Nguyen Cao Ky

Early years and rising up the ranks

A northerner, Kỳ was born in Sơn Tây, a town west of Hanoi. After completing his secondary schooling in Chu Văn An High School, Hanoi, he enlisted in the French-backed Vietnamese National Army of the State of Vietnam in 1951 and was commissioned in the infantry after attending an officers training school. After a brief period in the field against the communist Viet Minh of Ho Chi Minh during the First Indochina War, the French military hierarchy sent Kỳ, then a lieutenant, to Marrakesh in Morocco to train as a pilot. Kỳ gained his wings on 15 September 1954. The French defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Conference ended the colonial presence in Indochina, and Kỳ came back to the new Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). The commander of a transport squadron, Kỳ was put in charge of Tan Son Nhut Air Base, the main aerial facility in the capital, Saigon. Kỳ then went to the United States to study for six months at the Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell Field, Alabama, where he learned to speak English. He returned to Vietnam and continued to rise up the ranks.

Kỳ began his association with the American covert operations community in 1961. While still ranked as a major commanding Tân Sơn Nhứt Air Base, he became the first pilot for South Vietnam's presidential liaison officer, which was organizing to infiltrate military intelligence teams into North Vietnam. He recruited pilots from his command for this intelligence program of the Central Intelligence Agency, and flew some of the missions himself after being trained by an expert pilot from Air America. At one point, Kỳ took the CIA's Saigon station chief, William Colby, for a demonstration low-level flight. Kỳ's flight training graduation gift for himself and his pilots was a flight to Singapore, where he purchased black flight suits, silk scarfs, and cigarette lighters for all hands. Colby was amused by his flight but unhappy with the selection of flashy attire.

Under the regime of Dương Văn Minh, whose coup Kỳ had supported, he was made an air marshal, replacing Colonel Đỗ Khắc Mai as head of the Republic of Vietnam Air Force.

Rise to prominence in the junta

In January 1964, General Nguyễn Khánh deposed Minh, and it was under Khánh's one-year rule that Kỳ rose to become one of the leading powers in the junta. Having been demoted, disgruntled Generals Lâm Văn Phát and Dương Văn Đức launched a coup attempt against Khánh before dawn on 13 September, using ten Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) battalions that they had recruited. Their faction consisted mainly of Catholic elements. They took over the city without any firing, and used the national radio station to proclaim the deposal of Khánh's junta. There was little reaction from most of the military commanders. Kỳ had two weeks earlier promised to use his planes against any coup attempt, but there was no reaction to begin with.

Some time after the plotters had made their broadcast, Kỳ consolidated the troops on Saigon's outskirts at Tân Sơn Nhứt Air Base, the largest in the country and where the military was headquartered. He barricaded the soldiers into defensive positions and vowed a "massacre" if the rebels attacked the base. A stand-off of tanks and troops around the perimeter of the base occurred, but it petered away without any violence as the rebels were withdrawn. Kỳ had apparently been angered by comments made by a rebel source who claimed that he was part of the coup attempt. At the same time, Kỳ was known for his hawkish attitude and close relations with the US military establishment in Vietnam, and American opposition to the coup was thought to have been conveyed to him efficiently. Đức mistakenly thought that Kỳ and his subordinates would be joining the coup, but was wrong.

The announcement of US support for the incumbent helped to deter ARVN officers from joining Lâm and Đức. Khánh returned to Saigon and put down the putsch, aided mainly by Kỳ and the Air Force. Kỳ decided to make a show of force as Phát and Đức began to wilt, and he sent jets to fly low over Saigon and finish off the rebel stand. He also sent two C-47s to Vũng Tàu to pick up two companies of South Vietnamese marines who remained loyal to Khánh. Several more battalions of loyal infantry were transported into Saigon. Kỳ's political star began to rise.

As the coup collapsed, Kỳ and Đức appeared with other senior officers at a news conference where they proclaimed that the South Vietnamese military was united, and announced a resolution by the armed forces, signed by them and seven other leading commanders, claiming a united front against corruption. The officers contended that the events in the capital were misinterpreted by observers, as "there was no coup." Kỳ claimed that Khánh was in complete control and that the senior officers involved in the standoff "have agreed to rejoin their units to fight the Communists", and that no further action would be taken against those who were involved with Đức and Phát's activities, but Khánh arrested them two days later.

