the trial, and by the time he was executed, his elderly mother had died. He suffered a heart attack while in custody and on May 9, 1964, was carried on a stretcher into the prison courtyard and assisted by guards and two Catholic priests to stand alongside a post, to which he was tied. Cẩn was blindfolded against his request and shot in front of approximately 200 spectators. Lodge later defended his actions, saying that the US had done all that it could to prevent the execution. The ambassador publicly claimed that Cẩn would have been allowed refuge at the U.S. embassy, despite the fact that he ordered Conein to intercept Cẩn at the airport. Father Cao Văn Luân—the rector of Huế University
who had been fired for opposing the anti-Buddhist crackdown—had asked Lodge that Cẩn not be executed. According to Luân, Lodge had assured the rector that the execution would not occur. Cẩn left his personal fortune—which had indeed been deposited in foreign banks—to Catholic charities.
South Vietnam
South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the "State of Vietnam" and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" . Its capital was Saigon...
’s first president, Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngô Đình Diệm was the first president of South Vietnam . In the wake of the French withdrawal from Indochina as a result of the 1954 Geneva Accords, Diệm led the effort to create the Republic of Vietnam. Accruing considerable U.S. support due to his staunch anti-Communism, he achieved victory in a...
, and an important member of the Diem government. Diem put Cẩn in charge of central Vietnam, stretching from Phan Thiết
Phan Thiết
Phan Thiết town is the capital of Binh Thuan province, in southeastern Vietnam. Phan Thiet is a municipality in central, south central sector, however, the development plan to 2025, it would be municipality Southeast Vietnam. The population of Phan Thiết city in 2005 is roughly 350,000 and is...
in the south to the border at the 17th parallel
17th parallel north
The 17th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 17 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses Africa, Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, Central America, the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean....
, with Cẩn ruling the region as a virtual dictator
Dictator
A dictator is a ruler who assumes sole and absolute power but without hereditary ascension such as an absolute monarch. When other states call the head of state of a particular state a dictator, that state is called a dictatorship...
. Based in the former imperial capital of Huế
Hue
Hue is one of the main properties of a color, defined technically , as "the degree to which a stimulus can be describedas similar to or different from stimuli that are described as red, green, blue, and yellow,"...
, Cẩn operated private armies and secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
that controlled the central region and earned himself a reputation as the most oppressive of the Ngô brothers.
In his youth, Cẩn was a follower of the nationalist Phan Boi Chau
Phan Boi Chau
Phan Bội Châu was a pioneer of Vietnamese 20th century nationalism. In 1903, he formed a revolutionary organization called the “Reformation Society” ....
. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he worked to organise support for Diem as various Vietnamese groups and international powers sought to stamp their authority over Vietnam. Cẩn, who succeeded in eliminating alternative nationalist opposition in central Vietnam, became the warlord of the region when his brother became president of the southern half of the partitioned nation
Partition of Vietnam
The Partition of Vietnam was the establishment of the 17th parallel as the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone in 1954, splitting Vietnam into halves after the First Indochina War.The Geneva Conference was held at the conclusion of the First Indochina War...
in 1955. He became notorious for his involvement in smuggling and corruption, as well as his autocratic rule. Cẩn was regarded as an effective leader against the Viet Cong communist insurgency, which was much weaker in central Vietnam than in other parts of South Vietnam. His Popular Force militia was regarded as a successful counter to the communists.
Cẩn's influence began to wane after his elder brother Ngo Dinh Thuc was appointed Archbishop of Huế. Thục overshadowed Cẩn and desecularised the region with aggressive promotion of Roman Catholicism, which came to a head with the banning of the Buddhist flag
Buddhist flag
The Buddhist flag is a flag designed in the late 19th century to symbolise and universally represent Buddhism. It is used by Buddhists throughout the world.-History:...
in 1963 during Vesak
Vesak
Vesākha is a holiday observed traditionally by Buddhists in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the South East Asian countries of Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Burma, and Indonesia...
