Arrest and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm
Videos
Page
On 2 November 1963, Ngô Đình Diệm, the president of South Vietnam, was arrested and assassinated in a CIA-backed coup d'état led by General Dương Văn Minh. After nine years of autocratic and nepotistic family rule in the country, discontent with the Diệm regime had been simmering below the surface and culminated with mass Buddhist protests against longstanding religious discrimination after the government shooting of protesters who defied a ban on the flying of the Buddhist flag.
The corpse of Ngô Đình Diệm in the back of the APC, having been assassinated on the way to military headquarters
Diệm's brother Ngô Đình Nhu (right), shaking hands with then US Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1961
St. Francis Xavier's Church, where the Ngo brothers were arrested
A pew in the church is marked with a small plaque identifying the spot where President Ngo Dinh Diem was seized after taking refuge here with his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu on 2 November 1963, after fleeing the Presidential Palace.
Ngo Dinh Diem
Videos
Page
Ngô Đình Diệm was a South Vietnamese politician who was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam (1954–1955) and later the first president of South Vietnam from 1955 until his capture and assassination during the CIA-backed 1963 South Vietnamese coup.
Official portrait, 1956
A photo of 4 year old Diệm (second from right) with his family in 1905 or 1906. His father Ngô Đình Khả stands in the centre
Portrait of emperor Bảo Đại
The five high-ranking mandarins (Thượng thư) of the Nguyễn dynasty during the reign of Emperor Bảo Đại (from left to right): Hồ Đắc Khải, Phạm Quỳnh, Thái Văn Toản, Ngô Đình Diệm, and Bùi Bằng Đoàn.