Editing Ngô Đình Nhu (section)

==Buddhist crisis==
{{Main|Xá Lợi Pagoda raids}}

In May 1963, the [[Buddhist crisis]] broke out after [[Huế Phật Đản shootings|nine Buddhist protesters were killed in Huế]] while protesting a ban on the [[Buddhist flag]] on [[Vesak]], the birthday of [[Gautama Buddha]]. This prompted the Buddhist majority to stage widespread demonstrations against Diệm, who discriminated in favour of Catholics, for religious equality. The movement threatened the stability of the family's rule. Nhu was known to favor a stronger line against the Buddhists. He had made statements calling for the suppression of the protests through his English-language newspaper, the ''[[Times of Vietnam]]''.<ref name=hal139>Halberstam, p. 139.</ref> During this time, his wife Madame Nhu, herself a Catholic convert from Buddhism and the de facto first lady (due to Diệm's bachelor life), inflamed the situation by mockingly applauding the suicides of [[Thích Quảng Đức]] and others, referring to them as "barbecues", while Nhu stated "if the Buddhists want to have another barbecue, I will be glad to supply the gasoline".<ref>Tucker, pp. 292–93.</ref>

7 July was the ninth anniversary of Diệm's 1954 ascension to [[Leaders of South Vietnam|Prime Minister]] of the State of Vietnam.<ref name="j286">Jones, p. 286.</ref> American pressmen had been alerted to a Buddhist demonstration to coincide with Double Seven Day at the Chanatareansey Pagoda in northern Saigon.<ref name="j286"/><ref name="l219"/> When the Buddhists filed out of the pagoda into an adjacent alley, they were blocked by Nhu's secret police. When [[Peter Arnett]] and [[Malcolm Browne]] began taking photos,<ref name="l219">Langguth, p. 219.</ref> the police punched Arnett in the nose, floored him, threw rocks and broke his camera.<ref>Prochnau, p. 328.</ref> This incident became known as the [[Double Seven Day scuffle]]. Browne took photos of Arnett's bloodied face, and while the police smashed his camera, the [[photographic film|film]] survived. Photos of Arnett's bloodied face were circulated in US newspapers and caused further embarrassment for Diệm and Nhu.<ref name="h157">Hammer, p. 157</ref><ref name="j285">Jones, p. 285.</ref> The Saigon press corps officially protest Nhu's "open physical intimidation to prevent the covering of news which we feel Americans have a right to know".<ref name="h157"/>

There were persistent reports that Nhu was seeking to usurp real power from Diệm and would attack the Buddhists.<ref name=hal139/> In a media interview, Nhu said that if the Buddhist crisis was not resolved, he would stage a coup, quickly demolish the [[Xá Lợi Pagoda]], where the Buddhists were massing to coordinate their activities, and head a new anti-Buddhist government. The news was promptly published, although the Americans were not sure if Nhu was serious.<ref name=hal140>Halberstam, p. 140.</ref>

On the evening of 18 August, a group of senior ARVN generals met to discuss the Buddhist crisis and decided that the imposition of martial law was needed to disperse the monks who had gathered in Saigon and other regional cities and return them to their original pagodas in the rural areas.<ref name=d524>Dommen, p. 524.</ref><ref name="h166"/><ref name="j300">Jones, p. 300.</ref> On 20 August they met Nhu for consultations and made their request. Most of the group were already involved in plotting against the Ngô family by this time.<ref name="h166">Hammer, p. 166.</ref><ref>Jacobs, pp. 168–69.</ref> The generals played on Nhu's prejudices by saying that the pagodas were infiltrated with communists and that they needed to be dispersed.<ref name=h166/><ref name=j300/> Hearing this, the brothers agreed to declare martial law effective on the next day, without consulting the cabinet. The real purpose of the generals' request was to maneuver troops in readiness for a coup, and they had no concrete plans to use the regular army to raid the pagodas. However, Nhu took the opportunity to discredit the army by using Tung's Special Forces and the combat police to attack the pagodas.<ref name=k301>Karnow, p. 301.</ref><ref>Halberstam, pp. 144–45.</ref>

