Tran Thien Khiem (15 December 1925 – 24 June 2021) was a South Vietnamese ARVN general during the Vietnam War and one of the architects of the 1963 South Vietnamese coup.
Biography[]
Tran Thien Khiem was born in Saigon, French Indochina in 1925, and he served in the State of Vietnam's army during the First Indochina War before becoming an ARVN general upon the birth of the Republic of South Vietnam. In 1960 and 1963, he took part in attempts to remove President Ngo Dinh Diem from power, succeeding in the second attempt and having Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu executed. In 1964, he took part in Nguyen Khanh's coup against Duong Van Minh, but the Catholic Khiem fell out with the Buddhist Khanh due to his being influenced by Buddhist activists. He took part in several other coups before becoming Prime Minister under President Nguyen Van Thieu, and he resigned in April 1975, the month of the Fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War. He died in exile in San Jose, California in 2021.