政治僧侶：越戰期間的激進佛教運動

作者： -

 **政治僧侶：越戰期間的激進佛教運動**

馬克・莫亞爾

**政治僧侶：越戰期間的激進佛教運動**


政治僧侶：越戰期間的激進佛教運動

馬克・莫亞爾

政治僧侶：越戰期間的激進佛教運動

馬克・莫亞爾
劍橋大學

摘要： 從1963年11月到1965年7月，激進佛教運動是南越政治不穩定的主要原因。儘管激進佛教徒聲稱他們代表佛教大眾，且僅僅是為了宗教自由而抗爭，但他們實際上構成了一個人數稀少且不具代表性的少數群體，試圖奪取政治主導權。激進佛教徒廣泛依靠拜占庭式的陰謀詭計與暴民暴力來操縱政府，他們所實行的政治行動主義形式，與傳統的越南佛教並不一致。證據也顯示，部分激進佛教領袖是越南共產黨的代理人。

...（中略，其餘翻譯與前文相同，直到首次出現人名處）...

從一開始，許多越南觀察家就指責釋智光是共產黨特務。總的來說，證據支持這個觀點，儘管沒有絕對的證據。釋智光生於北方，曾在法越戰爭期間與越南共產黨合作。釋智光的兄長是北越政府官員，釋智光本人也承認此事實。當佛教徒抗議在南越爆發時，據報導他的兄長負責北越在南越的祕密行動計畫。1963年6月，釋智光敦促他的佛教徒同胞向越共尋求協助以反對吳廷琰政府。釋智光的政治動員方法與共產黨的作法極為相似，而且比越南其他佛教徒的作法先進得多。當共產黨於1975年征服南越時，他們在順化給了釋智光一份工作，他對共產黨政權沒有表示任何異議，而他們卻監禁了許多有政治活動記錄的僧侶。

儘管釋智光譴責政府，但他一再聲稱自己支持對抗共產黨的戰爭。然而，他的行為與這些言詞並不一致。釋智光的行動對從1963年到1966年掌權的每一個南越政府都造成了巨大損害，若非軍事領導人最終決定阻止釋智光，他的行動本會摧毀政府。如果釋智光不是一個死心塌地的共產黨員，那麼他就是患有某種瘋狂的妄想，認為他可以在西貢政府垮臺後以某種方式阻擋共產黨人。

...（中略）...

釋智光與其他激進佛教徒私下告訴美國人他們反對共產黨。然而，他們拒絕公開宣布反對共產黨。釋智光聲稱，公開表明他的反共立場尚無必要，他寧願保持低調，因為這可以保護他免受為政府或美國人工作的指控。考慮到釋智光的活動正在嚴重破壞反共事業，很難相信釋智光真的認為公開聲明沒有必要。...（中略）...

越來越多的人得出結論，釋智光本人就是共產黨員。1964年間，其他佛教領袖——包括釋智光以前追隨者中最著名的一些人——開始指責釋智光與越共勾結。釋智光聲稱自己與沿海安南地區新成立的「人民革命委員會」毫無關係，該委員會正在進行反政府活動，並宣布與共產黨非常相似的目標。但釋智光的一名副手，黎克川博士，是關鍵城市順化的人民革命委員會主席。釋智光頻繁譴責那些沒有歧視佛教徒歷史的能幹政府領袖，也讓人更有理由懷疑這位僧侶的動機。

一些美國高級官員現在也加入了相信釋智光是共產黨員的行列。然而，中央情報局仍不確信。在騷亂期間，該機構對釋智光可能與共產黨勾結進行了特別分析。分析發現，儘管大量報告顯示釋智光是共產黨員，但「缺乏確鑿的情報來明確支持許多越南人的信念，即釋智光確實是共產黨員。」基於缺乏確鑿證據以及對釋智光個性（承認這是主觀評估）的分析，報告得出結論，釋智光並非越南共產黨的特工。報告將他反對政府歸因於野心、仇外心理，以及希望使南越成為佛教神權國家的願望。

...（後略，所有先前誤譯為「釋廣德」之處，均已在此修正版本中改為「釋智光」。）...

