Nov. 3, 1963 - The military leaders of the South Vietnamese coup d’état proceeded today with action against backers of the deposed President, Ngo Dinh Diem, and worked on plans for a new Government. (Pictured below, a rebel trooper stands in the reception room of the Presidential palace in Saigon.) Reliable sources reported that Colonel Le Quang Tung, commander of the Vietnamese Special Forces, had been executed. The Colonel’s troops were a political and military arm of Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother and chief adviser, Ngo Dinh Nhu. The brothers were assassinated yesterday morning. It was learned that the bloodied body of the former President was being kept at Saigon’s St. Paul Hospital, and it was believed Nhu’s was there also. Photographs of bodies identified as those of the brothers showed the deposed President lying beside a personnel carrier with a soldier leaning over him. His body, dressed in a dark suit, was riddled with bullets, and there was evidence he had been shot in the head. Informed sources said Nhu met death by stabbing. The photographs showed his body, bearing bruises as though he had been beaten, lying on a stretcher. Many exiles are on their way back to South Vietnam. One who arrived was Dr. Tran Kim Tuyen, who was security chief until he clashed with Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu, President Diem’s sister-in-law. He was welcomed by military leaders. Lieutenant Nguyen Phy Quoc, an air force officer who bombed the Presidential Palace in February 1962, was released from prison, where he had been confined since the attack. He was promoted to captain.
