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[[Image:HCMC Reunification Palace.jpg|thumb|[[Reunification Palace]] formerly the South Vietnamese Presidential Palace.]] |
[[Image:HCMC Reunification Palace.jpg|thumb|[[Reunification Palace]] formerly the South Vietnamese Presidential Palace.]] |
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The '''1962 South Vietnamese Presidential Palace bombing''' in [[Saigon]] was an [[Airstrike|aerial attack]] on [[February 27]], [[1962]] by two [[Republic of Vietnam Air Force]] pilots, [[Nguyen Van Cu]] and [[Pham Phu Quoc]]. |
The '''1962 South Vietnamese Presidential Palace bombing''' in [[Saigon]] was an [[Airstrike|aerial attack]] on [[February 27]], [[1962]] by two [[Republic of Vietnam Air Force]] pilots, [[Nguyen Van Cu]] and [[Pham Phu Quoc]]. The bombin was an assassination attempt on President [[Ngo Dinh Diem]] and his immediate family, who were acted as his political advisors. The attack failed in its objective of killing Diem and his family, with only his sister-in-law [[Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu]] sustaining minor injuries. One bomb penetrated the room in which Diem was sitting, but failed to detonate. The attack left three palace servants and guards dead, with thirty injured. |
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The |
The pilots hoped that their attack would trigger a general uprising, but this failed to materialise. The pilots claimed that Diem was ruling in an autocratic fashion, focusing on maintaining power and repressing dissidents rather than combating the [[Vietcong]], and cited this as their motive for their revolt. In the wake of the failed assassination attempt, Cu fled to [[Cambodia]] while Quoc was imprisoned. The attack prompted Diem to become more hostile towards the American presence in South Vietnam. Diem asserted that the American press was seeking to bring him down and responded with a tightening of media freedom and political association. The bombing fueled media speculation that the [[United States]] would exploit the incident to place combat troops in South Vietnam and was reported to have prompted plotting against Diem on the part of his officers.<ref name="k">Karnow, pp. 280–281.</ref><ref name="encyc">Tucker, p. 302.</ref><ref name="lang">Langguth, pp. 163–164.</ref> |
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== Planning == |
== Planning == |
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Cu was the second son of [[Nguyen Van Luc]], a leader of [[Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang]] (VNQDD), a nationalist party which opposed the regime |
Cu was the second son of [[Nguyen Van Luc]], a leader of [[Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang]] (VNQDD, Vietnamese Nationalist Party), a nationalist party which opposed the Diem regime. Diem had briefly jailed Luc's father for "antigovernment activities".<ref name="t">{{cite web|title=Durable Diem| url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,939947-2,00.html| publisher=[[Time]]}}</ref> The VNQDD plan was for Cu and Quoc, whom Cu had recruited from his squadron, to attack the Độc Lập (Independence) Palace on February 27.<ref name="k"/> Cu had persuaded Quoc to revolt by claiming that all the armed services and the United States were aware of the plot, showing him a ''[[Newsweek]]'' article critical of Diem as "evidence".<ref name="langguth">Langguth, p. 99.</ref> Years after the attack, Cu cited Diem's treatment of opposition parties as his motivation for the attack. Cu felt that Diem was preoccupied with maintaining power rather than fighting the [[Vietcong]] insurgency. Cu felt that the fact that he had been denied promotion for six years was a symptom of Diem's focus on impeding opponents. Cu criticised the American government for its support for Diem, which he felt had stifled the war effort, saying "I felt that the Americans had slammed the door on those of us who really wanted the fight against the Communists."<ref name="k"/> |
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== Attack == |
== Attack == |
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[[Image:Skyraider A-1H-J 1969 - 00000033 - USAF.jpg|thumb|250px|[[A-1 Skyraider]]]] |
[[Image:Skyraider A-1H-J 1969 - 00000033 - USAF.jpg|thumb|250px|[[A-1 Skyraider]]]] |
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Quoc and Cu, trained in [[France]] and the [[United States]] respectively, |
Quoc and Cu, who were trained in [[France]] and the [[United States]] respectively, had been scheduled to fly on an early morning mission south from Saigon into the [[Mekong Delta]] on a mission against the [[Vietcong]]. They instead turned around to attack the palace. At around 07:00, the skies over Saigon were roused by the thud of bombs and automatic gunfire. The French colonial era Palace became engulfed in flames as two [[A-1 Skyraider]] (A1H/AD-6 variant) single-seat attack bombers, supplied by the United States, dropped bombs and [[napalm]]. The pilots fired several rockets as well as machine gun fire towards the presidential compound. On a cloudy day, they flew at low altitudes of around 150 m, completing air-raid cycles before ascending above the clouds. The duo continued their attacks for thirty minutes before loyalist forces were able to arrive and counter them.<ref name="t"/> The attack caught the Saigon garrison off guard, which was unaware as to whether the airplanes were acting alone or with ground forces. Loyalist tanks and armored personnel carriers rushed to their battle stations and anti-aircraft batteries opened fire, nearly hitting the loyalist aircraft that were pursuing the two rebel planes. Two tanks and a number of jeeps armed with 50-caliber machine guns patrolled the smoke-filled streets as a precaution.<ref name="j">Jones, pp.162–163.</ref> |