December 1964 South Vietnamese coup

Kỳ was part of a group of younger officers called the Young Turks. The most prominent members, apart from himself, included IV Corps commander General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, commander of I Corps Thi and Admiral Chung Tấn Cang, the head of the Republic of Vietnam Navy. They, and Khánh, wanted to forcibly retire officers with more than 25 years of service as they thought them to be lethargic, out of touch, and ineffective. The unspoken and most important reason, however, was that they viewed the older generals as rivals for power and wanted to conceal this real motive. Specific targets of this proposed policy were Generals Minh, Trần Văn Đôn, Lê Văn Kim and Mai Hữu Xuân.

The signature of Chief of State Phan Khắc Sửu was required to pass the ruling, but he referred the matter to the High National Council (HNC), a junta-appointed civilian advisory body, to get their opinion. The HNC turned down the request. On 19 December, the generals dissolved the HNC and arrested some of the members as well as other civilian politicians, and the older generals, who were removed from the military. The actual arrests were made by a small force commanded by Thi and Kỳ. The deposal prompted US Ambassador Maxwell D. Taylor to angrily berate Thiệu, Thi, Kỳ, and Cang in a private meeting and threaten to cut off aid if they did not reverse their decision. Kỳ later admitted to being stung by Taylor's comments. However, this galvanized the officers around the embattled Khánh for a time, and they ignored Taylor's threats without repercussions as the Americans were too intent on defeating the communists to cut funding.

In January 1965, the junta-appointed prime minister, Trần Văn Hương, introduced a series of measures to expand the anticommunist war effort, notably by widening the terms of conscription. This provoked widespread anti-Hương riots across the country, mainly from conscription-aged students and pro-negotiations Buddhists. Reliant on Buddhist support, Khánh did little to try to contain the protests. Khánh then decided to have the armed forces take over the government. On 27 January, Khánh removed Hương in a bloodless putsch with the support of Thi and Kỳ. He promised to leave politics once the situation was stabilized and hand over power to a civilian body. It was believed that some of the officers supported Khánh's increased power so as to give him an opportunity to fail and thus be removed permanently.

By this time, Taylor's relationship with Khánh had already broken down over the issue of the HNC, and the US became more intent on a regime change as Khánh was reliant on Buddhist support, which they saw as an obstacle to an expansion of the war. Knowing that he was close to being forced out, Khánh tried to start negotiations with the communists, but this only increased the plotting. In early February, Taylor told Kỳ, who then passed on the message to colleagues in the junta, that the United States was "in no way propping up General Khanh or backing him in any fashion." Taylor thought his message had been effective.

1965–1967

Between January and February 1965, Colonel Phạm Ngọc Thảo, in reality a communist double agent, was locked in a power struggle with Khánh, and began plotting a coup against Khánh, who he thought was trying to kill him. Thảo consulted Kỳ—who wanted to seize power for himself—before the plot, and exhorted him to join the coup, but Kỳ claimed he would remain neutral. Thảo thus had reason to believe that Kỳ would not intervene. Kỳ had been preparing his own coup plans for a fortnight and was strongly opposed to Thảo and Phát. Kỳ, Thiệu, Có and Cang were not yet ready to make a coup, and their preparations were well behind that of Thảo.

Shortly before noon on 19 February, Thảo and General Phát used around 50 tanks, and some infantry battalions, to seize control of the military headquarters, the post office, and the radio station of Saigon. He surrounded the home of Khánh and Gia Long Palace, the residence of head of state Phan Khắc Sửu. The troops also missed capturing Kỳ, who fled in a sports car with his wife and mother-in-law. Kỳ ended up at Tân Sơn Nhứt, where he ran into Khánh, and the pair flew off together, while some of their colleagues were arrested there.

Thảo made a radio announcement, stating that the sole objective of his military operation was to get rid of Khánh, whom he described as a "dictator", while some of his fellow rebels made comments extolling Diệm and indicating they would start a hardline Catholic regime. Phát was supposed to seize the Biên Hòa Air Base to prevent Kỳ from mobilising air power against them. The attempt to seize Biên Hòa failed, as Kỳ got there first and took control, before circling Tân Sơn Nhứt, threatening to bomb the rebels.

