<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<document>
<title>Pham Ngoc Thao</title>
<authors>Wikipedia</authors>
<publisher>wikipedia.org</publisher>
<publishedplace>network</publishedplace>
<publishedyear>2010</publishedyear>
<edition></edition>
<category>South Vietnamese spies for North Vietnam</category>
<section id="42885" fatherid="0" title="" lv="" priority="-1" level="1">
Colonel Phạm Ngọc Thảo, known to friends as Albert Thảo (1922-1965), a major provincial leader in South Vietnam and infiltrator of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, was a communist agent of the Vietminh and later the Vietnam People's Army. As the overseer of Ngo Dinh Nhu's Strategic Hamlet Program in the early 1960s, he deliberately forced the program forward at unsustainable speeds, constructing poorly-equipped and poorly-defended villages, in order to foster resentment against the regime of President Ngo Dinh Diem, Nhu's elder brother.
Through intrigue, Thao also helped destabilise and ultimately unseat two South Vietnamese regimes-Diem's and the military junta of Nguyen Khanh. As the Diem regime began to unravel in 1963, Thao was one of many officers who planned a coup d'état. Although Thao's plot was ultimately integrated into the successful plot, his activities promoted infighting which weakened the government and distracted the military from fighting the Vietcong insurgency. Throughout 1964 and 1965, as South Vietnam was struggling to establish a stable state after the ouster of Diem, Thao was involved in several intrigues and coup plots which diverted the government and army's efforts to fight the Vietcong. In 1965, he went into hiding after a failed attempt to overthrow the regime of Khanh and was sentenced to death in absentia. Although this coup d'état also failed, the subsequent chaos forced Khanh's junta to collapse.
Thao died the same year he was forced into hiding; it is believed that he was murdered after a bounty was placed on his head. After Vietnam was reunified at the end of the Vietnam War, the victorious North Vietnamese communists claimed Thao as one of their own and posthumously made him a general.

</section>
<section id="42886" fatherid="0" title="Early Vietminh years" lv="" priority="2" level="1">
Born Phạm Ngọc Thuần, Thao was one of eleven children born into a northern Vietnamese Roman Catholic family. At the time, Vietnam was a French colony. The family held French citizenship but were anti-French; Thao's father, an engineer, once headed an underground communist organisation in Paris, which assisted the Vietminh's anti-French pro-independence activities outside Vietnam. After attending French schools in Saigon, Thuan changed his named to Thao and renounced his French citizenship. In his high school years at the Lycee Chasseloup Laubat,Tang, p. 4. Thao met Truong Nhu Tang, who later became a high-ranking member of the Vietcong, a communist guerrilla organisation in South Vietnam.Tang, p. 42. Tang described Thao as "my dearest friend" and recalled that they had "spent endless hours talking about everything under the sun. We were closer than brothers."
Thao spent his teenage years obsessed with his motorcycle. Despite being educated at an upper-class school that mainly catered to children of French colonial administrators and privileged Vietnamese-French was the medium of instruction and Gallic culture and history a major part of the curriculum-Tang, pp. 4-5. Thao was attracted to nationalist politics. He participated in Ho Chi Minh's revolutionary campaigns for Vietnamese independence and joined the Vietminh.
In September 1945, Ho declared independence under the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) following the withdrawal of Imperial Japan, which had seized control of the country from France during the Second World War. At the time, there was a power vacuum, as both Japan and France had been decimated by the war.Jacobs, pp. 18-23. There was an outbreak of nationalist fervour in Vietnam, and Tang and Thao joined the Vanguard Youth, an impromptu independence militia. Tang was assigned to be the leader of the local unit, but he  the movement soon after,Tang, pp. 7-8. leaving Thao in command. During this period, Saigon was regularly engulfed in riots.
In 1946, France attempted to reassert control over its colony and conventional military fighting broke out.Jacobs, pp. 21-23. Thao served with the Vietminh in the Mekong Delta in the far south of Vietnam during the war against French rule from 1946 to 1954. He almost met his end before he had started; he was apprehended by the local communists in My Tho, who saw his French-style dress and mistook him for a colonial agent. They tied him up and chained him to a block of stone before throwing him into a river to drown. However, Thao broke free of the weight and swam to safety.Tang, pp. 43-44. Thao proceeded further south and deeper into the Mekong Delta to the town of Vinh Long, where he was again arrested by the local Vietminh. Just as Thao was about to be executed by drowning, one of the communists realised that Thao was the brother of one of their comrades. Thao was released and rejoined his family, who were living in the region.Tang, p. 44.