, the celebration of the birthday of Gautama Buddha
Gautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
. Cẩn's forces opened fire
Hue Vesak shootings
The Huế Phật Đản shootings refer to the deaths of nine unarmed Buddhist civilians on May 8, 1963, in the city of Huế in South Vietnam, at the hands of the army and security forces of the government of Ngô Đình Diệm...
on a crowd who were protesting the ban, killing nine and precipitating the Buddhist crisis
Buddhist crisis
The Buddhist crisis was a period of political and religious tension in South Vietnam from May 1963 to November 1963 characterized by a series of repressive acts by the South Vietnamese government and a campaign of civil resistance, led mainly by Buddhist monks....
. Ongoing demonstrations intensified throughout the summer as the regime responded with increased brutality, sparking the toppling of the Diem regime in a November 1963 coup
1963 South Vietnamese coup
In November 1963, President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam was deposed by a group of Army of the Republic of Vietnam officers who disagreed with his handling of the Buddhist crisis and, in general, his increasing oppression of national groups in the name of fighting the communist Vietcong.The...
. Cẩn had been offered asylum by the US Department of State, but the US ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. was a Republican United States Senator from Massachusetts and a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, South Vietnam, West Germany, and the Holy See . He was the Republican nominee for Vice President in the 1960 Presidential election.-Early life:Lodge was born in Nahant,...
had CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
agent Lucien Conein
Lucien Conein
Lt. Col. Lucien Emile Conein was a noted U.S. Army officer and Office of Strategic Services / Central Intelligence Agency operative...
arrest the fallen Ngô in Saigon. Cẩn was turned over to the military junta
Military junta
A junta or military junta is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term derives from the Spanish language junta meaning committee, specifically a board of directors...
, which tried
Trial (law)
In law, a trial is when parties to a dispute come together to present information in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court...
and executed
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
him in 1964.
Early years
Mandarin (bureaucrat)
A mandarin was a bureaucrat in imperial China, and also in the monarchist days of Vietnam where the system of Imperial examinations and scholar-bureaucrats was adopted under Chinese influence.-History and use of the term:...
in the imperial court of Emperor Thanh Thai
Thanh Thai
Emperor Thành Thái of the Vietnamese Nguyễn Dynasty was born Prince Nguyễn Phúc Bửu Lân, son of Emperor Duc Duc. He reigned for 18 years, from 1889 to 1907.-Biography:...
, who was ruling under French control. Khả retired from the court in protest at French interference, taking up farming. Cẩn's first and third brothers—Ngo Dinh Khoi
Ngo Dinh Khoi
Ngô Ðình Khôi was a brother of South Vietnam’s first President, Ngô Đình Diệm, and of Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục. He served as a governor in the French administration of Việtnam during the French Indochina years. He was buried alive by the Communists for refusal to join the Việt Minh as a minister in...
and Diem—rose to become provincial governors under French rule. However, Diem, like his father, resigned in protest in 1933, while Khôi was assassinated in 1945 by Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh
Hồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...
's communists. The second brother Ngo Dinh Thuc became a Roman Catholic cleric and later strongly influenced the family's religious policies. A fourth brother Ngo Dinh Nhu
Ngo Dinh Nhu
Ngô Ðình Nhu was the younger brother and chief political advisor of South Vietnam's first president, Ngô Ðình Diệm. Nhu was widely regarded as the architect of the Ngô family's nepotistic and autocratic rule over South Vietnam from 1955 to 1963...
later became the family's chief political strategist, while the youngest, Ngo Dinh Luyen
Ngo Dinh Luyen
Ngô Đình Luyện was a brother of South Vietnam’s first President, Ngô Đình Diệm, Provincial Governor Ngô Ðình Khôi, and of Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục. Ngô Đình Diệm appointed him as ambassador to the United Kingdom...
was a diplomat when the family held power in South Vietnam
South Vietnam
South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the "State of Vietnam" and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" . Its capital was Saigon...
.