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⚫ | The first 500 lb bomb penetrated into a room where Diem was sitting and reading. It failed to detonate, allowing Diem to run to the underground cellar, along with his elder brother Archbishop [[Ngo Dinh Thuc]], younger brother [[Ngo Dinh Nhu]], [[Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu]] and the Nhus' children. Inside the palace, Madame Nhu fractured her arm while running for the cellar, while three servants and guards were killed, with thirty others injured. Outside the palatial grounds, an American contractor died after falling from a rooftop where he had been watching the bombing. Despite the confusion, most of the city's inhabitants went about their usual business, indifferent to the chaos.<ref name="k"/> The assault ended within an hour, but the pilots did not empty their full load, which would have been sufficient to level the Palace. Quoc's plane was damaged by fire from a minesweeper, forcing him to eject over the [[Saigon River]] and landed in [[Nha Be]]. Cu managed to safely flee to [[Cambodia]], believing that his attack had been successful.<ref name="k"/> |
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== Aftermath == |
== Aftermath == |
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⚫ | The first 500 |
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In a brief radio address after order had been restored, Diem attributed his escape to "divine protection", dismissing the attack as an "isolated act".<ref name="k"/> Diem then visited the soldiers wounded in the attacks, reassuring the colleagues of the rebels that they would not bear any responsibility for the bombing. American President [[John F. Kennedy]] promptly sent a message denouncing the attack as a "destructive and vicious act", expressing his relief that Diem was "safe and unharmed".<ref name="t"/> US ambassador [[Frederick Nolting]] determined that the attack had been the result of "two isolated cases" and opined that the incident did not represent widespread dissatisfaction with the regime.<ref name="jacobs"/> The absence of a Vietcong reaction led Nolting to label the bombing as a "limited scope, anti-Communist assassination attempt".<Ref name="h137"/> General [[Duong Van Minh]], the Presidential Military Advisor, attributed the assault to "disgruntled pilots",<Ref name="h137"/> noting that no hostile troop movements had occurred.<ref name="h137">Hammer, p. 137.</ref> The Civil Guard had remained loyal and its leader had ordered his airborne forces to take over [[Tan Son Nhut Air Base]].<ref name="j"/> Quoc was imprisoned for his actions, while Cu remained in exile in Cambodia where he worked as a language teacher. After [[Arrest and assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem|Diem's assassination in November 1963]], Quoc was released from prison and Cu returned from exile, allowing to resume their service in the air force.<ref name="k"/> |
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=== Diem reaction === |
=== Diem reaction === |
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[[Image:Ngo_Dinh_Diem_-_Thumbnail_-_ARC_542189.gif|thumb|left|Ngo Dinh Diem.]] |
[[Image:Ngo_Dinh_Diem_-_Thumbnail_-_ARC_542189.gif|thumb|left|Ngo Dinh Diem.]] |
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⚫ | During Nolting’s first meeting with Diem after the assassination attempt, Diem |
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⚫ | During Nolting’s first meeting with Diem after the assassination attempt, Diem adamantly asserted that the media was responsible for the bombing. He pointed to the ''Newsweek'' article and the “derogatory articles in the press”, using it to justify his claim that “the Americans were supporting the revolution.”<ref name="jacobs"/> Diem declared that "some journalists" were portraying the bombing as a wake-up call, whereas he saw it as "a warning to them – an indicator of the danger of their irresponsibility [in fomenting disorder]".<ref name="jacobs">Jacobs, pp. 131–132.</ref> |
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⚫ | |||
⚫ | In a later meeting with General [[Paul D. Harkins]], head of the US presence in Vietnam, Diem joked:"I shouldn’t have put him in the air force, because I had put his father in jail years ago."<ref name="j"/> Diem went on to prophetically predict that "sometime I’m going to get shot right in the back of the neck. Sometime they’ll get me that way"; he was eventually shot dead after a [[1963 South Vietnamese coup|successful coup]].<ref name="j"/> The Diem regime reacted to the incident by further tightening their rule and eliminating dissent. Off the record, one government official said "We don’t even talk about freedom of the press or ask for other liberties any more. . .[Diem] had completely surrounded himself in a protective oligarchy."<ref name="j"/> Nhu justified anti-opposition restrictions, remarking that "There’s always going to be an opposition. If we take these people in, there will be another opposition springing up, because they are controversial men."<ref name="j"/> Madame Nhu further added that "You open a window to let in light and air, not bullets. We want freedom, but we don't want to be exploited by it." <Ref>Warner, p. 92.</ref> In the aftermath of the bombing, government crackdowns on political dissidents increased.<ref>Tucker, p. 405.</ref> |
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⚫ | The assault generated controversy over |
