South Viet Nam: Dynasty's End

At sundown they carried the prisoner on a stretcher to a soccer field at Saigon's Chi Hoa prison. A slight man with greying hair and steel-rimmed spectacles, ailing from diabetes and a heart attack, he was lifted to his feet by three guards, hung slackly against them for a few seconds. Then he walked slowly by himself across the sparse grass, murmuring responses to the pith-helmeted Roman Catholic priest who accompanied him.

The prisoner was strapped to a wooden stake and, against his wishes, blindfolded with a black scarf. Then a military police captain barked an order to the black-helmeted, ten-man firing squad lined up 30 ft. from the prisoner, and the soldiers raised their U.S.-made carbines. The captain shouted: "Ban!" (Fire!). There was a ragged volley. Then the prisoner's body slumped against the straps, and blood began to flow over the high-necked black robe and white silk pantaloons. Pistol drawn, the captain strode forward, delivered the coup de gráce behind the left ear.

Thus did Ngo Dinh Can, 53, brother of South Viet Nam's murdered Leaders Ngo Dinh Diem and Ngo Dinh Nhu, himself meet death last week at the hands of his nation's new military rulers. As President Diem's overlord of central Viet Nam, Can, a tough and willful man, kept his region notably free of Communist Viet Cong. After Diem's overthrow, he was arrested and tried for murder, illegal arrests and corruption; he was sentenced to die three weeks ago. Concerned that the execution might tarnish the image of Saigon's U.S.-supported government, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge appealed to the regime for clemency, but in vain. The government's only gesture of mercy was to allow Can to face a firing squad rather than die under the guillotine.