Details about Cẩn's early life are scarce. In his youth, he had studied the writings and opinions of the renowned anti-French Vietnamese nationalist Phan Boi Chau
Phan Boi Chau
Phan Bội Châu was a pioneer of Vietnamese 20th century nationalism. In 1903, he formed a revolutionary organization called the “Reformation Society” ....
, who spent his last years in Huế. Regarded as the leading revolutionary of his time, Châu had been captured and sentenced to death, before having his sentence reduced to house arrest. Cẩn regularly travelled to Châu's sampan
Sampan
A sampan is a relatively flat bottomed Chinese wooden boat from long. Some sampans include a small shelter on board, and may be used as a permanent habitation on inland waters. Sampans are generally used for transportation in coastal areas or rivers, and are often used as traditional fishing boats...
on the Perfume River
Perfume River
The Perfume River is a river that crosses the city of Huế, in the central Vietnamese province of Thừa Thiên Huế.-Etymology:In the autumn, flowers from orchards upriver from Huế fall into the water, giving the river a perfume-like aroma....
with gifts of food and listened to Châu's political lectures. Regarded as the least educated of his family, Cẩn had never travelled outside Vietnam and was the only Ngô brother not to have studied at a European-run institution.
Vietnam was in chaos after the Japanese invaded the country during World War II and displaced the French colonial administration. At the end of the war, the Japanese left the country and France, severely weakened by political turmoil within the Vichy regime, was unable to exert control. Ho's Vietminh declared independence as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and battled other Vietnamese nationalist groups as well as French forces for control of the nation. During this time, Cẩn actively organised a clandestine support base for Diệm in central Vietnam. At the time, Diệm was one of many nationalists who were attempting to stake a claim to national leadership, having spent a decade in self-imposed exile from public affairs. Cẩn helped to weaken other anti-communist nationalist groups, such as the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng
Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang
The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng , also known as the Việt Quốc and the Vietnamese Kuomintang, is the Vietnamese Nationalist Party, a revolutionary socialist political party that sought independence from French colonial rule in Vietnam during the early 20th century...
(Vietnamese Nationalist Party) and the Đại Việt Quốc Dân Đảng
Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang
Đại Việt Quốc dân đảng , often known simply as Đại Việt, was a nationalist and anti-communist political party and militant organisation that was active in Vietnam in the 20th century. The party was founded by Trương Tử Anh, known as Anh Cả Phương...
(Nationalist Party of Greater Vietnam), which competed with Diệm for support. On October 23, 1955, Diệm toppled Bảo Đại
Bảo Đài
Bảo Đài is a commune and village in Lục Nam District, Bac Giang Province, in northeastern Vietnam.-References:...
in a fraudulent referendum orchestrated by Nhu, and declared himself President of the newly proclaimed Republic of Vietnam three days later. Cẩn's men helped to cow the populace into voting for his brother. Those who disobeyed were often chased down and beaten, with pepper sauce and water sometimes being forced into their nostrils. The violations were particularly flagrant in Cẩn's area, which was the home of the Nguyễn Dynasty and a source of sympathy towards Bảo Đại. Cẩn ordered the police to arrest 1,200 people for political reasons in the week leading up to the vote. In the city of Hoi An
Hoi An
Hội An , or rarely Faifo, is a city of Vietnam, on the coast of the South China Sea in the South Central Coast of Vietnam. It is located in Quang Nam province and is home to approximately 120,000 inhabitants...
, some people were killed in election day violence.