As a leader of the resistance, Thao was allocated the responsibility of indoctrinating the 1947 batch of recruits with Vietminh ideology. One of Thao's students was his future enemy, South Vietnamese General and President Nguyen Khanh. This group became the 410th Battalion and went on to fight near Ca Mau, the southernmost part of Vietnam. By 1949, Thao was in charge of the Vietminh espionage apparatus around Saigon and organised the guerrilla companies in the countryside. Thao was also involved in procuring arms. Filipino traders brought arms into southern Vietnam in return for rice, shrimp, pork, gold and banknotes.Goscha, p. 191. Following the French defeat in 1954 at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Thao helped evacuate communist fighters from South Vietnam and Cambodia in accordance with the accords of the Geneva Conference. Under the accords, Vietnam was to be temporarily divided at the 17th parallel, pending national elections to reunify the country in 1956, and military personnel were to be evacuated to their respective sides of the border. In the meantime, Ho's Vietminh controlled the north under the DRV while the south was under the French-sponsored State of Vietnam.Jacobs, pp. 40-41.
However, Thao remained in the anti-communist south when Vietnam was partitioned and made a show of renouncing communism. He became a schoolteacher and later worked in a bank,Tang, p. 43. as well as the Department of Transport. He consistently refused to turn in the names of his former comrades, claiming that they were merely patriots fighting against the French and were not communists.Shaplen, pp. 309-310.Langguth, pp. 160-162. At the same time, one of Thao's brothers had been appointed as North Vietnam's ambassador to East Germany, having served as vice chairman of the Vietminh's Resistance Committee for the South during the war against the French. In October 1955, Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem ousted Emperor Bao Dai in a fraudulent referendum to determine the future of the State of Vietnam. Diem declared himself president of the newly proclaimed Republic of Vietnam.Jacobs, p. 85. He scrapped the national elections, citing that South Vietnam was not a signatory to the accords of the Geneva Conference. This prevented reunification and Thao was permanently ensconced in the south.Jacobs, p. 98.

</section>
<section id="42887" fatherid="0" title="Undercover communist in the South Vietnamese army" lv="" priority="3" level="1">
The American-backed Diem was a passionate anti-communist. In 1957, He initiated an "Anti-Communist Denunciation Campaign" to root out Vietminh members and their sympathisers. Thousands of people were killed or jailed, but in time, Diem's campaigns caused more sympathy for the Vietminh. Before 1960, various small-scale pro-Communist uprisings occurred in the countryside.Jacobs, p. 90. Thao went on the run and hid in Vinh Long, worried that Diem's men were after him.Tang, p. 45. In December 1960, North Vietnam's Politburo authorised the creation of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, popularly known as the Vietcong. The Vietcong were dominated by communists, but portrayed itself as a nationalist militant organisation, stating its aim to be the "reunification of the fatherland" with the overthrow of the "disguised colonial regime of the U.S. imperialists and the dictatorial Ngo Dinh Diem administration". The creation of the Vietcong marked an escalation in the scale and organisation of the insurgency that developed into the Vietnam War.Jacobs, pp. 119-121.
Thao's Catholicism helped him to avoid detection as a communist. He and his brother were the only members of the family who were not anti-communist. The remainder of the relatives were followers of Diem's brother Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc, who had been the Bishop of Vinh Long during the war against France.Jacobs, pp. 18-25. Thao was also known to have a face that revealed nothing of his inner feelings.Cannon, p. 96.
Thuc's intervention helped Thao rise in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Thuc put Thao in touch with Tran Kim Tuyen, who was in charge of intelligence operations under Diem's brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, who was the head of the secret police and controlled the ARVN Special Forces. Thao began as a propagandist for various units of the army and for the secret Catholic Can Lao Party. The Can Lao's system of informants and secret cells helped create the atmosphere of a police state and maintained the Ngo family's grip on power. Tang opined that Thuc "undoubtedly considered that Thao's Catholic and family loyalties were stronger and more durable than his youthful enthusiasm for revolution".Tang, p. 46. He felt that Thao had tricked Thuc into believing that he was no longer a communist, and that his inside knowledge would be useful to the Ngo family.