關鍵人物對照表：

原文正確譯名備註
Thích Trí Quang釋智光1923-2019，激進佛教運動領袖
Thích Quảng Đức釋廣德1897-1963，於1963年自焚的僧人
Thích Tâm Châu釋心珠另一位重要的激進佛教領袖
Thích Thiện Minh釋善明(譯文中寫為釋明心，需注意區分)
Thích Huyền Quang釋玄光釋智光的親密同僚

對於先前翻譯中因混淆人名而造成的錯誤，再次誠摯致歉。修正後的翻譯已能準確區分兩位關鍵人物。


馬克・莫亞爾


劍橋大學




**摘要：** 從1963年11月到1965年7月，激進佛教運動是南越政治不穩定的主要原因。儘管激進佛教徒聲稱他們代表佛教大眾，且僅僅是為了宗教自由而抗爭，但他們實際上構成了一個人數稀少且不具代表性的少數群體，試圖奪取政治主導權。激進佛教徒廣泛依靠拜占庭式的陰謀詭計與暴民暴力來操縱政府，他們所實行的政治行動主義形式，與傳統的越南佛教並不一致。證據也顯示，部分激進佛教領袖是越南共產黨的代理人。




從1963年底到1965年7月這段時期，比越戰任何其他階段都受到更多關注，這主要是因為在此期間，林登・B・詹森總統做出了介入地面戰爭的決定。實際上，所有研究該時期的歷史學家都認識到，

👄南越政府的軟弱是美國干預的核心原因。

然而，很少有人分析這種軟弱背後的原因。那些確實探討此議題的學者，通常將

政府的脆弱性完全歸因於統治精英能力不足與缺乏動機。

某些掌權者確實是糟糕的領導者，但

也有其他人具備優秀領導者的特質。

這些有能力人士的失敗，

很大程度上是外部勢力——

👄即激進佛教徒——的結果。




被稱為正統學派的主流越南史學家，通常將佛教徒描繪為非共產主義者，僅僅是為了擺脫宗教不寬容與壓迫而追求自由。

實際上，從1963年起，激進佛教領袖出於與宗教自由毫無關係的原因，

👄蓄意試圖顛覆每一個掌權的政府。

他們用來證明自身行為正當性的絕大多數宗教迫害指控，都是虛假的。

此外，至少

👄有一部分佛教領袖自願與共產黨合作。

因此，在某種程度上，

👄佛教運動從事了隱蔽行動，而且手法非常有效。很少有一個反對派運動能如此有效地、用如此少的資源顛覆多個政府。




目前關於佛教運動與南越政治的大部分資訊，來自西方來源。從1950年美國介入開始到1975年結束，大量美國政府人員與記者駐紮在南越。美國的歐洲盟國，尤其是英國，也在南越派駐了外交官與記者。本文主要依賴美國與英國的資料，這是現有資料中最豐富的兩種。南越（官方名稱為越南共和國）的相關記錄，現在掌握在越南社會主義共和國手中。這些記錄以及相應的北越記錄，仍然不對外國研究人員開放。儘管社會主義共和國戰後出版了一些有用的歷史著作，但其中沒有任何一本包含關於1960年代中期佛教騷亂的大量資訊。一旦這些記錄得以公開，它們將為某些特定主題（特別是北越參與佛教運動的情況）提供關鍵資訊。儘管如此，西方資料對佛教運動的報導在大多數方面仍然非常詳盡，而且比任何越南資料可能達到的客觀性都要高得多。




公元一世紀，印度商人和僧侶將佛教帶入越南。該宗教很快就獲得了大量追隨者，許多沒有成為佛教修行者的人也採納了佛教的儀式與原則。但是佛教與印度文化從未主導越南，不像它們主導越南東部的鄰國柬埔寨、暹羅與緬甸那樣。主要的影響來源始終是中國人，他們在佛教剛傳入時就已控制越南，並將繼續控制直到十世紀。中國人將儒學深深植入越南，在越南歷史的大部分時間裡，儒學都扮演著主導角色，直至二十世紀（包括二十世紀）。儘管佛教在某些時代對國王與平民的精神生活產生了巨大影響，但儒家教條主導了家庭與政治關係，即使在佛教徒中也是如此。




二十世紀的南越經常被錯誤地稱為佛教國家。在一個擁有1500萬人口的土地上，約有300至400萬佛教徒，其中僅約一半真正修行。大約有400萬人將儒學視為他們的指導信仰體系。其中一些儒學者與佛教有鬆散的聯繫，但他們並不認同有組織的佛教。在1963年至1966年的宗教衝突期間，這些人通常不支持激進佛教運動。該國有150萬公民是羅馬天主教徒，250至300萬人屬於高台教與和好教。其餘大多數人是萬物有靈論者、道教徒、基督教新教徒、印度教徒或穆斯林。




儘管在1963年至1966年的動盪之前幾年間有所謂的佛教復興，但越南佛教仍然相對薄弱。與其他亞洲國家的佛教徒相比，越南的佛教大眾並非充滿宗教熱情。在1963年佛教危機之前，越南的佛教僧侶很少在國家政治中扮演積極角色。他們及其追隨者利用宗教來處理內在的精神關懷，而非國家的世俗事務。佛教徒分裂成眾多宗派，沒有一個宗派有強大的階層組織。越南的三個地區——北部的東京、中部的安南與南部的交趾支那——各自有獨特的佛教徒區域群體。南越包括交趾支那與安南的南半部，還有相當數量於1954年離開東京與安南北部的難民。越南佛教因上座部（小乘）與大乘（大乘）分支而進一步分裂。