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According to one US observer, the palace bombing had set off “full scale plotting against Diem”. Galbraith noted that “When the man in power is on the way down, anything is better”, believing that any alternative to Diem would be better.<ref name="j"/> |
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⚫ | The assault generated controversy over speculation that US combat troops would be deployed in South Vietnam as a response to the bombing. At the time, US military personnel were theoretically only present in an advisory capacity. With the media questioning the reliability of Diem's rule, [[US Secretary of State]] [[Dean Rusk]] asserted that the US had no plans to deploy combat forces. He ruled out negotiations, saying that "the root of the trouble" were communist violations of the [[Geneva Conference (1954)|Geneva Accords]].<ref name="j"/> US official [[John Kenneth Galbraith|John Galbraith]] lobbied Kennedy against sending combat troops, saying that it would lead to endless calls from South Vietnam for further troops. Galbraith further believed that the [[Soviet Union]] would be happy if the United States wasted more of its resources in the jungles of Vietnam.<ref name="j"/> According to one US observer, the palace bombing had caused "full scale plotting against Diem". Galbraith noted that "When the man in power is on the way down, anything is better", believing that any alternative to Diem would be an improvement.<ref name="j"/> |
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== Notes == |
== Notes == |
Revision as of 09:06, 13 December 2007
The 1962 South Vietnamese Presidential Palace bombing in Saigon was an aerial attack on February 27, 1962 by two Republic of Vietnam Air Force pilots, Nguyen Van Cu and Pham Phu Quoc. The bombin was an assassination attempt on President Ngo Dinh Diem and his immediate family, who were acted as his political advisors. The attack failed in its objective of killing Diem and his family, with only his sister-in-law Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu sustaining minor injuries. One bomb penetrated the room in which Diem was sitting, but failed to detonate. The attack left three palace servants and guards dead, with thirty injured.
The pilots hoped that their attack would trigger a general uprising, but this failed to materialise. The pilots claimed that Diem was ruling in an autocratic fashion, focusing on maintaining power and repressing dissidents rather than combating the Vietcong, and cited this as their motive for their revolt. In the wake of the failed assassination attempt, Cu fled to Cambodia while Quoc was imprisoned. The attack prompted Diem to become more hostile towards the American presence in South Vietnam. Diem asserted that the American press was seeking to bring him down and responded with a tightening of media freedom and political association. The bombing fueled media speculation that the United States would exploit the incident to place combat troops in South Vietnam and was reported to have prompted plotting against Diem on the part of his officers.[1][2][3]
Planning
Cu was the second son of Nguyen Van Luc, a leader of Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnamese Nationalist Party), a nationalist party which opposed the Diem regime. Diem had briefly jailed Luc's father for "antigovernment activities".[4] The VNQDD plan was for Cu and Quoc, whom Cu had recruited from his squadron, to attack the Độc Lập (Independence) Palace on February 27.[1] Cu had persuaded Quoc to revolt by claiming that all the armed services and the United States were aware of the plot, showing him a Newsweek article critical of Diem as "evidence".[5] Years after the attack, Cu cited Diem's treatment of opposition parties as his motivation for the attack. Cu felt that Diem was preoccupied with maintaining power rather than fighting the Vietcong insurgency. Cu felt that the fact that he had been denied promotion for six years was a symptom of Diem's focus on impeding opponents. Cu criticised the American government for its support for Diem, which he felt had stifled the war effort, saying "I felt that the Americans had slammed the door on those of us who really wanted the fight against the Communists."[1]
Attack
Quoc and Cu, who were trained in France and the United States respectively, had been scheduled to fly on an early morning mission south from Saigon into the Mekong Delta on a mission against the Vietcong. They instead turned around to attack the palace. At around 07:00, the skies over Saigon were roused by the thud of bombs and automatic gunfire. The French colonial era Palace became engulfed in flames as two A-1 Skyraider (A1H/AD-6 variant) single-seat attack bombers, supplied by the United States, dropped bombs and napalm. The pilots fired several rockets as well as machine gun fire towards the presidential compound. On a cloudy day, they flew at low altitudes of around 150 m, completing air-raid cycles before ascending above the clouds. The duo continued their attacks for thirty minutes before loyalist forces were able to arrive and counter them.[4] The attack caught the Saigon garrison off guard, which was unaware as to whether the airplanes were acting alone or with ground forces. Loyalist tanks and armored personnel carriers rushed to their battle stations and anti-aircraft batteries opened fire, nearly hitting the loyalist aircraft that were pursuing the two rebel planes. Two tanks and a number of jeeps armed with 50-caliber machine guns patrolled the smoke-filled streets as a precaution.[6]