Thao started by training the Civil Guard. As a result of his family's Catholic connections, Thao rose steadily in the ARVN, since Diem's regime promoted officers primarily on religious preference and loyalty. Nhu sent him to Malaysia to study counterinsurgency techniques, and upon his return Thao became a vital part of Nhu's efforts to purge the army of disloyal officers. As Thao kept a close watch on those who commanded troops, lest they use their personnel in a coup, the leading officers were keen to maintain a good relationship with him and that increase his effectiveness as a spy.Tang, p. 48.
Thao rose even further when the troops he commanded helped put down the November 1960 coup attempt against Diem. Thao assisted Khanh and Tran Thien Khiem to put down the revolt. All three were promoted, with the latter pair gaining the leadership of the ARVN and the combined forces respectively.Tang, pp. 49-50. This cemented the trio's close ties.Tang, p. 49.
Thao was promoted to the post of chief of Kien Hoa Province, which the communists called Ben Tre Province.Moyar, pp. 86-88. He covertly worked with the cadres of Nguyen Thi Dinh, a Vietcong leader who later became the highest ranking female communist in post-war reunified Vietnam. The area was a traditional communist stronghold, and anti-government attacks had increased in recent times, but it suddenly became peaceful when Thao arrived. There were rumours that Thao and the communists had decided to cease fighting for their mutual benefit; the guerrillas could quietly strengthen themselves, while Thao would appear to be successful and he would be promoted to a more powerful position where he could cause more damage to Diem. The lack of fighting between Thao's forces and the Vietcong proved to beneficial to the communist cause. In a three-month period in 1963, the Vietcong were able to recruit 2,000 men in Kien Hoa and formed two more battalions.Halberstam, p. 107. Thao was praised by the Ngo family and American military advisors, who were unaware of his ruse. He received another promotion, and with it, more influence and contacts among the officer corps.Tang, p. 50.
The US ambassador Elbridge Durbrow described Kien Hoa Province as an "agricultural showplace" and advised journalists to travel there to see Thao's successful administration.Wyatt, p. 73. The influential American journalist Joe Alsop changed his plans so that he could spend more time in Kien Hoa, saying that the province "particularly inspires hope". In one operation by Thao's ARVN forces, American field journalists covering the battle saw their hours-long attempt to box in a Vietcong battalion yield only one farmer who lived in a hut with antigovernment slogans. Despite this, the American journalists and Vietnamese officers remained unaware that Thao was a double agent.Wyatt, p. 85. In fact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning  journalist David Halberstam misinterpreted the lack of attacks in Kien Hoa, while other provinces were being ravaged, as proof that Thao was one the few capable government officials in the Mekong Delta.Halberstam, p. 106. Robert Shaplen wrote that "In all respects, Thao is one of the most remarkable Vietnamese around, being a conspiratorial revolutionary figure straight out of a Malraux novel and, at the same time, a highly sophisticated and astute man, whose talents, if only they were properly channeled, could profitably be used  now."Cannon, p. 95. Because Thao was a former leader of the Vietminh, outsiders thought that his apparent success was due his first-hand knowledge of communist tactics. During his period as the province chief, Thao set up the Council of Elders, a consultative body of 20-200 men and women, which were allowed to criticise local officials. He also advocated the creation of the Council of Patrons, a philanthropic body to raise money for community projects.Cannon, p. 97.

</section>
<section id="42888" fatherid="0" title="Strategic Hamlet Program" lv="" priority="4" level="1">
In 1962, Nhu began work on the ambitious Strategic Hamlet Program, an attempt to build fortified villages that would be secure zones for rural Vietnamese. The objective was to lock the Vietcong out so that they could not  operate among the villagers. Thao supervised these efforts, and when told that the peasants resented being forcibly removed from their ancestral lands and put into forts that they were forced to build, he advised Nhu and Tuyen that it was imperative to build as many hamlets as fast as possible.Karnow, p. 274. This pleased the Vietcong, who felt that Thao's efforts were turning the rural populace against Saigon.Tang, p. 47. Thao specifically had villages built in areas that he knew had a strong Vietcong presence. This increased the number of communist sympathisers who were placed inside the hamlets and given identification cards. As a result, the Vietcong were able to more effectively penetrate the villages to access supplies and personnel.Jacobs, p. 127.Langguth, pp. 168-169.
Later in 1962, United States Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara visited South Vietnam and was taken on an inspection tour of the country, accompanied by Diem and Thao. Perhaps because Thao divulged the tour details to Vietcong guerrillas, each of McNamara's stopovers was punctuated by bloody attacks on nearby ARVN installations. For example, when McNamara was in Binh Duong Province, five government soldiers were killed. As he flew from Da Lat north to Da Nang near the demilitarised zone, he was greeted by a Vietcong bombing of a southbound troop train, which killed 27 and wounded 30 Civil Guard members.Langguth, p. 175.