Rule
With Diệm's ascent to the leadership of South VietnamSouth Vietnam
South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the "State of Vietnam" and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" . Its capital was Saigon...
in 1955, Cẩn's stock rose. Cẩn had no formal position in the government but was effectively regarded as the warlord of central Vietnam. He had almost unlimited power in the region, often interfering with army operations against the Việt Cộng
National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam
The Vietcong , or National Liberation Front , was a political organization and army in South Vietnam and Cambodia that fought the United States and South Vietnamese governments during the Vietnam War . It had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized...
in a style described as "feudal". Robert Scigliano, an academic from the Michigan State University advisory group
Michigan State University Vietnam Advisory Group
The Michigan State University Vietnam Advisory Group was a program of technical assistance provided to the government of South Vietnam as an effort in state-building by the U.S...
hired by Diệm, said that Cẩn, along with Nhu, Madame Nhu and eldest brother Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc formed "an extralegal elite which, with Diệm, directs the destiny of Vietnam". Cẩn sometimes vetoed government-appointed officials posted to central Vietnam from Saigon. He ran his own personal army and secret police, which fought the Viet Cong and imprisoned other anti-communist political opponents. Cẩn accumulated great wealth through corrupt practices such as graft, in awarding foreign aid contracts from the United States governments of Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
and John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
to Vietnamese businessmen. He required the businessmen to pay a fee to the National Revolutionary Movement—the official party of the regime—in return for the processing of applications for foreign aid contracts and import licenses. Cẩn was widely believed to be selling rice
Rice
Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...
to North Vietnam
North Vietnam
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam , was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976 following the Geneva Conference and laid claim to all of Vietnam from 1945 to 1954 during the First Indochina War, during which they controlled pockets of territory throughout...
on the black market, as well as organising the trafficking of opium
Opium
Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...
throughout Asia via Laos
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
and monopolising the cinnamon
Cinnamon
Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several trees from the genus Cinnamomum that is used in both sweet and savoury foods...
trade.
Cẩn was regarded as the most oppressive of the Ngô brothers, as he brutally suppressed dissent by using torture and re-education camps to achieve his aims. Comparing Cẩn to his brothers, Scigliano said that he "is also considered the most severe, some would say primitive, member of the family and he rules his domain with a strict and sometimes brutal hand". Referring to his autocratic style, a Vietnamese critic said that unlike Diệm, Cẩn was consistent and left his followers in no doubt as to what he wanted: "They are not confused by double talk about democratic ideals and institutions". This trait of creating a well defined system of incentive and deterrence was one of the reasons cited for his successful rule.
Anti-communist activities
In spite of his autocracy and iron rule, Cẩn gained praise from Huế-based US officials for his relatively high levels of success against the Việt Cộng insurgency. Cẩn's central region was much more peaceful than the restive areas near Sài Gòn and the Mekong DeltaMekong Delta
The Mekong Delta is the region in southwestern Vietnam where the Mekong River approaches and empties into the sea through a network of distributaries. The Mekong delta region encompasses a large portion of southwestern Vietnam of . The size of the area covered by water depends on the season.The...
. Cẩn had created the Popular Force organisation to operate in central Vietnam. The Popular Force was an alternative to the Strategic Hamlet Program
Strategic Hamlet Program
The Strategic Hamlet Program was a plan by the governments of South Vietnam and the United States during the Vietnam War to combat the Communist insurgency by means of population transfer.In 1961, U.S...
which was used on a much larger scale in the south by Nhu, who moved peasants into fortified camps in an attempt to isolate Vietcong cadres from accessing the rural populace and intimidating or otherwise gaining their support. Cẩn assumed that around a third of the rural peasantry were Việt Cộng sympathisers, significant enough to render the hamlets ineffective by intimidating other villagers from within. Cẩn's Popular Force were a group of volunteers who underwent rigorous training similar to United States Marine Corps Recruit Training
United States Marine Corps Recruit Training
United States Marine Corps Recruit Training, commonly known as "boot camp", is a program of initial training that each recruit must successfully complete in order to join the United States Marine Corps...
. Those who passed the training were be put into units of 150 men and assigned to live and work in the villages by day. At night, they did defense patrols, using hit and run
Hit and run
Hit and run typically refers to:* Hit and run , the crime of failing to stop and identify oneself after a vehicular collision* Hit and run , a baseball play in which runners are in motion before the ball is hit...
tactics against the Việt Cộng. According to the report by US officials in central Vietnam, the program aroused popular support because of the integration of the Popular Force's personnel into the daily life of the village and the sense of security that the force provided. The units were generally regarded as being successful in their six month deployments, allowing them to be deployed to the next troublespot. Officials in Washington disagreed with the assessment of their subordinates in central Vietnam, alleging that Cẩn was mainly using the Popular Force for repressing dissidents.
