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On February 19, 1965, some units of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam commanded by General Lâm Văn Phát and Colonel Phạm Ngọc Thảo launched a coup against General Nguyễn Khánh, the head of South Vietnam's ruling military junta. Their aim was to install General Trần Thiện Khiêm, a Khánh rival who had been sent to Washington D.C. as Ambassador to the United States to prevent him from seizing power. The attempted coup reached a stalemate, and although the trio did not take power, a group of officers led by General Nguyễn Chánh Thi and Air Marshal Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, and hostile to both the plot and to Khánh himself, were able to force a leadership change and take control themselves with the support of American officials, who had lost confidence in Khánh. Although Khánh had seized power in January 1964 in alliance with Khiêm, the pair had soon fallen out over policy disputes along religious lines, and the Catholic Khiêm began to plot against Khánh. Khiêm was believed to have helped plan a failed coup in September 1964, and Khánh exiled him as a result. While in Washington, Khiêm continued to plot alongside his aide Thảo, who was actually a communist agent bent on trying to foment infighting at every opportunity. Aware of Thảo's plans, Khánh summoned him back to Vietnam in an apparent attempt to capture him, and Thảo responded by going into hiding and preparing for his attack. In the meantime, Khánh's hold on power was slipping as his military support dwindled, and he became increasingly reliant on the support of civilian Buddhist activists who favored negotiations with the communists and opposed escalation of the Vietnam War. The Americans—most notably Ambassador Maxwell Taylor—were opposed to this and had been lobbying various senior Vietnamese officers such as Kỳ to overthrow Khánh, who knew that American-sponsored moves to depose him were afoot. However, the Americans were not counting on Thảo and his fellow Catholic Phát trying to seize power on an explicitly religious platform, claiming fidelity to slain former Catholic President Ngô Đình Diệm and promising to recall Khiêm from the US to lead the new regime. This caused alarm among the Buddhist majority, who had campaigned heavily against Diệm's discriminatory religious policies in the months leading up to his ouster in November 1963. Although they wanted Khánh gone, the Americans did not want Thảo and Phát to succeed, so they sought out Kỳ and Thi in an attempt to have them defeat the original coup and then depose Khánh. During the initial attack, Thảo and Phát tried to capture both Khánh and Kỳ, but both men escaped narrowly, although some of their colleagues in the Armed Forces Council were arrested. Although the rebels were able to take control of Tan Son Nhut Air Base, the largest in the country and the military headquarters of South Vietnam, Kỳ was able to regroup quickly and retain control of the nearby Bien Hoa Air Base, using it to mobilize air power and stop the rebel advance with threats of bombing. Late in the night, Thảo and Phát met Kỳ in a meeting arranged by the Americans, where an agreement was reached for the coup to be ended in return for Khánh's ouster. By early next morning, the bloodless military action was over as Thảo and Phát went into hiding, and the junta voted to sack their leader Khánh, who was absent on a military inspection tour, thinking that Kỳ and Thi were on his side. When Khánh heard of his ouster, he declared it to be illegal. After defying his colleagues and travelling around the country for a day in a fruitless attempt to rally support for a comeback, Khánh went into exile after being named to fill the meaningless post of Ambassador-at-Large and allowed an elaborate ceremonial military send-off to save face. Phát and Thảo were later sentenced to death in absentia. Thảo was hunted down and killed in July 1965, while Phát remained on the run for several years before turning himself in and being pardoned. == Background == General Nguyễn Khánh had come to power in January 1964 after surprising the ruling junta of General Dương Văn Minh in a bloodless coup. However, due to American pressure, he kept the popular Minh as a token head of state, while concentrating real power in his hands by controlling the Military Revolutionary Council.〔Shaplen, pp. 228–240.〕 In August, the Vietnam War continued to escalate following the Gulf of Tonkin incident, a disputed encounter between communist and American naval vessels off the North Vietnamese coast; Washington accused North Vietnam of attacking their ships in international waters.〔Moyar (2004), p. 757.〕〔Moyar (2006), pp. 310–311.〕〔Moyar (2006), p. 311.〕 Khánh saw the tense situation as an opportunity to increase his authority. On August 7, he declared a state of emergency, increased police powers, banned protests, tightened censorship and allowed the police arbitrary search and imprisonment powers.〔 He drafted a new constitution,〔McAllister, p. 762.〕 which would have augmented his personal power at the expense of the already-limited Minh. However, these moves only served to weaken Khánh as large demonstrations and riots broke out in the cities, with majority Buddhists prominent, calling for an end to the state of emergency and the abandonment of the new constitution, as well as a progression back to civilian rule.〔 Fearing he could be toppled by the intensifying protests, Khánh made concessions,〔Moyar (2004), p. 761.〕 repealing the new constitution and police measures, and promising to reinstate civilian rule and remove Cần Lao Party—a secret Catholic organization used to infiltrate and spy on society to maintain President Ngô Đình Diệm's regime—members from power.〔 General Trần Thiện Khiêm later claimed "Khánh felt there was no choice but to accept since the influence of Trí Quang was so great that he could not only turn the majority of the people against the government but could influence the effectiveness of the armed forces".〔McAllister, p. 763.〕〔Moyar (2004), p. 762.〕 Many senior officers, particularly the Catholic Generals Khiêm and Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, decried what they viewed as a handing of power to the Buddhist leaders.〔Moyar (2004), pp. 762–763.〕 They tried to replace Khánh with Minh, but abandoned their coup plans after failing to get an endorsement from the Americans.〔Moyar (2004), p. 763.〕 Khánh blamed the government instability on troublemaking by members and supporters of the Catholic-aligned Đại Việt Quốc dân đảng (Nationalist Party of Greater Vietnam, usually known simply as the Đại Việt), who he accused of putting partisan plotting ahead of the national interest.〔 Prominent officers associated with the Đại Việt included Thiệu and Khiêm.〔Kahin, pp. 228–230.〕 For his part, Khiêm blamed Khánh's weakness in dealing with Buddhist activists for the demonstrations in the cities and the rural losses against the communists.〔Moyar (2006), p. 318.〕 In September, the Catholic Generals Lâm Văn Phát and Dương Văn Đức launched a coup after being demoted by Khánh in response to Buddhist pressure; Phát was a well-known Diệm loyalist.〔 They were supported by the Đại Việt, Khiêm and Colonel Phạm Ngọc Thảo.〔 While Thảo was also a Catholic, he was an undetected communist spy who tried to foment infighting at every opportunity.〔 The coup failed and Khánh exiled Khiêm to Washington as ambassador, and his close friend Thảo was sent along as press attache.〔Kahin, pp. 228–232.〕 Concerned that Air Marshal Nguyễn Cao Kỳ and General Nguyễn Chánh Thi—who had put down the coup attempt for him—had become too powerful, Khánh had Phát and Duc acquitted in their military trial in an effort to use them as a political counterweight. However, the coup was seen as the start of Khánh's ultimate political decline.〔 Due to the intervention of Kỳ and Thi, Khánh was now indebted to them. In an attempt to maintain his political power in the face of increasing opposition from within the junta, he tried to court support from Buddhist civilian activists, who supported negotiations with the communists to end the war. As the Americans were strongly opposed to such policies, relations with Khánh became increasingly strained.〔Kahin, pp. 232–235.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「1965 South Vietnamese coup」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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