Viet Cong Terrorist Executed in Saigon

June 22, 1965 - Tran Van Dong, a Viet Cong terrorist who was accused of having attempted to blow up a U.S. officers’ billet, was executed by a military firing squad at 5:55 a.m. today in Saigon’s central market place.

Dong was captured March 20 after turning his motor scooter into a time bomb and trying to park it in front of the billet. Authorities found the charge in the scooter’s luggage compartment five minutes before it would have exploded.

The execution was the first in a series ordered by South Vietnam’s new military government to demonstrate that terrorism and war profiteering would no longer be dealt with leniently.

A few minutes after he formally took over the administrative duties of Premier yesterday morning, Air Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky said an execution would take place shortly.

Dong faced a 12-man firing squad blindfolded and tied to a post within a U-shaped emplacement that was illuminated by the headlights of three jeeps. 

Dong shouted “Long live Ho Chi Minh” repeatedly as he was tied to the pole for his execution. Ho Chi Minh is the North Vietnamese President.

“Down with the Americans,” he was crying as the order to fire was given.

After he was struck by the first volley, the officer in command of the military police firing squad approached Dong, raised his head roughly, and fired the coup de grace with a pistol.

Mortuary attendants rushed to the emplacement with a wooden coffin. As television cameras whirred in the garish lights cast by the jeeps and neon illumination on the square, Dong’s body was lifted high and dropped into the coffin. Firemen from two red trucks parked beside the emplacement came forward with hoses and washed down the execution place.

Less than five minutes elapsed from the time Dong had been brought into the market place until the moment when his coffin left the square on the back of an army truck.

One hour earlier, the market place had been cordoned off by troops and police. Only newsmen and photographers were allowed to approach the barbed wire and white wooden barricades set up about 60 yards from the execution post. Hundreds of Vietnamese watched the shooting from the edge of the square.

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