South Viet Nam: Durable Diem

At 7 a.m., in the second-floor study of Saigon's yellow stucco Freedom Palace, South Viet Nam's President Ngo Dinh Diem was absorbed in a biography of George Washington, the gift of a recent U.S. visitor. At the sudden roar of an airplane engine, he looked up, hurried out to the balcony in time to see a fighter plane swooping toward him through the early morning overcast.

Scarcely 16 months ago, autocratic, anti-Communist President Diem had narrowly missed being overthrown by mutinous paratroopers, and this time he was taking no chances. With the agility born of experience, short, stocky Diem dashed down the stairs of the palace's east wing to a cellar fortified against such emergencies, flashed word by telephone to his military commanders just as a napalm bomb turned the west wing into a smoky shambles. In a west wing apartment, meanwhile, Diem's brother and sister-in-law, Braintruster Nhu (still clad in pajamas) and Presidential Hostess Mme. Nhu, snatched three of their children (a fourth was away from home) and bolted for the basement. In the scramble, Mme. Nhu fell down the steps, bruising her arms, legs and forehead. Also to the bunker rushed another brother. Archbishop Thuc, in Saigon for medical treatment.

Tanks & Pistols. Roused by the sound of aircraft engines, residents of the city climbed to their rooftops to see what was happening. Two AD6 Skyraider fighter-bombers of the South Vietnamese air force were lazily circling the spacious palace grounds, gracefully power-gliding below the 500-ft. ceiling to drop bombs, fire rockets, strafe the building. Then they pulled up sharply into the heavy clouds before zooming down for another pass. "With that weather," said a U.S. Air Force officer, "they did a hell of a job."

For about 30 minutes the planes were unmolested as they attacked the palace with four bombs, eight rockets and cannon fire. Meanwhile, loyal ground troops, anticipating a full-scale revolution, hastily ringed the palace grounds with tanks. Minesweepers patrolled the Saigon River. Then two loyal pilots from the Bienhoa air base, twelve miles north of Saigon, gave chase, but on the ground in Saigon no one knew if the new arrivals were friends or foes. Antiaircraft fire from tanks, minesweepers, and even policemen's pistols was indiscriminate. Despite the confusion, most of the people went about their business with conventional apathy. Pretty girls in billowing silk gracefully pedaled their bicycles, and motorists stopped for red lights. Finally, a shot from a minesweeper downed one of the rebel planes, and as the pilot crash-landed in the Saigon River, the other plane fled toward the Cambodian border about 40 miles away.