Nguyễn Văn Nhung
A soft-spoken man, Nhung was a professional military assassin best known for his role in the November 1963 coup d'état led by Minh that ousted President Ngô Đình Diệm from office.
At the end of the coup, Nhung - having shot Colonel Lê Quang Tung, the loyalist commander of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces at a grave at Tân Sơn Nhứt Air Base the day before - executed President Diệm and his brother Ngô Đình Nhu.
An investigation led by General Trần Văn Đôn, another coup plotter, determined that Nhung had repeatedly stabbed and shot the Ngô brothers while escorting them back to military headquarters after having arrested them.
Following Nguyễn Khánh's successful January 1964 coup against Minh's military junta, Nhung died in mysterious circumstances, the only fatality in the otherwise bloodless regime change.
The plotters summoned a group of ARVN officers to the Joint General Staff headquarters at Tân Sơn Nhứt Air Base, on the pretext that they were going to attend a lunch meeting.
[10] At nightfall, Nhung took Tung, and his brother and deputy, Major Lê Quang Triệu,[4][5] with their hands tied, to a jeep and drove them to the edge of the air base.
Diệm and his younger brother and chief adviser, Ngô Đình Nhu, agreed to surrender, and coup plotter Đôn promised them safe passage out of the country.
[11] In the meantime, Minh left Joint General Staff (JGS) headquarters and travelled to Gia Long Palace in a sedan, accompanied by Nhung.
After the arrest, Nhung and Major Dương Hiếu Nghĩa sat with Diệm and Nhu inside the APC, and the convoy departed for Tân Sơn Nhứt.
An investigation by Đôn later determined that Nghĩa had shot the brothers at point-blank range with a semi-automatic firearm and that Nhung sprayed them with bullets before repeatedly stabbing their bodies with a knife.
"[17] In a 1994 interview, General Nguyễn Khánh recalled, "Nhu (Diệm's brother) was alive when they put the knife in to take out some of the organs...the gallbladder.
[20] After three months of rule, which was criticised for its lack of direction,[21][22] General Nguyễn Khánh deposed Minh in a bloodless coup before dawn on 30 January 1964.
According to this account, one of Khánh's men took Nhung to the garden of a Saigon villa and forced him to kneel, before executing him with a single gunshot to the back of the head.
Nhung's death led to protests among the Saigon public, who took the killing to be a signal that the remaining members of Diệm's regime would be reinstated to positions of authority.
[24] Minh was said to have been deeply affected by the loss of his long-time aide, and it was reported that the general erected an altar dedicated to Nhung's memory in his office, with the major's portrait on it.
