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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-07627 to 363-07634.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-07627 to 363-07634
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Title
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Article about Nguyễn Chánh Thi
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Description
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Keever's title: "Gen Thi scambled Vietnam's power structure", article about Nguyễn Chánh Thi, political rival of Prime Minister Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, for the New York Herald Tribune
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AI Usage Disclosure
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Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.
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Transcript
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(Morgan Gandy)
SAIGON, 11220 (UPIS) Flamboyant Maj. Gen. Nguyen Chanh Thi
is aye one-man symbol of the paradoxical pitfalls and pathos
of Vietnamese political intrigue.
FRANCO
This constant bubbling of Oriental Machevellian maneuvering
is considered aye major obstacle to an effective American-South
Vietnamese counter to the Communists, who are the best organized
MACHINE
political unit in the countryside.
The mustached Thi was dismissed Thursday from his command
of the five northern provinces, where for the past two years he
AYE
ruled with an unorthodox combination of military en- neo-warlord
and aye political neo-mandarin. Yet, he was dismissed by the nine
Ruling
other genera ls of the military junta who were barely governing at all..
(More Miller--BD)
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first add-morgan gandy-saigon
xxx at all x x x.
BE
Thi was a sporadic author of political instability in Saigon,
with an abortive coup in 1960, and several "Palace Coups;"
yet his dismissal is considered to be only aye prelude to
more instability (more high-level military generals are expected to
change) if notrptnot outright chaos (through student-civilian
IN the's corps).
military committees now organizing demonstrations for THEY
The 4 forty three year old general was the strongest
Junta,
individual, in terms of political popularity and appeal but he
was notrptnot as strong as the other nine
opposing him.
thi
collectively
Since Thi was the first general to fall from
the junta im its nine-month existence, his it expulsion was
indicated that the committee leadership was norp tno longer
NOR
sacred--or even workable.
(More-Miller-ED)
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second add-morgan gandy-saigon
x x x even workable x x x.
The
The military junta, often called the Directorate or National
Leadership Council, is the legal basis of the political regime.
junta elected Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky to head the executive
branch of the government, but he is responsible to the junta itself.
LUNAR
Thi was bom forty three years ago-in the Oriental
year of the Pig-in aye small village the two miles outside
of Hue, the former imperial capital and cultural center of the
country. The son of a captain of the Imperial Guard, Thi lived
remained in the village, walked two miles each day to school,
rode water buffaloes around his father's small acreage and
deliver the noontime rice meals to the laboring peasants. Later,
LEADER
as a three-star general, he was an uncommon man for nainiging-t
Taintaining the touch of the common man.
(More Miller D)
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third add-morgan gandy-saigom
X X X commom man x x x.
During the French Indo-China War, he rose to the rank of
sergeant; after the war, he joined the independent Vietnamese
South Vietnamese army and learned to parachute be aye paratrooper.
EYE
"When you jump out of the plane, I feel as though I'm the highest
man in the world," he once told this correspondent.
His boundless energy a nd military abilities caught the eye
of newly installed President Ngo Dinh Diem,, who appointed him
four
in the mid-fifties as commander of the five thousand man Airborne te
ALSO BORN
Brigade.
He did well commanded well and President Diem considered
him an "adopted son."
On Ne November 11, 1960 eleven, nineteen sixty, however,
Thi became aye momentary central paix figure by shaping the
f shaping Vietnamese history, without changing it's
structure.
Then, he attacked and surrounded. Diem's presidential palace
and demanded the exile of the president's brother Nhu and wife
Medame Ngo Dinh Nhu
Diem's loyal chief of staff jumped over the palace fence
Thi
in his pjamesa pjanas pajamas to negotiate with Thi.
yielded by but Diem reneged and crushed the paratrooper revolt,
NAME
sending Thi fleeing to Cambodia. The chief of staff was Nguyen
Khanh.
(More-Miller-BD)
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four th add--morgan gandy-saigon
x 2 : nguyen khanh X
The abortive coup, however, indicated one important factor--
OFFICERS
Diem was losing support even of his loyal genemals born and raised
in his own hometown of Hue. But Diem didnotrptnot realize it but
the Communists did. Thirty nine days after the canon December
twenty the Communists officially proclaimed the provisional
provisional birth of the National Front for the Liberation of
South Vietnam.
mysteriously
COUP A Tempr
Three years later, Thi returned from exile as aye supporter
button Primeminis
of ex-chief of staff Nguyen Khanh, who had a crushed his thi's.
abortive coup-nineteen sixty botine- coup.
commander of the First Corps area,
Khanh appointed thi
which included Thometown
of Hue. Slowly, Thi--and Vietnam--changed from supporting Khanh
to indirect opposition Thi soon became Khanh's rival for support
NG
of the Buddhi pro-neutralist Buddhist organization, and the American
policymakers.