A CIA report and analysis written after the coup concluded that "Ky's command of the air force made him instrumental" in preventing Khánh from being overrun, "until Ky changed his mind" on Khánh's continuing hold on power. Most of the forces of the III and IV Corps surrounding the capital disliked both Khánh and the rebels and took no action.

The Americans decided that while they wanted Khánh out, they did not approve of Thảo and Phát, so they began to lobby Kỳ and Thi, the two most powerful officers outside Khánh, to defeat both sides. They unofficially designated Kỳ the duty of moderating between the coup forces and Khánh's loyalists, preventing bloodshed and keeping them apart until some further action was planned. Kỳ's work slowed the advance of several Khánh-loyalist units into the capital. During all of these moves, Kỳ's hand was strengthened by the mistaken belief of Khánh and his faction that the Air Force commander supported them.

Power struggle with Thi and Buddhist Uprising

Kỳ's greatest struggle came in 1966, when he dismissed Thi, resulting in a Buddhist Uprising and military revolt in Thi's I Corps. Within the junta, Thi was seen as Kỳ's main competitor for influence. Many political observers in Saigon thought that Thi wanted to depose Kỳ, and regarded him as the biggest threat to the other officers and the junta's stability. According to Kỳ's memoirs, Thi was a "born intriguer" who had "left-wing inclinations". Time magazine published a piece in February 1966 that claimed that Thi was more dynamic than Kỳ and could seize power at any time. Historian Robert Topmiller claimed Kỳ may have seen the article as destabilizing and therefore decided to move against Thi.

Historian Stanley Karnow said of Kỳ and Thi: "Both flamboyant characters who wore gaudy uniforms and sported sinister moustaches, the two young officers had been friends, and their rivalry seemed to typify the personal struggles for power that chronically afflicted South Vietnam. But their dispute mirrored more than individual ambition." Both were known for the colorful red berets they wore. There were reports that Thi was showing insubordination towards Kỳ. The US military commander in Vietnam, General William Westmoreland, said that Thi once refused to report to Kỳ in Saigon when requested. On one occasion, Kỳ came to I Corps to remonstrate with him in early March, Thi addressed his staff and asked mockingly, "Should we pay attention to this funny little man from Saigon or should we ignore him?" Thi made this comment rather loudly, within earshot of Kỳ, and the Vietnamese politician Bùi Diễm thought that the prime minister viewed Thi's comment as a direct challenge to his authority.

A native of central Vietnam, Thi was the commander of I Corps, which oversaw the five northernmost provinces of South Vietnam and the 1st and 2nd Divisions. He was known to have the "deep rooted" loyalty of his soldiers. A large segment of the South Vietnamese military was the Regional and Popular Forces, which were militias who served in their native areas, and they appreciated a commander with a regionalistic rapport. The support from the Buddhists, his troops, and the regional tendencies gave Thi a strong power base and made it hard for the other generals and the Americans to move against him.

Time magazine reported that Thi "ran it [I Corps] like a warlord of yore, obeying those edicts of the central government that suited him and blithely disregarding the rest." Historian George McTurnan Kahin said that Kỳ may have feared that Thi would secede from Saigon and turn central Vietnam into an independent state. CIA analyst Douglas Pike, speculated that this would have been a large part of Ky's thinking. A combination of those factors resulted in Thi's dismissal. Kỳ mustered the support of eight of the generals on the 10-man junta, meaning that along with his vote, there were nine officers in favor of Thi's removal. With Thi the only nonsupporter, Kỳ and his colleagues removed Thi from the junta and his corps command on 10 March 1966. Kỳ threatened to resign if the decision was not unanimous, claiming that the junta needed a show of strength, so Thi decided to vote for his own sacking. The junta put Thi under house arrest pending his departure from the country, and then appointed General Nguyễn Văn Chuẩn, the erstwhile commander of 1st Division and a Thi subordinate, as the new I Corps commander.

Views

Kỳ did not value democracy and believed that authoritarianism was necessary for South Vietnam to survive, a view shared with many of his fellow generals. In 1965, Kỳ told the journalist Brian Moynahan: "People ask me who my heroes are. I have only one: Hitler". Kỳ's comment that Hitler was his hero caused much controversy; although Kỳ had meant that his admiration was based on a view that Hitler had swiftly rebuilt Germany from a defeated state, something Kỳ also desired for South Vietnam, it nonetheless instantly damaged his international image. In an attempt at damage control, the administration of President Johnson denied to the American media that Kỳ had made the remark, claiming it was a fabrication by Moynahan, only to have the air marshal defiantly repeat the statement that Hitler was his only hero. Regarding the upcoming 1967 elections, Kỳ said that if the person elected is "a Communist or a Neutralist, I am going to fight him militarily. In any democratic country you have the right to disagree with the views of others."

