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Nguyen Khanh

Nguyen Khanh (8 November 1927-11 January 2013) was Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Council of South Vietnam from 30 January to 8 February 1964 (interrupting Duong Van Minh's terms) and from 16 to 27 August 1964 (interrupting Minh's terms), as well as Prime Minister of South Vietnam from 8 February to 29 August 1964 (succeeding Nguyen Ngoc Tho and preceding Nguyen Xuan Oanh) and from 3 September to 4 November 1964 (succeeding Oanh and preceding Tran Van Huong).

Biography[]

Nguyen Khanh was born in Tra Vinh, French Indochina in 1927, and he received a quality French education. In 1945, he joined the communist Viet Minh at the start of the First Indochina War, serving under Pham Ngoc Thao. However, he left after 15 months, and, in 1950, he became an officer in the French-backed Vietnamese army, and he became the first Chief of Staff of the South Vietnamese Air Force in 1955. In 1960, he was promoted to Major-General and made ARVN Chief of Staff, and he remained loyal to Ngo Dinh Diem during a 1960 coup attempt, only to betray Diem during the 1963 South Vietnamese coup. After the coup, he was annoyed that he was not promoted, and he led another coup in 1964 and ousted Duong Van Minh from power and became the new head of the military junta. In 1965, he was ousted in another coup and forced to flee to the United States, and he died of kidney failure in San Jose, California in 2013.

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