The first 500 lb bomb penetrated into a room where Diem was sitting and reading. It failed to detonate, allowing Diem to run to the underground cellar, along with his elder brother Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc, younger brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu and the Nhus' children. Inside the palace, Madame Nhu fractured her arm while running for the cellar, while three servants and guards were killed, with thirty others injured. Outside the palatial grounds, an American contractor died after falling from a rooftop where he had been watching the bombing. Despite the confusion, most of the city's inhabitants went about their usual business, indifferent to the chaos.[1] The assault ended within an hour, but the pilots did not empty their full load, which would have been sufficient to level the Palace. Quoc's plane was damaged by fire from a minesweeper, forcing him to eject over the Saigon River and landed in Nha Be. Cu managed to safely flee to Cambodia, believing that his attack had been successful.[1]
Aftermath
In a brief radio address after order had been restored, Diem attributed his escape to "divine protection", dismissing the attack as an "isolated act".[1] Diem then visited the soldiers wounded in the attacks, reassuring the colleagues of the rebels that they would not bear any responsibility for the bombing. American President John F. Kennedy promptly sent a message denouncing the attack as a "destructive and vicious act", expressing his relief that Diem was "safe and unharmed".[4] US ambassador Frederick Nolting determined that the attack had been the result of "two isolated cases" and opined that the incident did not represent widespread dissatisfaction with the regime.[7] The absence of a Vietcong reaction led Nolting to label the bombing as a "limited scope, anti-Communist assassination attempt".[8] General Duong Van Minh, the Presidential Military Advisor, attributed the assault to "disgruntled pilots",[8] noting that no hostile troop movements had occurred.[8] The Civil Guard had remained loyal and its leader had ordered his airborne forces to take over Tan Son Nhut Air Base.[6] Quoc was imprisoned for his actions, while Cu remained in exile in Cambodia where he worked as a language teacher. After Diem's assassination in November 1963, Quoc was released from prison and Cu returned from exile, allowing to resume their service in the air force.[1]
Diem reaction
During Nolting’s first meeting with Diem after the assassination attempt, Diem adamantly asserted that the media was responsible for the bombing. He pointed to the Newsweek article and the “derogatory articles in the press”, using it to justify his claim that “the Americans were supporting the revolution.”[7] Diem declared that "some journalists" were portraying the bombing as a wake-up call, whereas he saw it as "a warning to them – an indicator of the danger of their irresponsibility [in fomenting disorder]".[7]
In a later meeting with General Paul D. Harkins, head of the US presence in Vietnam, Diem joked:"I shouldn’t have put him in the air force, because I had put his father in jail years ago."[6] Diem went on to prophetically predict that "sometime I’m going to get shot right in the back of the neck. Sometime they’ll get me that way"; he was eventually shot dead after a successful coup.[6] The Diem regime reacted to the incident by further tightening their rule and eliminating dissent. Off the record, one government official said "We don’t even talk about freedom of the press or ask for other liberties any more. . .[Diem] had completely surrounded himself in a protective oligarchy."[6] Nhu justified anti-opposition restrictions, remarking that "There’s always going to be an opposition. If we take these people in, there will be another opposition springing up, because they are controversial men."[6] Madame Nhu further added that "You open a window to let in light and air, not bullets. We want freedom, but we don't want to be exploited by it." [9] In the aftermath of the bombing, government crackdowns on political dissidents increased.[10]
US reaction
The assault generated controversy over speculation that US combat troops would be deployed in South Vietnam as a response to the bombing. At the time, US military personnel were theoretically only present in an advisory capacity. With the media questioning the reliability of Diem's rule, US Secretary of State Dean Rusk asserted that the US had no plans to deploy combat forces. He ruled out negotiations, saying that "the root of the trouble" were communist violations of the Geneva Accords.[6] US official John Galbraith lobbied Kennedy against sending combat troops, saying that it would lead to endless calls from South Vietnam for further troops. Galbraith further believed that the Soviet Union would be happy if the United States wasted more of its resources in the jungles of Vietnam.[6] According to one US observer, the palace bombing had caused "full scale plotting against Diem". Galbraith noted that "When the man in power is on the way down, anything is better", believing that any alternative to Diem would be an improvement.[6]
Notes
References
- Hammer, Ellen J. (1987). A Death in November. E. P. Dutton. ISBN 0-525-242104.
- Jacobs, Seth (2006). Cold War Mandarin : Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America's War in Vietnam, 1950-1963. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 0742544478.
- Jones, Howard (2003). Death of a Generation. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505286-2.
- Karnow, Stanley (1997). Vietnam:A history. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-670-84218-4.
- Langguth, A. J. (2000). Our Vietnam. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-684-81202-9.