The Vietnam War, This Week, The Daily Notes, Canonsburg PA
Vietnam War Weekly Front Pages
14 February 1965 – 20 February 1965
The Daily Notes, Canonsburg PA
An attempted coup in Saigon.
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The Saigon government charged on Monday that 20,000 Communist-trained officers had infiltrated South Vietnam since 1959. A report said the Communists were armed with weapons made in the Soviet Union and Red China. US intelligence officials confirmed the South Vietnamese charge and added that the number of Communist infiltrators over the past six years may be closer to 34,000. South Vietnam delivered the report in the form of a protest note to the International Control Commission, an agency established in 1954 to police the partition of the two Vietnams after the French Indochina war. North Vietnam announced Sunday that it had asked commission members to withdraw from its territory. The Hanoi regime said it was no longer able to guarantee the safety of members in view of the recent airstrikes.
Buddhist Premier Phan Huy Quat formally presented a 20-man cabinet to chief of state Phan Khac Suu. He expressed hope that it could unify South Vietnam during the time of increasing military crisis in southeast Asia. The cabinet was made up of a wide spectrum of political and religious groups including Buddhists and Roman Catholics. Quat, A 56-year-old medical doctor, was appointed by the country’s military leaders to try to restore civilian rule. On Friday rebel troops and marines led by Roman Catholic officers seized control of Saigon in a coup aimed at toppling Buddhist Lieutenant General Nguyen Khanh, the South Vietnamese strongman. Khanh immediately called on loyal troops to launch a counter-coup. The political convulsion, Saigon’s seventh since the overthrow of President Ngo Dinh Diem 16 months ago, had strong religious overtones and raised the possibility of hostilities between Buddhists and Catholics. The rebels struck at 1300 Saigon time and seized three key points: the international airport, the armed forces headquarters, and Saigon Radio. The radio began broadcasting a series of victory communiqués.
The Johnson administration, with the president himself leading the way, once again affirmed US determination to “persist in the defense of freedom” in South Vietnam. The chief executive’s statement on US policy came in remarks added to a speech he made on economic policy before a meeting of the National Industrial Conference Board in Washington. His words were echoed Wednesday night by Vice President Hubert Humphrey in an address delivered in New York for opening ceremonies of a privately sponsored symposium on ways to achieve peace and world understanding.
(Photo courtesy newspapers.com, Canonsburg Daily Notes)