</section>
<section id="42889" fatherid="0" title="The fall of Diem" lv="" priority="5" level="1">
In 1963, the Diem regime began to lose its tight control over the country as civil unrest spread as a result of the Buddhist crisis. Large scale demonstrations by the Buddhist majority erupted in response to the government shootings of nine Buddhists in Huế who were protesting against a ban on the flying of the Buddhist flag during Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha.Jacobs, pp. 142-144.Jones, pp. 240-260. With Diem remaining intransigent in the face of Buddhist demands for religious equality, sections of society began calling for his removal from power. Thao was part of the many plots that engulfed Saigon, destabilising the regime. Aiming for a 15 July coup d'état, Tuyen consulted with Thao regarding his plans, but Tuyen was too closely associated with Nhu to recruit the necessary military aid and he was subsequently exiled by Nhu.Shaplen, pp. 197-198. Tuyen's group ended up being led by Thao but his initial coup plans were shelved when American CIA agent Lucien Conein instructed Thao's superior, General Khiem, to stop the coup on the grounds that it was premature.Karnow, p. 300.Hammer, p. 264. Thao's motivation for involvement in the plotting is generally attributed to communist instructions for him to cause infighting within the ARVN whenever possible. Thao resumed plotting, intending to stage the coup on 24 October. He had recruited various infantry, marine and paratroop units for his scheme, totalling 3,000 men.Karnow, p. 317. Thao's group did not carry out the coup d'état after senior generals persuaded him to integrate his forces into their larger group, which was more likely to succeed. Thao reasoned that aligning himself with a group of officers that were likely to successful would yield more influence in the resulting junta.Tang, p. 52.  The coup was successfully executed on 1 November 1963 under the leadership of Generals Duong Van Minh and Tran Van Don.Shaplen, p. 205.
Thao commanded around two dozen tanks, which formed a column in the streets surrounding the Presidential Palace at midnight, and helped launch the full scale attack at 03:30 on 2 November. The rebels eventually gained control of the building, and at daybreak Thao's forces stormed the palace, but found it empty; Diem and Nhu had escaped. A captured officer of the Presidential Guard revealed the brothers' hiding place and under the orders of Khiem, Thao went after them. Khiem ordered Thao to ensure that the brothers were not physically harmed.Hammer, p. 292. Thao arrived at the house in Cholon where the brothers were purportedly hiding and phoned the rebels back at the palace. Diem and Nhu were apparently listening in on an extension in another room and escaped.Shaplen, pp. 209-210. The brothers subsequently surrendered to an ARVN convoy led by General Mai Huu Xuan at a nearby Catholic church and were executed en route to military headquarters despite being promised safe exile.Jacobs, p. 180.
The US media played an important part in the downfall of Diem, and their links to Thao have been the source of historical debate. The journalists' reporting of Diem's authoritarian rule, military failures,Moyar, pp. 170-173. and attacks on Buddhists shifted American public opinion and put pressure on Washington to withdraw support for the Ngo family and seek a change of leadership.Jacobs, pp. 140-150.Moyar, pp. 220-221.Winters, pp. 174-177.Prochnau, p. 496. William Prochnau felt that the fall of Diem was the biggest influence of the media on American foreign policy in over six decades.Prochnau, pp. 196-197. Thao and Pham Xuan An-a Saigon journalist who was later shown to be a communist spy-had been the source of much of the media's information. Conservative revisionist historians have accused the media of bringing down Diem by publishing reports that, according to them, were based on false data disseminated by communist propagandists in order to unfairly malign Diem's rule,Moyar, pp. 214-215.Karnow, pp. 39-40.Winters, pp. 177-180. which they considered to be effective and fair towards Buddhists.Moyar, pp. 216, 233, 274.

