Ngo Dinh Can

Early years

Can was the fifth of six sons born to Ngo Dinh Kha, who was a mandarin in the imperial court of Emperor Thanh Thai, who was ruling under French control.

Kha retired from the court in protest at French interference, taking up farming. Can's first and third brothers—Ngo Dinh Khoi and Diem — rose to become provincial governors under French rule. Diem, like his father, resigned in protest in 1933, while Khoi was assassinated in 1945 by Ho Chi Minh's cadres. The second brother, Pierre Martin Ngo Dinh Thuc, was appointed as the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Hue. A fourth brother Ngo Dinh Nhu became the family's chief political strategist, while the youngest, Ngo Dinh Luyen was a diplomat when the family held power in South Vietnam. Of the Ngo brothers, only Thuc and Luyen avoided being executed or assassinated during Vietnam's political upheavals.

Details about Can's early life are scarce. In his youth, he had studied the writings and opinions of the renowned anti-French Vietnamese nationalist Phan Boi Chau, who spent his last years in Hue. Regarded as the leading revolutionary of his time, Chau had been captured and sentenced to death, before having his sentence reduced to house arrest. Can regularly traveled to Chau's sampan on the Perfume River with gifts of food and listened to Chau's political lectures. Regarded as the least educated of his family, Can had never traveled outside Vietnam and was the only Ngo brother not to have studied at a European-run institution.

Vietnam was in chaos after the Japanese invaded the country during World War II and displaced the French colonial administration. At the end of the war, the Japanese left the country and France, severely weakened by political turmoil within the Vichy regime, was unable to exert control. Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh declared independence as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and battled other Vietnamese nationalist groups as well as French forces for control of the nation. During this time, Can organised a clandestine support base for Diem in central Vietnam. At the time, Diem was one of many nationalists who were attempting to stake a claim to national leadership, having spent a decade in self-imposed exile from public affairs. Can helped weaken other anti-communist nationalist groups, such as the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (Vietnamese Nationalist Party) and the Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang (Nationalist Party of Greater Vietnam), which competed with Diem for support. On 23 October 1955, Diem toppled Bao Dai in a fraud-ridden referendum orchestrated by Nhu. Diem declared himself President of the newly proclaimed Republic of Vietnam three days later.

Can's men helped to cow the populace into voting for his brother. Those who disobeyed were often chased down and beaten, with pepper sauce and water often forced down their nostrils. The violations were particularly flagrant in Can's area, which was the home of the Nguyen Dynasty and a source of sympathy towards Bao Dai. Can ordered the police to arrest 1,200 people for political reasons in the week leading up to the vote. In Hoi An, some people were killed in election day violence.

Rule

With Diem's ascent to the leadership of South Vietnam in 1955, Can's stock rose. Can had no formal position in the government but was effectively regarded as the warlord of central Vietnam. He had almost unlimited power in the region, often interfering with army operations against the Viet Cong in a style described as "feudal". Robert Scigliano, a journalist and academic from the Michigan State University Vietnam Advisory Group, asserted that Can, along with Nhu, Madame Nhu and eldest brother Archbishop Pierre Martin Ngo Dinh Thuc formed "an extralegal elite which, with Diem, directs the destiny of Vietnam". Can sometimes vetoed government-appointed officials posted to central Vietnam from Saigon.

Can ran his own personal army and secret police, which fought the Viet Cong and imprisoned other anti-communist political opponents. Can accumulated great wealth through corrupt practices such as graft in awarding foreign aid contracts from the United States governments of Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy to Vietnamese businessmen. He required the businessmen to pay a fee to the National Revolutionary Movement – the official party of the regime – in return for the processing of applications for foreign aid contracts and import licenses. Can was believed to be organising the trafficking of opium throughout Asia via Laos, and monopolising the cinnamon trade.

He was often in conflict with his brothers regarding internal matters, with Nhu, Diem's most influential adviser, controlling the southern part of the country. The brothers often competed with each other for U.S. aid contracts and the rice trade, but did not interfere with matters in one another's territorial zone. Can had once tried to set up an office for his secret police in Saigon (which was in Nhu's southern region) by showing Diem his long list of detained political opponents, but insisted that he not have to report to Nhu. Referring to his autocratic style, a Vietnamese critic said that unlike Diem, Can was consistent and left his followers in no doubt as to what he wanted: "They are not confused by double talk about democratic ideals and institutions". His creation of a well-defined system of incentives and deterrence has been cited as one reason for his success.

