Celebrity Deathwatch: Gen. Duong Van Minh, Ex-president of South Vietnam, 86

["Deathwatch Central" <cdw@slick.org>]

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/08/07/obit.minh.ap/index.html

Ex-president of South Vietnam, Gen. Duong Van Minh, dies after fall
August 7, 2001 Posted: 10:43 PM EDT (0243 GMT)

PASADENA, California (AP) -- Gen. Duong Van "Big" Minh, who was president of
South Vietnam for just a few days before the country fell to Communist
forces in 1975, has died. He was 86.

Minh, who used a wheelchair, fell at his home on Sunday, his daughter Mai
Duong said Tuesday. He died Monday night at Huntington Memorial Hospital in
Pasadena.

Minh was installed as the South Vietnamese president in April 1975 as the
country crumbled under the onslaught from North Vietnam's Communist forces.
In a matter of days, Minh's short political reign ended as Communist troops
overran Saigon and captured the country's leaders. He was arrested and put
in detention but was allowed to emigrate to France in 1983.

"He was a good general and a good man. But I think history will view him as
lacking political leadership skills. He did not know how to deal with
politics," said Ngo Nyugen, an Orange County judge who knew Minh from
Vietnam. "It's too early to say things. People still have a lot of passion
about many things connected with him."

Minh's military career began in the 1940s when he was only one of 50
Vietnamese officers to be commissioned in the French colonial army.

After French colonial rule ended in 1954, Minh ascended through the ranks of
the new South Vietnamese military, where he was known as "Big Minh" because
fellow troops were dwarfed by his 6-foot frame, and to distinguish him from
other officers with the same name.

Minh helped lead a U.S.-backed coup in 1963 that overthrew then-South
Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, who was killed along with his brother,
police chief Ngo Dinh Nhu, while trying to escape.

Minh, the second-highest ranking general at the time, took power under a
military junta. Two months later, Gen. Nguyen Khanh deposed the junta and
took control of the country. Minh went into exile.

He resurfaced in 1971 and challenged President Nguyen Van Thieu, who was
supported by the United States. Minh eventually withdrew from the race after
alleging the election was rigged. Thieu ran unopposed.

Minh was widely regarded as the potential leader of a "third force" that
could find an accommodation with the North to avoid an armed takeover, but
the effort was stifled by Thieu's government.

Minh himself kept a low political profile until 1975 when Hanoi's forces
launched what would be the final offensive of their long struggle to take
over the south. In the final days, as Thieu fled the country, Minh was named
interim president on April 28, 1975, with a promise to seek a reconciliation
with the northerners.

The attempt at settlement failed, and Saigon fell to the Communists on April
30. Shortly after 10 a.m. Minh went on radio and television to announce that
South Vietnam was surrendering unconditionally.

Communist troops who burst into Independence Palace found Big Minh and his
Cabinet members sitting calmly around a big oval table.

"We have been waiting for you so that we could turn over the government,"
Minh told the North Vietnamese.

"You have nothing left to turn over," a Communist officer responded.

Born in the Mekong Delta province of My Tho, Minh attended a top French
colonial school in Saigon, where King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia also
studied.

After being allowed to France in 1983, Minh lived near Paris. He and his
daughter lived in Pasadena the last few years.

He is survived by his daughter and two sons, who live in Paris, and some
grandchildren.

Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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