Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngo Dinh Diem Vietnamese alphabet Ngô Đình Diệm Chữ Hán 吳廷琰 The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (January 2014) Ngô Đình Diệm ( listen;  listen (help·info) ;3 January 1901 – 2 November 1963) was the first president of South Vietnam (1955–1963). In the wake of the French withdrawal from Indochina as a result of the 1954 Geneva Accords, Diệm led the effort to create the Republic of Vietnam. Accruing considerable U.S. support due to his staunch anti-communism, he announced victory after a fraudulent 1955 plebiscite in which he won 600,000 votes from an electorate of 450,000 and began building a right-wing dictatorship in South Vietnam. A Roman Catholic, Diệm's policies toward the Republic's Montagnard natives and its Buddhist majority were met with protests, culminating in the self-immolation of Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức in 1963. Amid religious protests, Diệm lost the backing of his US patrons and was assassinated, along with his brother, Ngô Đình Nhu by Nguyễn Văn Nhung, the aide of ARVN General Dương Văn Minh on 2 November 1963, during a coup d'état that deposed his government.