POSITION CONFUSED IN SAIGON COUP

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30681, 22 February 1965, Page 13

POSITION CONFUSED IN SAIGON COUP

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

SAIGON, February 21.

Rebel officers were believed to be fleeing South Vietnam today but they may have succeeded in toppling the country’s armed forces chief, Lieutenant General Nguyen Khanh.

The armed forces council announced late yesterday that Friday’s anti-Khanh coup had been smashed. Its 15 leaders were being hunted and would be severely punished, and rebel troops and tanks were back with their units. It was reported today, however, that armoured vehicles began moving this morning in the city of Da Nang amid rumours that an anti-govern-ment demonstration was in the making. Military authorities were reported on the alert. There was no fresh information on the whereabouts! of General Khanh. General Khanh’s troops I marched into Saigon yester-l terday and the coup quietly! came to an end. Generali Khanh was not with his com-1 manding generals to announce victory and a mem-| ber of the armed forces coun-l cil told a news conference he was “inspecting operations” in the provinces. Still Commander He remained armed forces commander-in-chief for the I moment but “in the near future we will talk about it," one general said. Diplomats said the armed \ forces council had voted no; confidence in General; Khanh and recommended his I replacement after agreeing to put down the revolt, by the same group that failed to remove him last September. They said, however, that General Khanh was a resilient figure and his influence was not necessarily ended. The armed forces council announced it had named Brigadier-General Nguyen Chanh Thi. commander of the first corps in the north of; the country, to command the; "capital liberation forces.” It affirmed its confidence in the chief of state. Mr Phan ■ Khac Suu, and the five-day-! old government of Dr. Phan Huy Quat General Khanh disappeared from his riverside mansion before rebel troops surrounded it yesterday, and marshalled troops who! marched on, Saigon during! the night. The air force chief. Briga-dier-General Nguyen Cao Ky, ; also flew out of his airport; headquarters here before; tanks moved in on it. From nearby Bien Hoa air base he threatened to bomb; the tanks. He bargained there with! two top rebel leaders brought; to him under a safe conduct by an American Air Force General, Robert Rowland. Loyal tanks and armoured cars from the southern delta clanked through the streets I of Saigon before dawn today ; setting up headquarters at a racecourse, and paratroopers; moved in from Vung Tau, 30 miles away. The paratroopers took the; radio station bloodlessly and

the delta’s seventh division moved in on the airport. Without even the participants being very sure of what was happening, the rebels gave up their hold on the armed forces headquarters near the airport and the seventh division marched in. The top coup leader, a for-

mer Brigadier-General, Lam Van Phat, cashiered for his role in last September's similar attempt, retired to the airport, where his tanks were still oh the runway. Soon the tanks disappeared, and a major told the rebel troops they should rejoin their units. Tanks Went When last seen, Phat and a former colonel, Puynh Van Ton, also cashiered for his activities last September, were seen in civilian clothes driving off in a jeep at the airport. An American colonel, seen at the airport earlier, was believed to have acted as a mediator and go-between. The 45 tanks and about four battalions of troops that backed the rebels had quietly gone. A third top coup leader, Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao, was last heard from in a broadcast from an obscure armed forces radio saying goodbye and that he had done his best.