Buddhist crisis
Cẩn was considered the most secular of the four Ngô brothers who controlled Vietnam's domestic affairs. With the appointment of elder brother Thục as the Archbishop of Huế in 1961, Cẩn became less influential as Thục aggressively blurred the distinction between church and state. In early 1963, Nhu sent an emissary from Saì Gòn telling Cẩn to retire and leave for Japan. Unrest erupted in the summer of 1963. After the flying of Vatican flags was permitted at a celebration for the anniversary of Thục's consecration as a bishop, the flying of Buddhist flagBuddhist flag
The Buddhist flag is a flag designed in the late 19th century to symbolise and universally represent Buddhism. It is used by Buddhists throughout the world.-History:...
s on May 8 to commemorate Vesak
Vesak
Vesākha is a holiday observed traditionally by Buddhists in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the South East Asian countries of Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Burma, and Indonesia...
—the birth of Gautama Buddha
Gautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
—was banned. Cẩn's subordinates ordered government forces to fire on the unarmed Buddhist crowd protesting the ban, killing nine. Cẩn thought that the US—whose relations with South Vietnam had become strained—caused an explosion during the Vesak shootings, in order to destabilise his family's regime.
Another notable religious incident occurred in the central region under Cẩn's rule in 1963. A hugely oversized carp
Carp
Carp are various species of oily freshwater fish of the family Cyprinidae, a very large group of fish native to Europe and Asia. The cypriniformes are traditionally grouped with the Characiformes, Siluriformes and Gymnotiformes to create the superorder Ostariophysi, since these groups have certain...
was found swimming in a small pond near the central city of Đà Nẵng
Da Nang
Đà Nẵng , occasionally Danang, is a major port city in the South Central Coast of Vietnam, on the coast of the South China Sea at the mouth of the Han River. It is the commercial and educational center of Central Vietnam; its well-sheltered, easily accessible port and its location on the path of...
. Local Buddhists began to believe that the fish was a reincarnation
Reincarnation
Reincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant...
of one of Gautama Buddha
Gautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
's disciples. As pilgrimages to the pond became larger and more frequent, so did disquiet among Cẩn's district chief and his subordinates. The local law enforcement agencies mined the pond, but the fish survived. They raked the pond with machine gun fire, but the fish again survived. To deal with the tenacious fish, they called in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces
Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces
The Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces were the elite military units of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam . Following the establishment of the Republic of Vietnam in October 1955, the Special Forces were formed at Nha Trang in February 1956...
, led by Colonel Lê Quang Tung
Le Quang Tung
Colonel Lê Quang Tung was the commander of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces under the command of Ngo Dinh Nhu, the brother of South Vietnam's president, Ngo Dinh Diem. A former servant of the Ngô family, Tung's military background was in security and counterespionage...
under the direction of Nhu. The grenading of the pond finally killed the carp. The killing had the unintended effect of increasing the public profile of the carp, with newspapers across the world running stories about the miraculous fish. Army of the Republic of Vietnam
Army of the Republic of Vietnam
The Army of the Republic of Viet Nam , sometimes parsimoniously referred to as the South Vietnamese Army , was the land-based military forces of the Republic of Vietnam , which existed from October 26, 1955 until the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975...
(ARVN) helicopters began landing at the site, with paratroopers filling their bottles with water that they believed to be magical.
Downfall and arrest
Ton That Dinh
Major General Tôn Thất Đính is a retired officer who served in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam . He is best known as one of the key figures in the November 1963 coup that deposed and resulted in the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, the first president of the Republic of Vietnam .A favourite of...
, a 37-year old who became the youngest ever general in the ARVN due to his loyalty to the Diệm regime, switched sides and helped the coup when his corps was expected to remain loyal. Diệm and Nhu were executed at the conclusion of the coup.