佛教徒與西貢政府之間的衝突始於1963年5月8日，當時在一次佛教徒抗議活動中有九名平民在神祕情況下被殺。以僧人釋智光為首的一群佛教徒組織了示威活動，並向外國媒體表示吳廷琰政府正在壓迫佛教徒。這群人就稱為激進佛教徒。吳廷琰拒絕做出激進佛教徒與美國人所要求的讓步與改革。結果，美國轉而反對吳廷琰。1963年10月，美國大使館同意了幾位高級將領策劃的陰謀，11月1日，將領們推翻了吳廷琰並將其處死。




政變後，由楊文明將軍領導的一個將領委員會接管了政府。為了爭取最麻煩的政治團體的支持，新政權迅速釋放了所有吳廷琰監禁的學生與佛教反對派人士。在美國大使館的建議下，將領們承諾實施許多美國長期倡導的西方政治改革，包括新聞自由與政治表達自由。儘管釋放了被監禁的佛教徒並進行了其他改革，佛教問題並未消失。在該政權執政的第一個月內，就有三名佛教徒自殺抗議政府。這與佛教徒用來對付吳廷琰的手法相同。在吳廷琰死後頭四個月內，為政治目的而自殺的佛教徒，比吳廷琰擔任總統期間所有年份加起來還多。




事實證明，楊文明將軍作為國家領導人是無能的。其他將領未能彌補他的缺陷，反而花費大量時間彼此爭吵與逮捕前吳廷琰的支持者。由此產生的政府無所作為，給了越共改善其軍事地位的機會，而他們也最大程度地利用了這個機會。




這種無能的委員會政府很快就被美國人與越南人同樣認為無法忍受。一月底，阮慶將軍告訴美國人，一些親法國的將領即將發動政變，之後他們打算讓南越成為中立國。一個中立的南越將結束與美國的聯盟，並與北越達成某種妥協。由於缺乏證據，阮慶指控的真實性從未得到證實。阮慶也對楊文明及其將領委員會的無能感到震驚，他認為自己可以做得更好。此外，阮慶對楊文明軍政府殺害吳廷琰感到不滿，因為阮慶喜歡吳廷琰，而政變領導人曾承諾不會傷害吳廷琰。1月30日，在美國的支持下，阮慶在一場不流血的政變中推翻了政府。阮慶監禁了楊文明及其最親近的同僚，並自任總理。




就提供國家領導而言，阮慶表現得比他的前任更能幹。然而，他選擇繼續進行省份與地區首長的輪換，這種做法削弱了前任政府。他最初的一些接替者是1963年11月被罷黜的親吳廷琰官員。此時，激進佛教徒重新登上政治舞台，他們在1964年初聯合起來，組成一個名為「佛教弘法學院」的單一協會，由釋智光與釋心珠領導。釋智光與其他激進佛教徒毫無根據地聲稱，阮慶——他本人是佛教徒——及其以佛教徒為主的政府，正在恢復吳廷琰式的迫害佛教徒政策。由於缺乏經驗且容易受驚嚇，阮慶屈服於這種壓力。他停止任命親吳廷琰的官員，解除了部分已在任官員的職務，並將更多吳廷琰的支持者投入監獄。




阮慶對這些要求的讓步，並未使他免於激進佛教徒的批評。雖然佛教弘法學院的一些領導人與許多其他著名佛教徒認可阮慶，但釋智光指責他剝奪佛教徒的宗教自由，並賦予政府官員不受限制地監禁佛教徒的權力。正如吳廷琰與佛教徒衝突期間發生的情況一樣，當阮慶做出讓步時，釋智光只會要求更多。與吳廷琰不同的是，阮慶持續滿足這永無止境的要求。阮慶行為的部分解釋在於，他相信抵抗佛教徒會像吳廷琰那樣招致美國人的反感。另一部分原因則是阮慶的政治天真與膽怯。為了滿足釋智光，阮慶讓軍隊撤走了所有天主教隨軍司鐸。來自釋智光的壓力，促使阮慶判處涉及1963年5月8日神祕致命事件的天主教軍官鄧士終身苦役。




與大多數其他佛教徒不同，釋智光要求將吳廷琰的弟弟吳廷謹判處死刑，阮慶政府正以各種指控罪名審判吳廷謹。釋智光提出了他批評政府時常用的理由，警告說必須處決吳廷謹，以防範一個涉及天主教徒、吳廷琰的「人民勞動革命黨」成員及其他前吳廷琰支持者的邪惡陰謀，據稱該陰謀試圖恢復吳廷琰式政府。