With the approval of Diệm, Nhu used the declaration of martial law to order armed men into the Buddhist pagodas. Nhu purposely chose a time when the U.S. Embassy was leaderless. [[Frederick Nolting]] had returned to the United States and his successor Lodge was yet to arrive. As the high command of the ARVN worked closely with the American advisers, Nhu used the combat police and Tung's Special Forces, who took his orders directly from Nhu. The men were dressed in regular army uniforms,<ref name=h167/> such as paratrooper uniforms,<ref name=hal145>Halberstam, p. 145.</ref> in order to frame the army for the raids. Nhu's motive was to shift the responsibility for a violent operation that would anger the Vietnamese public and the American officials onto the army. In doing so, he intended to dent the public and American confidence in the senior army officers, who were plotting against him. Nhu hoped the Buddhist majority and the Americans would blame the army for the raids and become less inclined to support a coup by the generals. In the past, Nhu's [[Machiavelli]]an tactics in playing the generals against one another had kept conspirators off-balance and thwarted coup attempts.<ref name=h167>Hammer, p. 167.</ref><ref name=hal145/>

Squads of Special Forces and combat police flattened the gates of the Xá Lợi Pagoda and smashed their way in at around 00:20, 21 August 1963.<ref name=hal143>Halberstam, p. 143.</ref><ref name=j297/> Nhu's men were armed with pistols, submachine guns, carbines, shotguns, grenades and tear gas. The red bereted Special Forces were joined by truckloads of steel-helmeted combat police in army camouflage uniforms.<ref name="j297">Jones, p. 297.</ref> Two of Nhu's senior aides were seen outside Xá Lợi directing the operation.<ref name=hal145/> Monks and nuns were attacked with rifle butts and bayonets, and overpowered by automatic weapons fire, grenades and battering rams.<ref name="Jacobs, p. 153">Jacobs, p. 153.</ref> It took around two hours to complete the raids because many of the occupants had barricaded themselves inside the various rooms.<ref name=hal143/>

Nhu's men vandalized the main altar and confiscated the intact charred heart of Thích Quảng Đức, the monk who had self-immolated in protest against the policies of the regime. However, some of the Buddhists were able to flee the pagoda with a receptacle with the remainder of his ashes. Two monks jumped the back wall of the pagoda into the grounds of the adjoining [[United States Agency for International Development]] (USAID) mission, where they were given asylum. Thich Tinh Khiet, an eighty-year-old Buddhist patriarch, was seized and taken to a military hospital on the outskirts of Saigon.<ref name="h168">Hammer, p. 168.</ref> Military control, press censorship and the airport closures were enacted in Saigon.<ref name="time">{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,940704-1,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070713073510/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,940704-1,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=13 July 2007|title=The Crackdown|magazine=Time|date=31 August 1963|access-date=18 August 2007}}</ref><ref name="j298">Jones, p. 298.</ref>

The violence was worse in heavily Buddhist Huế. Pro-Buddhist civilians left their homes upon hearing of the raids to defend the city's pagodas. At [[Từ Đàm Pagoda]],<ref name=time/> which was the temple of Buddhist protest leader [[Thích Trí Quang]],<ref>Dommen, pp. 508–11.</ref> government soldiers, firing M1 rifles, overran the building and demolished a statue of Gautama Buddha and looted and vandalized the building,<ref name=hal143/><ref name="time"/> before leveling much of the pagoda with explosives. Many Buddhists were shot or clubbed to death.<ref name="jacobsraids">Jacobs, pp. 152–53.</ref> The most determined resistance occurred outside the [[Diệu Đế Pagoda]] in Huế. As troops attempted to erect a barricade across the bridge leading to the pagoda, the crowd fought back, and the military finally took control after five hours, leaving an estimated 30 dead and 200 wounded.<ref name=time/><ref name=jacobsraids/>