Anti-communism

In spite of his autocracy and iron rule, Can earned praise from Hue-based US officials for his relatively high levels of success against the Viet Cong insurgency. Can's central region was much more peaceful than the restive areas near Saigon and the Mekong Delta. Can created the Popular Force organisation to operate in central Vietnam. The Popular Force was an alternative to the Strategic Hamlet Program which was used on a much larger scale in the south by Nhu, who moved peasants into fortified camps in an attempt to isolate Vietcong cadres from accessing the rural populace and intimidating or otherwise gaining their support. Can assumed a third or so of the rural peasantry were Viet Cong sympathisers, significant enough to render the hamlets ineffective by intimidating other villagers from within. Can's Popular Force were a group of volunteers who underwent rigorous training similar to United States Marine Corps Recruit Training. Those who passed the training were put into units of 150 men and assigned to live and work in the villages by day. At night, they did defense patrols, using hit-and-run tactics against the Viet Cong. According to the report by US officials in central Vietnam, the program aroused popular support because of the integration of the Popular Force's personnel into the daily life of the village and the sense of security that the force provided. The units were generally regarded as being successful in their six-month deployments, allowing them to be deployed to the next trouble spot. Officials in Washington disagreed with the assessment of their subordinates in central Vietnam, alleging that Can was mainly using the Popular Force for repressing dissidents.

Buddhist crisis

Can was considered the most secular of the four Ngo brothers who controlled Vietnam's domestic affairs. With the appointment of elder brother Thuc as the Archbishop of Hue in 1961, Can became less influential as Thuc aggressively blurred the distinction between church and state. In early 1963, Nhu sent an emissary from Saigon telling Can to retire and leave for Japan. Unrest erupted in the summer of 1963. After the flying of Vatican flags was permitted at a celebration for the anniversary of Thuc's consecration as a bishop, the flying of Buddhist flags on 8 May to commemorate Vesak — the birth of Gautama Buddha — was banned. Can's subordinates ordered government forces to fire on the unarmed Buddhist crowd protesting the ban, killing nine. Can believed the United States, whose relations with South Vietnam had become strained, caused an explosion during the Vesak shootings, to destabilise his family's regime.

Downfall and arrest

Sparked by the killings in Hue on Vesak, the Buddhists organised nationwide mass protests against the religious bias of the Diem regime throughout the summer of 1963, demanding religious equality. The protests were met with brutal crackdowns, including ARVN Special Forces attacks on Buddhist pagodas which left hundreds missing, presumed dead. As public discontent heightened, a group of ARVN officers planned and carried out a US-backed coup in November. This came about after Can's protege Ton That Dinh, a 37-year-old who became the youngest ever general in the ARVN due to his loyalty to the Diem regime, switched sides and helped the coup when his corps was expected to remain loyal. Diem and Nhu were executed at the conclusion of the coup.

Following the downfall of the Ngo family, the White House came under pressure from the South Vietnamese public to take a hard line against Can. Mass graves containing 200 bodies were found on his land. The US consul in Hue, John Helble, confirmed the existence of rows of 18th century style dungeons with filthy, dark cells in an old French arsenal. Although junta member General Tran Van Don asserted that the compound predated the Diem era, the town's citizens saw Can as a mass murderer. On 4 November, two days after the coup ended, thousands of irate townspeople walked three kilometres to Can's house on the city's southern outskirts — where he lived with his aged mother — demanding vengeance. The junta had ringed the home with barbed wire and armoured cars, sensing that the populace would riot and attack Can. By this time, Can had escaped to a Catholic seminary, but was considering applying to the Americans for political asylum. The U.S. State Department was faced with a dilemma: sheltering Can would associate them with the protection of a corrupt and authoritarian regime that had killed and tortured hundreds of thousands of its own people. Allowing Can to be attacked by angry mobs would damage the reputation of the new American-backed junta. The State Department instructed:

asylum should be granted to Ngo Dinh Can if he is in physical danger from any source. If asylum granted explain to Hue authorities further violence would harm international reputation new regime. Also recall to them that U.S. took similar action to protect Thich Tri Quang from the Diem government and can do no less in Can case.

