Phan Huy Quat

Life

Quat was born in Ha Tinh Province. He attended the Lycee Pellerin, Hue, then studied medicine in Hanoi and qualified as a doctor before entering politics.

On 2 July 1949, Quat was appointed Minister of Education by Head of State Bao Dai. On 22 January 1950, Prime Minister Nguyen Phan Long appointed Quat Minister of Defense, at which position he had only served briefly before the Cabinet was re-organized and he returned to working for the Dai Viet Quoc dan dang.

In June 1953, Prime Minister Nguyen Van Tam appointed Quat Minister of Defense. Quat would be in this position until 1954 when Prince Buu Loc became Prime Minister who appointed Quat Special Minister in charge of the democratization process for Vietnam. Dr. Quat then served briefly as an interim Prime Minister until Bao Dai appointed Ngo Dinh Diem to the position.

In April 1960, Quat signed the Caravelle Manifesto, a list of grievances and demands specifically critical of Diem, and was promptly jailed by the GVN. After Diem's assassination in October 1963, Quat was appointed Foreign Minister by Major General Nguyen Khanh, one of the principal participants in the bloody coup. Though Quat frequently criticized Khanh's self-serving rule, he remained in Khanh's cabinet until November 1964, when Tran Van Huong was installed as Prime Minister of General Khanh's freshly created High National Council (HNC).

On 16 February 1965, the Armed Forces Council, a group of South Vietnamese military officers who took over when General Khanh deposed Huong and the HNC, secured Quat's appointment to Prime Minister in order to foil a power grab by the junta chief Khanh, who intended to install the economist Nguyen Xuan Oanh as his puppet in the Prime Minister post. Khanh himself was forced to step down after a coup on 19/20 February and was subsequently exiled. Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky then led the junta that oversaw the civilian cabinet.

In 1965, Ky was appointed Prime Minister and Nguyen Van Thieu became President by a special joint meeting of military leaders following the voluntary resignation of civilian President Suu. After leaving the Prime Minister post, Dr. Quat returned to his medical practice. He remained in politics until 1975 by working with the Asia Anti-Communist League (Lien Minh A Chau Chong Cong) as Chairman of its Vietnamese office.

Last years/death

After the fall of Saigon, Quat went into hiding. In August 1975, he was arrested and jailed at Chi Hoa Prison after a failed attempt to escape from Vietnam. It was there that he died of liver failure on 27 April 1979. The official report indicated that Quat had died from "a stroke, heart attack and liver failure".