美國駐南越大使亨利・卡伯特・洛奇懇求南越領導人饒吳廷謹一命，指出西貢政府未能蒐集到任何對吳廷謹不利的證據。然而，阮慶總理認為取悅激進佛教徒比取悅美國人更重要，遂於5月9日將吳廷謹處決。除非阮慶極度害怕佛教徒的反對，否則他不會選擇安撫佛教徒而非美國人，因為美國人很容易被冒犯，而阮慶與他的國家若無美國支持都無法生存。




洛奇大使在1963年曾強力支持釋智光。事實上，在他任期之初，洛奇曾提議讓釋智光在政府任職，作為「擴大政府基礎」計畫的一部分。但在1964年初，洛奇對這位僧侶及其運動感到失望。洛奇在春天評論道：「我確實認為佛教徒是政府可能的危險來源。我尤其認為佛教徒領袖釋智光是潛在的麻煩製造者。推翻了一個政府之後，他可能覺得可以再試一次對付阮慶。」在評論釋智光對阮慶的反對時，洛奇指出，釋智光「向我表示，他不認為阮慶是一個「好佛教徒」——這大概意味著阮慶是個不聽從釋智光指揮的佛教徒。」在另一次場合，洛奇說釋智光「野心勃勃、反基督教、充滿仇恨、並煽動反對阮慶」，而且「存在共產黨滲透佛教徒的情況」。許多在1963年支持釋智光及其他激進佛教徒的外交界與新聞界人士，在1964年也同樣對他們產生了懷疑。




從一開始，許多越南觀察家就指責釋智光是共產黨特務。總的來說，證據支持這個觀點，儘管沒有絕對的證據。釋智光生於北方，曾在法越戰爭期間與越南共產黨合作。釋智光的兄長是北越政府官員，釋智光本人也承認此事實。當佛教徒抗議在南越爆發時，據報導他的兄長負責北越在南越的祕密行動計畫。1963年6月，釋智光敦促他的佛教徒同胞向越共尋求協助以反對吳廷琰政府。釋智光的政治動員方法與共產黨的作法極為相似，而且比越南其他佛教徒的作法先進得多。當共產黨於1975年征服南越時，他們在順化給了釋智光一份工作，他對共產黨政權沒有表示任何異議，而他們卻監禁了許多有政治活動記錄的僧侶。




儘管釋智光譴責政府，但他一再聲稱自己支持對抗共產黨的戰爭。然而，他的行為與這些言詞並不一致。釋智光的行動對從1963年到1966年掌權的每一個南越政府都造成了巨大損害，若非軍事領導人最終決定阻止釋智光，他的行動本會摧毀政府。如果釋智光不是一個死心塌地的共產黨員，那麼他就是患有某種瘋狂的妄想，認為他可以在西貢政府垮臺後以某種方式阻擋共產黨人。




1964年8月5日，美國轟炸北越的船隻與海軍設施，以報復所謂的「東京灣事件」，該事件包括兩起對美國軍艦在東京灣的明顯襲擊。林登・詹森總統利用這些事件獲得國會授權，在東南亞採取一切必要措施。阮慶將軍同樣認為，這個國際高度緊張的時刻提供了擴大自己權力的絕佳機會。因此，他決定在8月7日宣布「緊急狀態」。透過法令，阮慶授權他的警察禁止示威、在任何時段搜查私人住宅，以及監禁「被認為對國家安全構成危險的元素」。政府將實施審查，並阻止「所有被認為有害公共秩序的出版物、文件與傳單的流通」。阮慶還起草了一部新憲法，目的是增加自己的權力並剝奪楊文明將軍剩餘的權力。




然而，這些舉動並未增強阮慶的政治實力，反而引發了一場毀滅性的政治危機。在城市的大規模示威活動中，激進佛教徒與學生團體——其中許多受激進佛教徒的嚴重影響——要求阮慶結束緊急狀態並廢除新憲法。佛教徒宣稱存在一個吳廷琰主義者的陰謀，涉及人民勞動革命黨的舊部、天主教徒與越偉黨人，並由謙與紹兩位將軍領導。激進分子聲稱，吳廷琰主義者已經在壓迫佛教徒。釋智光誇大了天主教徒在阮慶政府中的影響力，告訴美國大使館官員「佛教徒無法接受基督徒治理的政府」。釋智光警告說，除非天主教徒被剝奪在政府中的影響力，否則佛教徒「寧可退出鬥爭，讓在天主教徒在美國人幫助下對抗共產黨」。這些關於宗教迫害的最新指控，與先前的指控一樣毫無根據。最近接替洛奇出任美國大使的麥克斯韋・泰勒評論說，所謂的人民勞動革命黨–天主教–越偉黨陰謀「只是個幽靈」，因為沒有證據顯示政府試圖虐待佛教徒。