The White House sent a cable to the US Embassy, Saigon on November 4 agreeing that Can and his mother needed evacuation. General Do Cao Tri, the commander of the ARVN I Corps, who had repressed the Buddhists in Hue, privately told Can that the junta would allow him safe passage out of Vietnam. On 5 November, Can sought refuge at the US consulate with a suitcase crammed with US currency. Tri was then told that Can was not safe in Hue and that he was to send Can to Saigon, immediately for his own protection. Tri would only promise safe passage in an American plane to Saigon, where embassy officials would meet Can. On the journey to the capital, Can was accompanied by four Americans: a vice-consul, two military policemen and a lieutenant colonel. He had intended to seek asylum in Japan.

U.S. ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. had other ideas. Instead of sending embassy officials to Tan Son Nhut airport, Lodge sent CIA agent Lucien Conein, who had helped the Vietnamese generals to plan the coup. Conein turned Can over to the junta. Lodge said that General Don had promised that Can would be dealt with "legally and judicially". The ambassador told Washington that asylum was unnecessary, saying "It seems to me that our reason for giving him asylum therefore no longer exists". He said that the U.S. could not interfere with justice, since Can was "undoubtedly a reprehensible figure who deserves all the loathing which he now receives". Lodge reasoned that since Can would not be killed, protecting him would give the impression that the U.S. backed his activities. Lodge said that General Duong Van Minh, who was the President, implied that Can would receive clemency even if sentenced to death. This contradicted Conein's assertion that the ARVN officer corps felt that Can should be executed. Can's case was damaged by the release of tens of thousands of political prisoners, who recounted tales of torture at the hands of the Ngo brothers.

Trial and execution

It was reported that General Nguyen Khanh — who had deposed Minh in a January 1964 coup — offered Can exile if he handed over his foreign bank deposits. Can protested, saying that he had no money. Don later claimed that Khanh would have executed Can anyway, as Can would have known of the corruption that the generals were party to. During the Ngo era, Khanh commanded the ARVN II Corps, which had operated in the Central Highlands under Can's supervision. Despite having helped to arrest Can, Lodge advised Khanh to be restrained in his handling of the case for fear of stoking religious resentment or upsetting international opinion with a death penalty.

Lodge later claimed the South Vietnamese prosecutors failed to make any case against Can. The Vietnamese leader also had to contend with the other side of the arguments, from those who considered themselves to be victims of the Diem regime. During the trial, Thich Tri Quang, along with other opponents of the old regime, lobbied for a death sentence for Can. He argued that if Can lived, he could regain power along with his late brothers' supporters. He told Lodge that if the Americans did not support a tough sentence, then the Vietnamese Buddhist community's opinion of Washington would fall. Lodge was initially critical of Quang's campaigning against Can. Can was sentenced to death. He appealed to the head of state for clemency; his lawyers used a provision in the legal code to make the appeal. This placed Minh — who was still the titular head of state — in the position of approving a third death in the Ngo family, having already ordered his bodyguard Nguyen Van Nhung to execute Diem and Nhu during the coup.

Can's diabetes worsened during the course of the trial, and by the time he was executed, his elderly mother had died. He suffered a heart attack while in custody. On 9 May 1964, was carried on a stretcher into the prison courtyard and assisted by guards and two Catholic priests to stand alongside the post to which he was tied. He was blindfolded against his request and shot in front of approximately 200 spectators. Lodge defended his actions, claiming the United States did all it could to prevent the execution. The ambassador claimed Can would have been allowed to seek refuge at the U.S. embassy, despite the fact that he had ordered Conein to intercept Can at the airport. Rev. Cao Van Luan, Catholic rector of Hue University who had been fired for falling afoul of the powerful Archbishop Thuc, asked Lodge that Can not be executed. According to Luan, Lodge reportedly assured the rector the execution would not take place. Can left his personal fortune, which had indeed been deposited in foreign banks, to Catholic charities.