Arrest and assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem

On 2 November 1963, Ngô Đình Diệm, the president of South Vietnam, was arrested and assassinated in a CIA-backed coup d'état led by General Dương Văn Minh. After years of autocratic and nepotistic family rule in the country, discontent with the Diệm regime had been simmering below the surface and culminated with mass Buddhist protests against religious discrimination after the Huế Phật Đản shootings of protesters who defied a ban on the flying of the Buddhist flag. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) launched a bloody overnight siege on Gia Long Palace in Saigon. When rebel forces entered the palace, Diệm and his adviser and younger brother Ngô Đình Nhu were not present, having escaped to a loyalist shelter in Cholon.