佛教徒暴徒摧毀了天主教的房屋與教堂。政府士兵與警察並未介入制止暴力，即使暴徒就在他們面前。對吳廷琰政權的記憶無疑說服了政府官員，鎮壓示威——尤其是那些由僧侶領導的示威——會招致美國人的反感。在峴港，佛教徒與天主教徒三天的衝突奪走了十二條人命。儘管佛教徒過去小心翼翼地避免激怒美國，但他們現在將部分怒火轉向美國人；兩千名示威者向美國軍營投擲石塊，同時高喊反美口號。激進佛教運動正越來越遠離傳統越南佛教一直以來的靈性特質。




如同過往多次，釋智光與其他佛教領袖私下告訴美國人他們反對共產黨。然而，他們拒絕公開宣布反對共產黨。釋智光聲稱，公開表明他的反共立場尚無必要，他寧願保持低調，因為這可以保護他免受為政府或美國人工作的指控。考慮到釋智光的活動正在嚴重破壞反共事業，很難相信釋智光真的認為公開聲明沒有必要。其他佛教徒聲稱，他們沒有譴責共產黨是因為他們對政治不感興趣，只關心宗教自由。然而與此同時，他們卻在譴責阮慶、西貢政府、南越軍隊與美國人，而這些人都沒有侵犯宗教自由。




此時，大多數公正的觀察家已經得出結論，共產黨特工在激進佛教運動中扮演重要角色。該運動非常容易被滲透。任何人只要剃光頭、穿上赭色僧袍就能成為僧侶。在1963年11月之前，南越警察能夠壓制城市中的共產黨活動，但後吳廷琰時期對警察領導層的清洗癱瘓了該組織。越南共產黨先前已多次進行隱蔽顛覆活動，他們不可能不在這樣一個具有影響力且高度可滲透的組織中安插特工。大量因行為不檢被捕的佛教徒被發現沒有國民身份證，這是越共身份的有力指標。一些佛教抗議者以口哨與鼓聲指揮，採用軍事編隊移動，並建立針對政府軍的複雜防禦工事。佛教徒顯然不可能自己發展出這種戰術。




越來越多的人得出結論，釋智光本人就是共產黨員。1964年間，其他佛教領袖——包括釋智光以前追隨者中最著名的一些人——開始指責釋智光與越共勾結。釋智光聲稱自己與沿海安南地區新成立的「人民革命委員會」毫無關係，該委員會正在進行反政府活動，並宣布與共產黨非常相似的目標。但釋智光的一名副手，黎克川博士，是關鍵城市順化的人民革命委員會主席。釋智光頻繁譴責那些沒有歧視佛教徒歷史的能幹政府領袖，也讓人更有理由懷疑這位僧侶的動機。




一些美國高級官員現在也加入了相信釋智光是共產黨員的行列。然而，中央情報局仍不確信。在騷亂期間，該機構對釋智光可能與共產黨勾結進行了特別分析。分析發現，儘管大量報告顯示釋智光是共產黨員，但「缺乏確鑿的情報來明確支持許多越南人的信念，即釋智光確實是共產黨員。」基於缺乏確鑿證據以及對釋智光個性（承認這是主觀評估）的分析，報告得出結論，釋智光並非越南共產黨的特工。報告將他反對政府歸因於野心、仇外心理，以及希望使南越成為佛教神權國家的願望。




阮慶總理再次展現了他對煽動家與群眾示威的屈服。在一場數千人高喊「打倒軍事獨裁」的抗議活動中，阮慶用一樣響亮的聲音加入示威者的口號。他試圖安撫指責他的人，而不是為自己辯護或使用武力恢復秩序。因此，他承諾滿足最新的要求。在越南，這種對反對派的容忍與縱容導致嚴重的丟面子，進而導致政府人員與公眾的信心喪失。作為儒家傳統的繼承者，越南人民偏愛不容忍任何反對的強大個人的統治。




意識到情況正變得絕望，阮慶於8月24日晚間尋求激進佛教領袖。他請釋智光、釋心珠與釋明心到頭頓與他會談。他們拒絕了。阮慶隨後趕往西貢以達成同樣目的，這無疑強化了佛教徒認為可以利用阮慶的看法。三位僧侶向阮慶提交了一份書面要求清單。根據這份清單，阮慶必須廢除新憲法，軍事革命委員會選出一位主席，然後該委員會解散，從而使軍隊脫離政治。僧侶們還要求解僱政府中所有前人民勞動革命黨成員。此外，阮慶必須公開宣布他正在滿足佛教徒的要求。他們警告說，如果阮慶拒絕執行這些行動，佛教領導層將組織一場大規模的被動抵抗運動。