Following the downfall of the Ngô family, the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
came under pressure from the South Vietnamese public to take a hard line on Cẩn. Mass graves containing 200 bodies were found on his land. The US consul in Huế, John Helble, confirmed the existence of rows of 18th century style dungeons with filthy, dark cells in an old French arsenal. Although junta member General Trần Văn Đôn
Tran Van Don
Trần Văn Đôn was a general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, and one of the principal figures in the coup d'état which deposed Ngô Đình Diệm from the presidency of South Vietnam.-Family:...
asserted that the compound predated the Diệm era, the town's citizens saw Cẩn as a mass murderer. On November 4, two days after the coup ended, thousands of irate townspeople walked three kilometres to Cẩn's house on the city's southern outskirts—where he lived with his aged mother—demanding vengeance. The junta
Military dictatorship
A military dictatorship is a form of government where in the political power resides with the military. It is similar but not identical to a stratocracy, a state ruled directly by the military....
had ringed the home with barbed wire and armoured cars, sensing that the populace would riot and attack Cẩn. By this time, Cẩn had already escaped to a Catholic seminary, but he was considering applying to the Americans for political asylum. The US State Department was faced with a dilemma: sheltering Cẩn would associate them with the protection of a corrupt and authoritarian regime that had killed and tortured hundreds of thousands of its own people. Allowing Cẩn to be attacked by angry mobs would damage the reputation of the new American-backed junta. The State Department instructed:
The White House sent a cable to the US Embassy, Saigon on November 4 agreeing that Cẩn and his mother needed evacuation. General Đổ Cao Trí
Do Cao Tri
Lieutenant General Đỗ Cao Trí was a general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam known for his fighting prowess and flamboyant style. Tri started out in the French Army before transferring to the Vietnamese National Army and the ARVN...
, the commander of the ARVN I Corps, who had repressed the Buddhists in Huế, privately told Cẩn that the junta would allow him safe passage out of Vietnam. On November 5, Cẩn sought refuge at the US consulate with a suitcase crammed with US currency. Trí was then told that Cẩn was not safe in Huế and that he was to send Cẩn to Saì Gòn immediately for his own protection. Trí would only promise safe passage in an American plane to Saì Gòn, where embassy officials would meet Cẩn. On the journey to the capital, Cẩn was accompanied by four Americans: a vice-consul, two military police
Military police
Military police are police organisations connected with, or part of, the military of a state. The word can have different meanings in different countries, and may refer to:...
men and a lieutenant colonel. He intended to ask for asylum in Japan.
However, the US ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. was a Republican United States Senator from Massachusetts and a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, South Vietnam, West Germany, and the Holy See . He was the Republican nominee for Vice President in the 1960 Presidential election.-Early life:Lodge was born in Nahant,...
—who had abetted the coup—had other ideas. Instead of sending embassy officials to Tân Sơn Nhứt airport, Lodge sent CIA agent Lucien Conein
Lucien Conein
Lt. Col. Lucien Emile Conein was a noted U.S. Army officer and Office of Strategic Services / Central Intelligence Agency operative...
, who had helped the Vietnamese generals to plan the coup. Conein turned Cẩn over to the junta. Lodge said that General Đôn had promised that Cẩn would be dealt with "legally and judicially". The ambassador told Washington that asylum was unnecessary, saying "It seems to me that our reason for giving him asylum therefore no longer exists". He said that the US could not interfere with justice, since Cẩn was "undoubtedly a reprehensible figure who deserves all the loathing which he now receives". Lodge reasoned that because Cẩn would not be killed, protecting him would give the impression that the US backed his activities. Lodge said that General Dương Văn Minh
Duong Van Minh
Minh was born on 16 February 1916 in Mỹ Tho Province in the Mekong Delta, the son of a wealthy landowner who served in a prominent position in the Finance Ministry of the French colonial administration...
