Nguyễn Cao Kỳ was a South Vietnamese military officer and politician who served as the chief of the Republic of Vietnam Air Force in the 1960s, before leading the nation as the prime minister of South Vietnam in a military junta from 1965 to 1967. Then, until his retirement from politics in 1971, he served as vice president to bitter rival General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, in a nominally civilian administration.
Kỳ in 1966
Kỳ (far right), US President Lyndon B. Johnson, General William Westmoreland, and President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu together in October 1966
Kỳ with Lyndon Johnson during the Honolulu summit in Hawaiʻi in 1966
Kỳ with Prime Minister Harold Holt on his controversial 1967 visit to Australia.
South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam, was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of the Cold War after the 1954 division of Vietnam. It first received international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam within the French Union, with its capital at Saigon, before becoming a republic in 1955. South Vietnam was bordered by North Vietnam to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and Thailand across the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest. Its sovereignty was recognized by the United States and 87 other nations, though it failed to gain admission into the United Nations as a result of a Soviet veto in 1957. It was succeeded by the Republic of South Vietnam in 1975. In 1976, the Republic of South Vietnam and North Vietnam merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
About 1 million North Vietnamese refugees left the newly created communist North Vietnam during Operation Passage to Freedom.
US President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles greeting President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam in Washington DC, 8 May 1957
A woman casting her ballot in the 1967 elections
An empty Huey helicopter is jettisoned over the side of a carrier to provide room on the ship's deck for more evacuees to land.