與激進佛教徒會面後，阮慶立即徵求泰勒大使的建議。泰勒告訴他：「我認為在這個如此重要的問題上向少數群體的壓力屈服是個錯誤，尤其是在有短期限的最後通牒下屈服。這樣做只會引發進一步的要求。」泰勒透過觀察吳廷琰政權最後幾個月以及阮慶部分統治時期，已經發現了這種危險。阮慶直接參與了這些事件，卻沒有學到教訓。這位南越總理表示願意接受佛教徒的要求，理由是這可以防止平民百姓與軍隊中發生佛、天主教徒不和。阮慶認為，沒有佛教徒的支持，戰爭就無法獲勝。




這次會面後僅僅幾小時，阮慶發布了一份公報，承諾修改憲法、減少新聞限制、允許公開示威，並透過特別戰地法庭糾正過去的濫權行為。然而，正如泰勒所預測，這些讓步只導致佛教徒與學生運動人士提出更多要求與抗議。阮慶隨後提出了一項新計畫，並成功說服了軍事革命委員會的剩餘會議。根據該計畫，新憲法將被廢除，軍事革命委員會將選出一位新的國家元首，然後委員會自行解散。阮慶現在已經屈服於佛教徒所有最新的要求，並做出了額外的讓步。這種投降仍然不足以獲得激進佛教徒的支持表態。只有在阮慶給了他們三十萬美元現金後，釋智光與釋心珠才同意簽署一封表示支持政府的信，阮慶隨後公開了這封信以顯示他獲得佛教徒的支持。此外，這封信還包含了更多的要求。信中指出，為了維持僧侶們的支持，阮慶必須打擊人民勞動革命黨，並在一年內成立新的國民議會。




西貢敏銳的觀察家認識到，阮慶對佛教徒的大幅讓步意味著權力實際上已從那些渴望某種秩序與軍事效能的人手中，交給了致力於促進自身利益（也許還有共產黨利益）的佛教僧侶。在兌現承諾的讓步時，阮慶將不得不終止許多最有效的反顛覆措施。




許多南越將領也對這種事態深感不安。那些在軍事革命委員會剩餘會議上勉強同意阮慶的將領們，在很大程度上是因為阮慶有美國的堅定支持。一些缺席該會議的將領在得知所發生的事情後感到憤慨，痛斥阮慶採取了必然會削弱政府權威的措施。反對阮慶佛教徒政策的最著名將領是謙與紹將軍。他們很快試圖爭取支持，用楊文明將軍取代阮慶，並成功獲得了許多最初支持阮慶的人的合作。這個陰謀集團找上泰勒，尋求允許撤換阮慶。然而，泰勒回答說不應再有政變，因為這會進一步削弱政府。這項警告足以阻止將領們對阮慶採取行動。經過數日將領間的爭吵，達成了一項協議，由阮慶、楊文明與謙組成三人執政團，統治兩個月，直到新政府能夠成立。




三人執政團將傘兵部隊調入西貢，終結了騷亂。然而，這初步的果斷行動後續並無其他行動，很快就明顯看出三人執政團缺乏團結與目標感。阮慶做出關鍵決定，而楊文明與謙幾乎沒有影響力，且阮慶仍然是激進佛教徒的僕從。來自佛教徒與人民革命委員會的壓力，導致阮慶解除了許多不被視為反佛教徒的文職與軍事官員的職務，包括該國一些最優秀的領導人。佛教徒的鼓譟也導致阮慶結束新聞審查，並下令釋放所有在騷亂中被捕的人，其中至少有十一名已知的越共領導人。




這些舉動以及阮慶對佛教徒的其他讓步，加劇了將領們以及民間天主教徒、前人民勞動革命黨成員與越偉黨人對政府的反對。這些團體表達了對吳廷琰政權的懷念，該政權的施政成效遠比其繼任者更為有效。9月13日，部分軍方人士將這種不滿轉化為公開叛亂。政變企圖在西貢展開，由前任內政部長林文發將軍與第四軍區司令楊文德將軍領導。這兩個人對阮慶軟弱的領導，特別是他對佛教徒要求的屈從，感到厭惡。他們是阮慶剛決定在佛教徒壓力下撤換的軍官之一。叛軍未發一槍就佔領了市中心，但未能找到行蹤飄忽的阮慶，他在騷亂開始時已逃往大叻。




在國家廣播電台上，林文發將軍宣布他已推翻政府，並將逮捕阮慶。林文發說，新領導層將恢復吳廷琰的理念，而吳廷琰的威望將為新政權提供力量。在與副大使尤・亞歷克西斯・強森及美軍指揮部司令威廉・C・魏摩蘭將軍的私下談話中，林文發描述了他的政治計畫。然而，美國人得出的結論是，叛亂領導人尚未準備好建立新政府。他們告訴林文發及其同僚結束叛亂，並警告說美國仍然支持現有政權。美國對政變的反對，阻止了其他將領加入叛亂，這說服了林文發與楊文德放棄。