In a 1965 interview with American journalist James Reston, Reston summarised that Kỳ believed that the Communists were "closer to the people's yearning for social justice and an independent life" than his own government was.

1967 elections

In the presidential election that was held in 1967, the military junta, which Kỳ chaired, intended to endorse only one candidate for the presidency. Kỳ intended to run, but at the last minute changed his mind and backed Thiệu, a move he later called "the biggest mistake of my life." Thiệu nominated Kỳ as his running mate and the two were elected with 35 percent of the vote in a rigged poll. US policymakers heard rumors that the generals had agreed to subvert the constitution, and The New York Times revealed the formation of a secret military committee that would control the government after the election. What had happened was that in the negotiations within the military, Kỳ had agreed to stand aside in exchange for behind-the-scenes power through a military committee that would shape policy and control the civilian arm of the government. Kỳ flatly denied these reports to Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, and the US Embassy notified Washington that The New York Times story was baseless. However, the story was later vindicated, as intelligence sources obtained the charter that told of the functions of the secret Supreme Military Committee (SMC). Walt Rostow briefed President Johnson and concluded that the SMC was "in effect, a scheme for 'guided democracy' in which a half dozen generals would decide finally what was good and bad for the country."

The campaign was overshadowed by US media criticism of Kỳ and Thiệu's unfair electoral practices and sneaky tricks. All the candidates were scheduled to attend a rally at Quảng Trị in the far north of the country on 6 August. Owing to the security situation and the possibility of communist attacks, the politicians were transported to joint campaign events by the military, rather than being free to go to separate events as their strategy dictated. However, the Quảng Trị event had to be canceled after the candidates' plane landed 23 km away at an air base in Đông Hà. Believing that the mishap was a deliberate attempt to make them look chaotic and disorganized—Thiệu and Kỳ had decided not to attend rallies—the candidates boycotted the event and flew back to Saigon. There they denounced the government bitterly. The leading opposition candidate, Trần Văn Hương, claimed that Thiệu and Kỳ "purposefully arranged the trip to humiliate us and make clowns out of us." As air force chief, Kỳ had previously stranded opposition politicians on a trip to the Central Highlands. Kỳ and Thiệu maintained that no malice was involved, but their opponents did not believe it. None of the candidates made good on their threat to withdraw, but their strident attacks over the alleged dirty tricks dominated the media coverage of the election for a period.

1967–1971: vice president

He served as vice president to Thiệu, although behind the scenes there was a fierce rivalry that left Kỳ marginalized. In the aftermath of the Tết Offensive, Thiệu enforced martial law and used the situation to consolidate his personal power. Kỳ's supporters in the military and the administration were quickly removed from power, arrested, or exiled, ending any hopes of Kỳ exerting any power through the SMC or elsewhere. Alienated from Thiệu, Kỳ intended to oppose him in the 1971 election, but Thiệu introduced laws to stop most of his rivals from running. Realizing that the poll would be rigged, Kỳ withdrew from politics. Thiệu ran unopposed and took 94 percent of the vote.

Life in exile

After the defeat of South Vietnam by North Vietnam, on the last day of the fall of Saigon, 30 April 1975, Kỳ left Vietnam aboard the USS Blue Ridge and fled to the United States and settled in Westminster, California, where he ran a liquor store. Kỳ wrote two autobiographies, How We Lost the Vietnam War and Buddha's Child: My Fight to Save Vietnam.

Historian James McAllister openly questioned Kỳ's honesty, saying that Buddha's Child, as Kỳ called himself, "is filled with unverifiable conversations and arguments that do not at all correspond with the historical record. Like his earlier memoir, it is often a self-serving attempt to continue his ongoing feud with the late president Nguyễn Văn Thiệu." He said "with everything Ky writes about Vietnam . . . skepticism is in order."

