Nguyen Khanh quotes
I was supporting the Buddhists. But the, the Buddhists in a a general uh strategy. You know, we have uh...India, Burma, Cambodia...uh Vietnam, Taiwan, and Japan. What we call that...it's a Yellow Bear. Yellow Bear to stop the red invasion. That's a kind of, of uh, uh...religion side of the fight again the Communists. So I was for the organization of kind of international Buddhists. And if you remember, we had a headquarters, international Buddhists at that time, in Saigon to all, to buil-build its forces, to face Communists red, "vague" of red, you know, invasion from the China, Indochina or Russian.
Nguyen Khanh
I think uh...we lost everyday Vietnamese life in fighting the Communists, you know, and and no progress, we have to do something else, you can, we cannot have a more of the same, you know, every, every day, so we, we must change, yes.
Nguyen Khanh
The French Colonial, you know...did not export too much their ideal of d-of democracy outside of the French frontier. Now, with the American people, you export too much your democracy and your...freedom, you know, all that, your way of life and you want to impose that uh in the country like Vietnam, it doesn - it doesn't, it cannot work. But, in some way, we better adapt and not adopt what you have.
Nguyen Khanh
We, we respect very much what the American want to do uh...but, you know sometime the American way of life and the...uh American democracy maybe uh cannot work in a country like mine, you know, in South Vietnam. Uh...so, we, we can have the principle and adapt that in the country but we cannot adapt what you have here, you know, eh two houses, all that stuff, you know, and changing the president every four year. You have many people here who can be leader of the country. We have a few in Vietnam, a few who can uh you know uh lead the country because education, because the training, because all that uh, background that we must have, you know.
Nguyen Khanh
Ambassador Taylor and, and, and, and me, and I, we had a very bad moment together at that day in the general staff. Ambassador want to see me uh because he uh made what we called a young turk at that time, a young general officer, namely Nguyen Cao Ky, and Nguyen Van Thieu, and other general. And uh... to kind of to insult them uh for, you know, being changing what we call the civilian government at that time.
Nguyen Khanh
Now I had the power, I want to realize the goals of the Vietnamese revolution back in 1945. The goals were and still be right now is, they uh, independence, that means national sovereignty, the uh, freedom, and the happiness of the whole population. It was the national aim, strategically, but when I had the power the country was divided in two parts on the 17th parallel, we had insurgency in South Vietnam and I want to uh, how to said it, integrate the Front of Liberation, the non-communist people and the Front of Liberation with me and then uh...to fight the North Vietnamese if at that time, the North Vietnamese do not uh, did not want to have a peaceful solution in North Vietnam, in South Vietnam.
Nguyen Khanh
I put Huong, I put Duong Van Minh like uh...chief of state. I put Huong, I put Quat, Quat on the prime minister role. Anytime we feel that they do not answer, I mean, deal with the situation we change them. They are not a coup. Either Quat, either Huong, or Minh does not come in office with election with the power, with the population, you know. The people give him the mandate to be prime minister, or to be, to be uh chief state. The mandate it coming from the armed forces at that time before we have any constitution, you know, uh set up later on. So, when we change a government it's not a coup. We just change somebody what we just want to put in. That's all.
Nguyen Khanh
I staged the coup because uh...the leaders in Saigon at that time did not keep their word. Uh, you know, by example, not killing Diem. Uh, they killed Diem. Uh... secondly, by example... to try to do something better in the fight, in fighting the Communists. But, you remember, I mean uh, at that time, everybody remember that they are a good time in Saigon, you know uh...uh, just enjoy the victory over Diem. And also, the main thing is leader at that time, we feel, was for the French solution of Indochina, for DeGaulle at that time, you know, he want to neutralize South Vietnam and to impose a French solution for the whole Indochina. And leaders at that time were in Saigon, we feel, it was true later on, like by example, Duong Van Minh, you know, who surrender to the Communists at '75 and we know that now we tory we know that Minh was one of the men of the policemen in Saigon who took, took over. So, I think we were ah, ah right, we were right at that time to change the leadership in Saigon.
Nguyen Khanh