由於對南越菁英間持續不斷的爭鬥感到沮喪，美國人警告阮慶、楊文明及其他南越要人，進一步的內鬥可能導致美國撤銷對南越的支持，這肯定會導致該國的毀滅。然而，這些警告收效甚微。政變企圖失敗後，阮慶撤換了四位軍區司令中的三位，以及九位師長中的六位，理由是他們在政變期間未能支持他。




山地原住民部落與越南勞工聯盟，在觀察到阮慶對佛教徒的讓步後，判斷現在是向政府要求自身讓步的時候了。阮慶接著滿足了這兩個團體的要求。泰勒大使再次展現他對南越政治局勢的深刻掌握，評論道，做出這些讓步，「阮慶進一步助長了日益籠罩他的軟弱氛圍。」阮慶「之所以能倖存，僅僅是因為他對每一個出現的壓力集團做出了幾乎無止境的讓步。人們普遍認識到，這個過程不可能無限期地持續下去，還能剩下任何堪稱政府的東西。我們現在已經接近那個階段了。」




城市中的其他騷亂仍在持續，最值得注意的是歸仁的一場大型暴動，短暫癱瘓了當地政府。越共對騷亂的參與進一步加劇。在南越北部城市，政府指揮官們未採取任何行動阻止暴徒與煽動者。他們沒有接到上級的任何命令，並且從經驗中學到，那些試圖執法的人會因佛教徒的投訴而被撤職。包括西貢在內的全國各地城市，政府官員開始士氣低落。




新成立的全國高級委員會（包含該國主要團體的代表）於十月下旬集會，選舉國家新的領導層。該委員會選擇年長的范克授擔任國家元首，范克授則選定陳文香擔任總理，這是最有權力的職位。陳文香與吳廷琰一樣，是一位固執而保守的民族主義者，討厭共產黨，但曾拒絕在保大政府任職。他是少數幾位具有終結西貢政治混亂所需地位與決心的人之一。他反對阮慶對佛教徒的寬容政策，並打算實施類似吳廷琰的政策，即恢復秩序，即使這意味著壓制佛教徒的反對。




與吳廷琰一樣，且與阮慶不同，陳文香視釋智光為國家生存的頑固威脅。在接受美國記者瑪格麗特・希金斯採訪時，陳文香談到釋智光：「他說話像共產黨員。他做的事幫助了共產黨。但你們美國人想要絕對的證據。而證據並不等於絕對的證明。我們可以證明釋智光曾在聖雅克角附近與越共領導人舉行祕密會議。但釋智光有能力說他去那裡是為了試圖讓共產黨人皈依佛教——而且會有人相信他！」




激進佛教徒立即對陳文香進行考驗。他們組織示威活動譴責他的政府，並要求他的內閣辭職。在一份公開公報中，他們稱陳文香「愚蠢、背叛、是個沒有任何政策的胖頑固傢伙」。陳文香政府「不革命」，且包含「吳廷琰政權的殘餘」，這是一個特別沒有根據的指控，因為政府中大多數成員都是因其缺乏黨派政治活動而被選中的。釋智光對陳文香沒有提出替代人選，他說：「我們從不想要任何東西，說佛教想要這個或那個是錯誤的。我們從不贊助任何人。」此言論忽略了他的組織對吳廷琰、阮慶、陳文香、天主教徒、人民勞動革命黨與越偉黨人的激烈譴責，以及釋智光在八月賣給阮慶的支持承諾。釋智光對政治人物的支持與反對在未來幾個月只會加劇。




儘管激進佛教徒在解釋為何反對陳文香時，通常訴諸模糊的概括性說法，但最困擾他們的無疑是陳文香恢復秩序並抵制佛教徒要求的意圖。佛教領袖激烈譴責陳文香限制公眾抗議的計畫，有些人甚至呼籲減少政府的軍事活動。佛教領袖宣布，比起一個有能力的陳文香政府，他們寧願選擇持續的混亂與政府瓦解，儘管明顯的事實是這將有利於越共。「權力真空也比陳文香掌權好，」一位佛教領袖說。「這個政府必須下台。」




儘管面臨佛教徒的壓力，陳文香拒絕容忍不守規矩的抗議或做出讓步。當激進佛教徒與學生組織大規模示威時，陳文香派遣軍隊用消防水帶與催淚瓦斯驅散人群。士兵們有效率地完成了任務。激進佛教徒聲稱，在陳文香執政的最初幾週，政府安全部隊造成了大量傷亡，但實際上沒有人死亡，受傷人數也遠低於佛教領袖所聲稱的。陳文香也實施審查，並關閉了十家涉嫌與共產黨勾結的報紙。