On February nineteen nineteen f✓ sixtyfive, Thi, obtaining
beth American, Buth Buddhist and other parties support, spearheaded
* in aye secret meeting the revolt of mutiny of the generals
against Khanh, then commander-in-chief of the Vietnamese Armed Forces.
(More Miller-E BD)
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fifth a dd-morgan gandy--saigon
I I X armed forces XII.
Three times during the next year, Thi refused to be
prime minister. The double-irony last Thursday was that he was
dismissed from Vietnam primarily by the prime minister he bequeathed
to whom he beq ueathed power-to Nguyen Cao Ky-who
of the revolt of the generals
expelled Thi
by the same maneuver that Thi had removed his predece predecessor
* Theo Nguyen Khanh,
Thi, the mustached "super-hero" personality, had in the
end lost the support of the Americans,
BRIEF
the Buddhists and his
fellow-generals, thus closing one pra of Vietnamese history.
Between the revenge and counter-revenge,
Thi could with
extreme political adroitness support the anti-Communist American
position at one moment on one issue-and deftly support the pro-on
pro-neutralist Buddhists on another issue.
His final failure:
notrptnot to recon recognize that
when the American and Buddhist i political interests are complementary,
no one gong can withstand their opposition, as both Diem and Khanh lea
The question for the coming weeks: who will triumph--America
or the Buddhist political organization-if these two power blocs
are in
fen conflict. FOR, WHILE THE VET
dEFEAT. Americ A Militarity,
the Budd Hists
ConCEIVABLY
(More-Milled
น
An
not.
PoliticALLY
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sixth add--morgan gandy--saigom
Conceivably could
I III I X.
Thi was aye revolutionary, of eighteenth century ven vintage;
yet, if he was behind the times, he was ahead of his country-
and American policymakers. Beginning with his nineteen sixty
a bortive coup, Thi consistently launched aye one-man crusade
against corruption and nepotism within the government. Ironically,
the day he was dismissed, the Saigon government in aye behind-the-
scenes move began mullifying it's own decision to execute
a Chinese millionaire convicted of war profiteering.
In July, 1964, Ts Thi captured the first North Vietnamese
prisoners in the South and promptly declared Hanoi had "invaded."
American generals contradicted him. Today,
40,000 United States Marines are fighting in his same corps area.
More-Miller-BD)
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seventh add--morgan gandy--saigon
Once
X X X corps area XIX
Thi coed curse with aye sergeant's venom
when he found
Mangt Montagnard children starving in an isolated hamlet.
captain.
"You either feed them or shoot them, "
"These people are dying;
igon
This ordered aye
it
does notrptnot matter if you die fast or die slow."
Thi and the forty thousand American Marines in his fort
first corps area
were the only joint "Vietnamese-American
HAD
team in the country that has systematt systematically
begun the "people-to-people" program of securing and pacifying
the rural villages.
GENERAL
The
American Marines, delighted to find
a Vietnamese/ as tough as they are,
dismissal.
were
are currently flabergasted at his
The depar scheduled departure of Thi from Vietnam's
political scene illustrates the continuing atomization of political
power and the xxxcondary ascendancy of e half-authority of
HE
as when a sprung his
This was notrptnot out of step with
as the official accusation reads.
the Saigon government. For, now,
abortive coup five years ago,
Mix the Saigon regime,
WAS
the island of Saigon has consistently been out of step with
VIETNAM, And is
ountryside; now
Communists.
held
predominantly in the hands of the
(Endi t-Miller-BD)
It 埔
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Date
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1966, Mar. 11
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Subject
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Vietnam (Republic), 1961-1975; Nguyễn, Cao Kỳ; Nguyễn, Chánh Thi, 1923-2007; Vietnam (Republic)--Politics and government
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Location
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Saigon, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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10.8231; 106.6311
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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B188, F3
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Format
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dispatches
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Collector
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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Language
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English