Some 500 people were arrested in the city, and 17 of the 47 professors at [[Huế University]], who had resigned earlier in the week in protest against the family's policies,<ref name="h168"/> were arrested.<ref name="time"/> The raids were repeated in cities and towns across the country. The total number of dead and disappeared was never confirmed, but estimates range up to several hundred. At least 1,400 were arrested.<ref name=h168/><ref name="jacobsraids"/><ref name=hal144>Halberstam, p. 144.</ref> No further mass Buddhist protests occurred during the remainder of Diệm's rule, which would amount to little more than two more months, in any event.<ref>Moyar, pp. 212–16, 231–34.</ref>

Government sources claimed that at the Xá Lợi, [[Ấn Quang Pagoda|Ấn Quang]] and other pagodas, soldiers had found machine guns, ammunition, plastic explosives, homemade mines, daggers, and Viet Cong documents; these had been planted by Nhu's men.<ref name=j2989>Jones, pp. 298–99.</ref> A few days later, Madame Nhu said that the raids were "the happiest day in my life since we crushed the Bình Xuyên in 1955", and assailed the Buddhists as "communists".<ref name=hal146>Halberstam, p. 146.</ref> Nhu accused the Buddhists of turning their pagodas into headquarters for plotting insurrections. He claimed the Buddhist Intersect Committee operated under the control of "political speculators who exploited religion and terrorism".<ref name="j306"/>

Nhu's actions prompted riots from university students, which were met by arrests, imprisonment, and university shutdowns. The high school students followed suit, and followed their university counterparts into jail.<ref name=hal153>Halberstam, p. 153.</ref> Thousands of students from Saigon's leading high school, most of them children of public servants and military officers, were sent to re-education camps.<ref>Jacobs, pp. 153–54.</ref> The result was a further drop in morale amongst the putative defenders of the Ngô family.<ref name=hal154>Halberstam, p. 154.</ref> In a media interview, Nhu vowed to kill his father-in-law (for publicly renouncing him), saying: "I will have his head cut off. I will hang him in the center of a square and let him dangle there. My wife will make the knot on the rope because she is proud of being a Vietnamese and she is a good patriot."<ref name=j393>Jones, p. 393.</ref> In the same interview, Nhu claimed to have invented helicopters and pioneered their use in military combat.<ref name=j393/>

On 24 August, the Kennedy administration sent [[Cable 243]] to Lodge in Saigon, marking a change in American policy. The message advised Lodge to seek the removal of the Nhus from power, and to look for alternative leadership options if Diệm refused to remove them. As the probability of Diệm doing so was seen as highly unlikely, the message effectively meant the fomenting of a coup. Lodge replied that there was no hope of Diệm removing Nhu, and began to make contact with possible coup plotters through CIA agents.<ref>Jacobs, pp. 162–63.</ref><ref>Karnow, pp. 303–04.</ref><ref>Halberstam, pp. 157–58.</ref> The ''[[Voice of America]]'' broadcast a statement blaming Nhu for the pagoda raids and absolving the army of culpability.<ref name=hal152>Halberstam, p. 152.</ref> Lodge believed Nhu's influence had risen to unprecedented levels and that Nhu's divide and conquer tactics had split the military into three power groups.<ref name="j306">Jones, p. 306.</ref>

At the same time as Buddhist crisis was raging, a French diplomatic initiative known to the historians as the "Maneli affair" was taking place. On 25 August 1963, at a diplomatic reception at [[Gia Long Palace]], [[Roger Lalouette]], the French ambassador to South Vietnam and [[Ramchundur Goburdhun]], the Indian Chief Commissioner of the International Control Commission (ICC), introduced Nhu to [[Mieczysław Maneli]], the Polish Commissioner to the ICC.<ref name="Langguth, p.232-233">Langguth, p.232-233</ref> Lalouette had promoting a peace plan calling for a federation of the two Vietnams. During a visit to Hanoi, Maneli had met with Ho Chi Minh and [[Phạm Văn Đồng]] and been asked to take a message to Nhu to discuss the peace offer.<ref name="Langguth, p.232-233"/> On 2 September 1963, Maneli followed up his first meeting with Nhu with another at Nhu's office in the Gia Long Palace.<ref name="Langguth, p.234">Langguth, p.234</ref> Nhu spoke at much length to Maneli about his wish to achieve a synthesis of Catholicism and Marxism as he maintained that his real enemy was not Communism, but capitalism.<ref name="Langguth, p.234"/>

