[citation needed] In the Battle of Saigon in April, Diệm's army eliminated the Bình Xuyên as a rival and soon also reduced the power of the sects.

Diệm called a national election in October and easily defeated Head of State Bảo Đại, thus becoming President of South Vietnam.

[citation needed] In communist North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh initiated a land reform program that was accomplished with many executions and imprisonments of "landlords.

"[citation needed] Ho was unable to get the support of China and the Soviet Union to press for preliminary talks that would lead to the 1956 elections called for in the Geneva Accord.

Ho Chi Minh at a triumphal parade in Hanoi announced his government's policy to restore and develop the economy of North Vietnam.

During the first year of the operation of the Ordinance, about one-fourth of the more than one million tenant farmers in South Vietnam signed contracts with landowners establishing rental rates.

The Ordinance was the first major effort in South Vietnam to counter the influence and popularity of the Viet Minh in rural areas.

[6] Colonel Edward Lansdale, head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)'s Saigon Military Mission (SMM), reported to Washington that his team had smuggled 300 rifles, 50 pistols, 100,000 rounds of ammunition and 300 pounds of explosives into North Vietnam.

Diệm refused and with several million dollars supplied by the CIA's Colonel Lansdale bribed sect leaders to gain their support and integrate their forces into the VNA.

[10]: 642 [8] Representatives of the Bình Xuyên, a well-armed mafia controlling gambling, narcotics, the Saigon police force and the Cao Đài and Hòa Hảo religious sects agreed to form a United Front against the Diệm government.

[10]: 642–3 U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announced at a press conference in Saigon that "I do not know of any responsible quarter which has any doubt about backing Diệm as the head of this government."

Anticipating the evacuation, Col. Lansdale and his group had implemented an accelerated program (Occupation Liberty) to prepare the South Vietnamese army to occupy the area as the Viet Minh withdrew.

The occupation proceeded smoothly with propaganda leaflets dropped by air, medical dispensaries established, rice distributed, and roads improved.

[11]: 242–3 Diệm launched a sudden offensive against Hoa Hao General Ba Cụt in Thốt Nốt, shelling the area heavily.

[8] Diệm made a counter demand that the Bình Xuyên evacuate the areas and buildings they had occupied in Saigon and vicinity.

[4]: 75 Ba Cụt and three other Hòa Hảo military leaders refused a government offer to integrate,[13] and continued to operate autonomously.

Bribes paid by Diệm and Lansdale to their leaders caused them to remain neutral or to unite their armed forces with the VNA.

Casualties on both sides plus civilians amounted to about 500 dead, 1000 wounded and 20,000 homeless due to widespread destruction over a square mile of Saigon.

Five Hòa Hảo battalions surrendered immediately; Commander Ba Cụt and three remaining leaders fled to the Cambodian border.

[17]: 77 [10]: 653–4 Zhou Enlai, the premier of China, said the United States was violating the Geneva Accords and that the national elections scheduled for July 20, 1956, might not be held due to U.S. and South Vietnamese opposition.

[17]: 76 Diệm in a speech said that South Vietnam was not bound by the Geneva Accords and that conditions necessary for free elections did not exist in the North.

[8] The Geneva Accords called for consultations to begin on this date regarding national elections to select a government for a united Vietnam on July 20, 1956.

[8] Diệm ordered the army to march on the Cao Đài political center in Tây Ninh under the shadow of the Black Virgin Mountain.

North Vietnam left behind in South Vietnam 8,000 to 10,000 covert civilian and military personnel, most of them members of the communist party[23] The American media portrayed the migration as a spontaneous flight from communism, but French scholar Bernard Fall accused the U.S. of stimulating the exodus in a "very successful psychological warfare operation" managed by Col. Edward Lansdale of the CIA.

[15]: 235–6 The Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States Department of Defense requested that the ceiling of 342 U.S. military personnel in South Vietnam be raised.

Dulles turned down the request to avoid violating the Geneva Accords which prohibited any increases in foreign military personnel in Vietnam.