The Shattered Filigree

To Saigon's cynics, it seemed like old home week. There, once again, were the Skyraiders of Air Force Commander Nguyen Cao Ky circling the capital on the lookout for armored columns; there stood the government tanks in a protective cordon around national police headquarters; and there came the worried voice of the Premier over the radio, urging calm and asking help from all to "eliminate the traitors so as to maintain the stability which is necessary for final victory." Another coup had been nipped in the bud.

This one, according to Premier Phan Huy Quat, was instigated by the same group of dissident Catholic army officers who engineered the abortive coup d'etat of Feb. 19--an upheaval that failed in its main purpose, but ultimately led to the ouster of goateed General Nguyen Khanh. Quat claimed that "rebels" this time had infiltrated his bodyguard and planned to assassinate him. Less believable was the government charge that two Viet Cong battalions were standing in the wings, ready to move into Saigon during the confusion that certainly would have followed.

Just how the government uncovered the plot was purposely left unclear, but an army captain was gunned down "trying to escape," and more than 40 "dissidents" were arrested, most of them Catholic. Among them, according to one report: Colonel Trang Van Chinh, chief of military security. Still at large, however, were General Lam Van Phat and Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao, ringleaders of the February attempt, who are under sentence of death following trial in absentia.

Whether Quat's charges were true or not, one thing was sadly certain: the coup attempt and mass arrests shattered the fragile filigree of stability that had marked Quat's 14-week-old civilian regime and ended the restless truce between South Viet Nam's warring Buddhists and Catholics. Quat was forced to postpone the Cabinet reshuffle, planned for last week, that would have eliminated the last two military members of his government. At week's end the capital seethed with plots and counterplots, and few doubted that there would be an encore.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.