Shortly afterwards, Nhu met with the American columnist [[Joseph Alsop]] who was visiting Saigon, and leaked to him the news that he had met Maneli.<ref name="Langguth, p.234"/> On 18 September 1963, Alsop revealed the Nhu-Menali meeting in his "A Matter of Fact" column in the ''Washington Post''.  Nhu told Alsop that the offer presented by Maneli was "almost an attractive offer", but he rejected it because "I could not open negotiations behind the backs of the Americans...That was of course out of the question".<ref>Porter, p.126</ref> Through Nhu's intention in leaking the meeting was to blackmail the United States with the obvious message that the Diem regime would reach an understanding with the Communists if Kennedy continued his criticism of the regime, senior members of the Kennedy administration reacted with fury to what Alsop had revealed, and now began to press even more strongly for a coup.<ref>Karnow, pp. 292.</ref>

{{See also|Krulak Mendenhall mission|McNamara Taylor mission}}
One of the recommendations of the Krulak Mendenhall mission, was to stop American funding for the Motion Picture Center, which produced hagiographic films (propaganda) about the Nhus.<ref name="jj"/> and to pursue covert actions aimed at dividing and discrediting Tung and Major General [[Tôn Thất Đính]].<ref name="jj">Jones, pp. 358–59.</ref> Đính was the youngest general in ARVN history, primarily due to his loyalty to the Ngô family. He was given command of the [[III Corps (South Vietnam)|III Corps]] forces surrounding the capital as he and Tung were the most trusted officers and could be relied upon to defend the family against any coup.<ref>Tucker, p. 404.</ref><ref>Jacobs, p. 169.</ref>

The [[McNamara Taylor mission]] resulted in the suspension of funding for Nhu's special forces until they were placed under the command of the army's Joint General Staff (JGS) and sent into battle.<ref>Jones, p. 390.</ref><ref>Hammer, pp. 246–47.</ref> The report noted that one of the reasons for sending Tung's men into the field was because they "are a continuing support for Diệm".<ref name="h2356">Hammer, pp. 235–36.</ref> The Americans were also aware that removing the special forces from Saigon would increase the chances that a coup attempt would succeed, thereby encouraging the army to overthrow the president.<ref name="h2356"/> Diệm and Nhu were undeterred by suspension of aid, keeping Tung and his men in the capital.<ref>Hammer, pp. 272–273.</ref> Nhu accused the Americans of "destroying the psychology of our country" and called the U.S. ambassador, [[Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.]], a "man of no morality".<ref>Karnow, pp. 300–324.</ref>

At Nhu's request, Tung was reported to have been planning an operation under the cover of a government-organised student demonstration outside the U.S. embassy. In this plan, Tung's men would assassinate Lodge and other key officials among the confusion. Another target was the Buddhist leader [[Thich Tri Quang|Thích Trí Quang]], who had been given asylum in the embassy after being targeted in the pagoda raids. According to the plan, Tung's men would then burn down the embassy and stage it as a riot provoked by communists and other enemies of the United States.<ref name=j393/>

Another notable instance of religious warfare was perpetrated by Nhu's right-hand man in 1963. A hugely oversized [[carp]] was found swimming in a small pond near [[Da Nang|Đà Nẵng]]. Local Buddhists began to believe that the fish was a [[reincarnation]] of one of Gautama Buddha's disciples. As more people made pilgrimages to the pond, Ngô family officials [[land mine|mined]] the pond and raked it with machine gun fire, but the fish survived.<ref name=p411/> Nhu's special forces [[hand grenade|grenaded]] the pond, finally killing the fish. This backfired, however, because it generated more publicity — newspapers across the world ran stories about the miraculous fish. ARVN helicopters began landing at the site, and paratroopers filled their bottles with water they believed to be magical.<ref name=p411>Prochnau, p. 411.</ref>