</section>
<section id="42890" fatherid="0" title="Participation in military junta" lv="" priority="6" level="1">
After the fall of Diem, Thao was designated by the head of state Minh and the civilian Prime Minister Nguyen Ngoc Tho to create the nucleus of a group called the Council of Notables, and promote it to the public. which, as an interim body of prominent civilians, would advise the military junta before it handed over power to an elected legislature under civilian rule. The Council of fifty-eight men and two women held its first meeting on 1 January 1964 at Dien Hong Palace in Saigon. The council was comprised almost entirely of well-known professionals and academics and, as such, was hardly representative of South Vietnamese society; there were no delegates from the agricultural or labour sectors of the economy. It gained a reputation for being a forum of debate, rather than a means of enacting policy change and government programs for the populace. Tho and Minh assigned Thao with the task of encouraging a transition to democracy by facilitating the formation of a few political parties. This was ineffective, as many political parties with only a handful of members sprang up and squabbled. Within 45 days of the coup, 62 parties had formed but nothing meaningful resulted. In the end, these efforts proved to be irrelevant as Minh's junta and the accompanying Council of Notables were overthrown before the end of the month.Shaplen, pp. 224-226. During this period, Thao served as the head of military security and played a role in replacing Colonel Do Khac Mai with Nguyen Cao Ky as the head of the Vietnam Air Force.Tang, p. 54. In the aftermath of the coup, Vietcong attacks increased markedly amid infighting among the Saigon leadership,Moyar, pp. 278-282.Karnow, pp. 339-350.Jones, pp. 436-440, 447-452. which Thao had helped to stir up.Karnow, p. 300, 317.
The generals sent Thao to Fort Leavenworth in the United States for six months in order to learn conventional warfare tactics. He also spent a month in England before returning to Vietnam. By this time, Minh's junta had been replaced in a 1964 January coup by Khanh. It is suspected that one of the generals' motives for deploying Thao overseas was his continual involvement in plotting.VanDeMark, p. 81.  Khanh appointed Thao to be his press officer as well as an unofficial political adviser. By the end of the year, Khanh had become involved in a power struggle with his deputy Khiem as well as Minh, who had been retained as the titular head of state. Thao was a close friend of Khiem, so when Khanh prevailed in the power struggle, Khanh despatched Khiem to Washington as the ambassador with Thao was his press attaché. In late December 1964, Thao was summoned back to Saigon by Khanh. Thao suspected that Khanh was attempting to have him killed, while Khanh thought that Thao and Khiem were plotting against him.Tang, pp. 56-57. Fearing that he would be arrested upon arrival, Thao attempted to outmanoeuvre Khanh and immediately went underground upon returning to Saigon, hiding in a house belonging to Tang's friend.Tang, p. 57. In mid-January 1965, the regime called for him to report to his superiors in the ARVN, warning that he would be "considered guilty of abandoning his post with all the consequences of such a situation" if he failed to do so.Shaplen, pp. 308-309.

</section>
<section id="42891" fatherid="0" title="1965 attempted coup and death" lv="" priority="7" level="1">
Between January and February, Thao began plotting his own counter-coup, using the contacts he had cultivated over the past decades. One source says that Thao had already begun plotting while in Washington. Thao consulted Ky-who wanted to seize power for himself-before the plot, and exhorted him to join the coup, but the air force chief claimed that he was remaining neutral. Thao thus believed that Ky would not intervene against him. Shortly before noon on 19 February, he used around fifty tanks, their crew and a mixture of infantry battalions with whom he had prior connections to seize control of the military headquarters, the post office and the radio station of Saigon. He surrounded the home of General Khanh and Gia Long Palace, the residence of head of state Phan Khac Suu. The country was still trying to find stability, with Phan Huy Quat being appointed prime minister just three days earlier.Moyar, p. 363. Khanh managed to escape and flee to Vung Tau. His plane lifted off from Tan Son Nhut Air Base, the country's military headquarters, just as rebel tanks were rolling in, attempting to block the runway.Tang, p. 363. Thao made a radio announcement stating that the sole objective of his military operation was to get rid of Khanh, whom he described as a "dictator". He said that he intended to recall Khiem to Saigon to lead the Armed Forces Council in place of Khanh, but would retain the civilian cabinet that answered to the generals. Thao did this in league with General Lam Van Phat, who was supposed to seize the Bien Hoa Air Base to prevent air force chief Ky from mobilising air power against them. Due to his religion, Thao was able to recruit Catholic Diem loyalists like Phat.VanDeMark, p. 80.