Kỳ made headlines in 2004 by being the first South Vietnamese leader to return to Vietnam after the reunification, a move that was seen as a shameful one by many anticommunist groups in the Vietnamese American community. Kỳ had previously been critical of the Vietnamese government while in exile and had been denied a visa on several occasions. Upon setting foot on Vietnam, Kỳ defended his actions by saying that the Vietnam War was "instigated by foreigners, it was brothers killing each other under the arrangements by foreign countries."

He added, "In another 100 years, the Vietnamese will look back at the war and feel shameful. We should not dwell on it as it will not do any good for Vietnam's future. My main concern at the moment is Vietnam's position on the world map." Kỳ said that he only wanted to help build up Vietnam and promote national harmony, and assailed critics of his return, saying that "those who bear grudges only care about themselves."

Kỳ later returned to Vietnam permanently and campaigned for increased foreign investment. Kỳ was involved in organizing trips to Vietnam for potential US investors.

Style

Kỳ was well known for his flamboyant, colorful conduct and dress during his younger days. His trademark fashion accessory before he faded from public view in the 1970s was a silk scarf, which he wore with his black flight suit. He often raised eyebrows when he was the military prime minister by arriving at events to meet civilians with his wife in matching black flight suits, boots, blue caps, and silk scarves. He rarely was seen without a cigarette. He was notorious for his love of gambling, women, and glamour, which made American officials wary of him. He was also obsessed with cock fighting, not only hosting such fights in his own house but even traveling to Viet Cong zones without an escort to find fights. One official called him an "unguided missile". When he was a young pilot, Kỳ once landed a helicopter in the road in front of a girlfriend's house in order to impress her, causing the locals to panic and earning the ire of his commander for misusing military equipment. On one occasion, Kỳ is said to have pulled a handgun on a journalist whose questions annoyed him. Many in the South Vietnamese public service, military, and some of the general public disliked his tempestuous and impetuous style and regarded him as a "cowboy". and a "hooligan". At his only public campaign appearance during the 1967 presidential election, the large crowd repeatedly heckled him loudly, calling him a "cowboy leader" and "hooligan" and as a result he did not make any more appearances at rallies.

Oriana Fallaci, who interviewed him in 1968, included him in The Egotists: Sixteen Surprising Interviews, as one of the few people who surprised and impressed her the most relative to their controversial public personas. In the interview, Kỳ decried the corruption and poverty of South Vietnam, lamented about the inability of the government and the United States to solve their problems, compared the Catholics to the Communists, and openly agreed with many of the social aims of Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Cong. When an astounded Fallaci asked if he considered himself on the wrong side, Ky said "Well yeah.... if my destiny had been different, I could have been on [Ho Chi Minh's] side". American officials were outraged by the interview, but Fallaci would praise him in her book as "the only possible leader in a country painfully poor in leaders. Yet he is. And you realize it, with astonishment, when you listen to him for more than ten minutes. The man is not stupid. He has something to say, and he says it without fear."

Personal life

Kỳ met and married his first wife, a French woman, in the 1950s when he was training as a pilot in France. In the 1960s, he divorced her and married Đặng Tuyết Mai, an Air Viet Nam flight attendant, who was his spouse during his years in power. He later married for a third time. His daughter from his second marriage, Nguyễn Cao Kỳ Duyên, is well known in the overseas Vietnamese entertainment industry as a mistress of ceremonies and singer on the music variety show Paris By Night. Many Vietnamese Americans called for her sacking after her father returned to Vietnam.

Death

Kỳ died on 23 July 2011, aged 80, at a hospital in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where he was receiving treatment for "respiratory complications". He was survived by six children from his three marriages. His ashes are interred at the Buddhist Columbarium of Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, California.

Honour

National honours

South Vietnam:

Grand Officer of the National Order of Vietnam

Military Merit Medal

Army Distinguished Service Order, First Class

Air Force Distinguished Service Order, First Class

Air Force Meritorious Service Medal

Special Service Medal

Vietnamese Gallantry Cross

Air Gallantry Cross, Gold wing

Wound Medal

Armed Forces Honor Medal, First Class

Vietnam Staff Service Medal, First Class

Vietnam Campaign Medal

Military Service Medal, Second Class

Vietnam Air Service Medal, First Class

Foreign honour

Taiwan :

Special Grand Cordon of the Order of Brilliant Star

Malaysia :

Honorary Grand Commander of the Order of the Defender of the Realm (S.M.N.) (1965)

Thailand :

Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the White Elephant (1965)

USA :

Presidential Unit Citation (Air Force)