, who was the President, had implied that Cẩn would receive clemency even if sentenced to death. This contradicted Conein's assertion that the ARVN officer corps felt that Cẩn should be executed. Cẩn's case was damaged by the release of tens of thousands of political prisoners, who recounted tales of torture at the hands of the Ngô brothers.
Trial and execution
It was reported that General Nguyễn KhánhNguyen Khanh
Nguyễn Khánh is a former general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam who variously served as Head of State and Prime minister of South Vietnam while at the head of a military junta from January 1964 until February 1965. He was involved in or against many coup attempts, failed and successful,...
—who had deposed Minh in a January 1964 coup
1964 South Vietnamese coup
Before dawn on January 30, 1964, General Nguyen Khanh ousted the military junta led by General Duong Van Minh from the leadership of South Vietnam without firing a shot. It came less than three months after Minh's junta had themselves come to power in a bloody coup against then President Ngo Dinh...
—offered Cẩn exile if he handed over his foreign bank deposits. Cẩn protested, saying that he had no money. Đôn later claimed that Khánh would have executed Cẩn anyway, as Cẩn would have known of the corruption that the generals were party to. During the Ngô era, Khánh commanded the ARVN II Corps
II Corps (South Vietnam)
The II Corps was a corps of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam , the army of the nation state of South Vietnam that existed from 1955 to 1975. It was one of four corps in the ARVN, and it oversaw the region of the central highlands region, north of the capital Saigon...
, which operated in the central highlands
Tây Nguyên
Tây Nguyên, translated as Western Highlands and sometimes also called Central Highlands, is one of the regions of Vietnam. It contains the provinces of Đắk Lắk, Đắk Nông, Gia Lai, Kon Tum, Lâm Đồng....
under Cẩn's supervision. Despite having helped to arrest Cẩn, Lodge began to advise Khánh to be restrained in his handling of the case for fear of stoking religious resentment or upsetting international opinion with a death penalty. Lodge later claimed that the South Vietnamese prosecutors had failed to make any case against Cẩn. The Vietnamese leader also had to contend with the other side of the arguments, from those who considered themselves to be victims of the Diệm regime. During the trial, Thích Trí Quang, along with other opponents of the old regime, lobbied for a death sentence for Cẩn. He argued that if Cẩn lived, he could regain power along with his late brothers’ supporters. He told Lodge that if the Americans did not support a tough sentence, then the Vietnamese Buddhist community's opinion of Washington would fall. Lodge was very critical of the actions of Thích Trí Quang in campaigning against Cẩn, saying that it bordered on anti-Catholicism. Eventually, Cẩn received a death sentence.
Having been condemned to death, Cẩn appealed to the head of state for clemency; his lawyers used a provision in the legal code to make the appeal. This placed Minh—who was still the titular head of state—in the position of approving a third death in the Ngô family, having already ordered his bodyguard Nguyễn Văn Nhung
Nguyen Van Nhung
Major Nguyễn Văn Nhung was an officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam . 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 execute Diệm and Nhu during the coup. Cẩn's diabetic condition worsened during the course of the trial, and by the time he was executed, his elderly mother had died. He suffered a heart attack while in custody and on May 9, 1964, was carried on a stretcher into the prison courtyard and assisted by guards and two Catholic priests to stand alongside a post, to which he was tied. Cẩn was blindfolded against his request and shot in front of approximately 200 spectators. Lodge later defended his actions, saying that the US had done all that it could to prevent the execution. The ambassador publicly claimed that Cẩn would have been allowed refuge at the U.S. embassy, despite the fact that he ordered Conein to intercept Cẩn at the airport. Father Cao Văn Luân—the rector of Huế University
Hue University
Huế University is a university located in Huế, the former imperial capital of Vietnam; this university is one of the important regional universities of Vietnam...
who had been fired for opposing the anti-Buddhist crackdown—had asked Lodge that Cẩn not be executed. According to Luân, Lodge had assured the rector that the execution would not occur. Cẩn left his personal fortune—which had indeed been deposited in foreign banks—to Catholic charities.