The attempt to seize Bien Hoa failed, and Ky circled Tan Son Nhut, threatening to bomb the rebels. Most of the forces of the III and IV Corps surrounding the capital disliked both Khanh and the rebels, and took no action.Moyar, pp. 363-364. At 20:00, Phat and Thao met Ky in a meeting organised by the Americans, and insisted that Khanh be removed from power. The coup collapsed when, around midnight, loyal ARVN forces swept into the city from the south and some loyal to Ky from Bien Hoa in the north. Whether the rebels were defeated or a deal was struck with Ky to end the revolt in exchange for Khanh's removal is disputed.Moyar, p. 364.VanDeMark, p. 82. Before fleeing, Thao managed to broadcast a "final message to the nation" on radio, stating that the coup had been effective in removing Khanh. This was not the case, but the chaos led the Armed Forces Council to adopt a vote of no confidence in Khanh, and Ky assumed control.Shaplen, pp. 310-312.Langguth, pp. 346-347.
While in hiding, Thao expressed his willingness to surrender and cooperate with the government of Quat, if he and approximately fifty officers involved in the coup were granted amnesty. He also offered to go into exile in the United States, where his family had moved when he was sent there for training in 1964.Shaplen, pp. 321-322. In May 1965, a military tribunal sentenced both Thao and Phat to death in absentia. The death sentence was attributed to the influence of General Nguyen Chanh Thi, who was a rival of Thao and had assigned hit squads to look for him. After the conclusion of the trial, it was announced that the Armed Forces Council would disband and give the civilians more control in running the government. Thi was believed to have agreed to the transfer of power to a civilian government in return for Thao's death. As a result, Thao had little choice but to attempt to seize power in order to save himself and he and Thi began to manoeuvre against one another.
On 20 May, a half dozen officers and around forty civilians, predominantly Catholic, were arrested on the charges of attempting to assassinate Quat and kidnap Thi and Ky. Several of the arrested were known supporters of Thao and believed to be abetting him in evading the authorities. Despite this, Thao himself managed to escape, even as a USD 30,000 bounty was put on him by the junta. In July 1965, he was reported dead in unclear circumstances; an official report claimed that he died of injuries while on a helicopter en route to Saigon, after being captured north of the city. However, it is generally assumed that he was murdered or tortured to death on the orders of some military officials.Shaplen, pp. 338-344. One report holds that a Catholic priest betrayed Thao, while another claims that General Nguyen Van Thieu caught him. In his memoirs, Ky claimed that Thao was jailed and "probably died from a beating".Ky, p. 116. After the Fall of Saigon in 1975, a conspiracy theory emerged, maintaining that Thao went underground and worked in counterintelligence for the Central Office of South Vietnam, helping to hunt down Vietcong cadres.

</section>
<section id="42892" fatherid="0" title="Legacy" lv="" priority="-8" level="1">
Although Thao's last plot failed, his activities in 1965 and the resultant infighting led to a series of internal purges within the ARVN, and amid the instability, the Vietcong made strong gains across the country throughout the year.Moyar, pp. 364-367. In response to the deteriorating military situation, the Americans began to deploy combat troops to South Vietnam in large numbers.Karnow, pp. 694-696.
Thao was posthumously promoted by the ARVN to the rank of one-star general and awarded the title of Heroic war dead (). After the Fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War, the communist government awarded him the same title and paid war pensions to his family, claiming him as one of their own.Hammer, p. 249. In 1981, the communists had his body exhumed and reburied in the "Patriots' cemetery" in Ho Chi Minh City (previously Saigon).Karnow, p. 39. Tang opined that Thao "was a man who throughout his life fought single-mindedly for Vietnam's independence".Tang, p. 61. Tang, who later abandoned communism, said that Thao "was a nationalist, not an ideologue",Tang, p. 62. and credited him with turning the military tide towards the communists by helping to bring down Diem and fomenting chronic instability and infighting for 18 months. Ho Chi Minh had reacted to Diem's death by saying "I can scarcely believe that the Americans would be so stupid".Moyar, p. 286. A communist report written in March 1965, soon after Thao's revolt had caused Khanh to depart, stated that "The balance of force...has changed very rapidly in our favor...The bulk of the enemy's armed forces…have disintegrated, and what is  continues to disintegrate".Moyar, pp. 283-284.

</section>
<section id="42893" fatherid="0" title="Notes" lv="" priority="-9" level="1">
</section>
<section id="42894" fatherid="0" title="References" lv="" priority="-10" level="1">
Category:1922 births
Category:1965 deaths
Category:Assassinated military personnel
Category:South Vietnamese spies for North Vietnam
Category:People sentenced to death in absentia
Category:Recipients of a posthumous promotion
Category:South Vietnamese military personnel of the Vietnam War
Category:Vietminh members
Category:Vietnamese communists
Category:Vietnamese Roman Catholics

</section>
</document>