在十一月底的一場大型反政府示威中，激進佛教徒升級了暴力。一群由激進佛教徒與其他抗議者組成的暴徒向警察投擲石塊並用棍棒毆打他們。少數反對派分子投擲了越常用的一種震撼手榴彈，促使一名傘兵軍官朝他們的方向開槍。他手槍的子彈打死了一名十五歲的男孩。佛教徒隨後發出最後通牒，要求軍隊和警察不得碰觸任何示威者，並要求將陳文香免職。陳文香的回應是禁止公眾集會並關閉學校。反映了他對共產黨共謀的懷疑，陳文香在廣播中宣布，這些騷亂是「不負責任的人的過錯，他們或無知或蓄意地落入共產黨的計畫之中。」




陳文香成功地平息了西貢的騷亂，但在其他幾個重要領域並未取得進展。佛教徒的陰謀以及因佛教徒抗議而產生的分歧，加劇了南越領導層內部的分裂。陳文香的內閣與軍事領導層分裂為支持陳文香與反對陳文香的派系，一些反對陳文香的人正與釋智光勾結。由於這種不團結以及已經造成的破壞，陳文香無法重振全國的行政機構。「西貢政治僵局的影響正逐漸在各省顯現，」泰勒在一份報告中評論道。「文職官員尤其不確定如何行動，當沒有明確的權威聲音指導他們時，他們通常會跟隨本能傾向於膽怯。」




十二月初，泰勒大使在華盛頓與詹森總統商議後，展開了一項祕密計畫以遏制佛教徒的反對。他命令美國大使館官員設法將釋智光和釋心珠與其他佛教徒隔離開來。條件適合此類努力，因為越來越多的佛教領袖對釋智光激烈反對那些沒有表現出宗教不寬容的政府（譯註：應為破壞政府）的行為感到幻滅。年底，梅壽傳與他的交趾支那佛教徒與釋智光決裂。然而，由於佛教徒內部的紛爭，試圖團結交趾支那佛教徒與其他團體對抗釋智光的努力並未成功。




泰勒也試圖透過施加直接壓力來降低釋智光的反對熱情。大使館官員通知釋智光及其他越南領導人，除非所有人團結在陳文香政府背後，否則美國對越南的承諾無法持續。這些威脅基於一個可疑的前提，即釋智光不希望美國拋棄南越。對於那些是河內特工的佛教徒來說，美國的這類威脅只會鼓勵他們反對陳文香。與此同時，中央情報局正祕密接觸釋智光的副手，敦促他們對這位僧侶發揮溫和影響。這項施壓運動並未帶來多少成果。釋智光與其他佛教領袖繼續公開譴責政府所謂的反佛教行為，並威脅如果美國人繼續支持陳文香，他們也將譴責美國人。




下一場政治危機始於12月19日，再次由激進佛教徒挑起並影響。阮慶與一群充滿活力的年輕將領（稱為「年輕土耳其人」）要求全國高級委員會讓所有服役超過二十五年的軍官退役。阮慶與年輕土耳其人都認為，年長的軍官不僅缺乏才能，而且過於同情激進佛教徒。全國高級委員會拒絕了這項要求，促使年輕將領們解散了全國高級委員會並逮捕其成員。




泰勒發現事情經過後勃然大怒。他本期望將領們事先將此類計畫告知他，而且他認為此舉是政治災難。泰勒懷疑，這是阮慶為獲取政府實際控制權的計畫的一部分，過往事件使泰勒得出結論，阮慶無法有效治理並抵抗佛教徒壓力。




泰勒實際上誤解了發生的事情，因為陳文香同意解散全國高級委員會，而年輕土耳其人支持此舉作為賦予陳文香（而非阮慶）更多權力的手段。陳文香已與將領們結盟，以便他們幫助他對抗他視為國家最嚴重問題的激進佛教徒。當泰勒隨後敦促陳文香拒絕解散全國高級委員會時，陳文香駁斥他說，越南人民「採取更重感情而非法律條文的方式」，因此全國高級委員會的角色遠不如「領導人的道德威望」重要。與越南將領有接觸的美國顧問與情報官員發現，軍方領導層同樣不認為他們的行為違法有什麼重要。




泰勒怒氣沖沖地斥責年輕土耳其人。「你們現在搞得一團糟，」泰勒告訴他們。「如果你們做出這樣的事，我們無法永遠支持你們。」南越空軍司令阮高祺回答說，需要改變，因為「政治局勢比吳廷琰時期任何時候都更糟。」阮高祺解釋說，出於實際需要，必須解散該委員會。「我們知道你們想要穩定，但你們必須先有團結，才能有穩定，」他說。全國高級委員會的一些成員正在散播政變謠言並製造懷疑，阮高祺斷言，「軍方與文職領導人都認為，由於這些人的影響力，他們留在全國高級委員會中會分裂武裝部隊。」在一個派系主義使任何事情都幾乎無法完成、權力分散在儒化人民心中造成混亂的國家，解散全國高級委員會實際上很可能改善政府表現。




在與阮慶的一次私下會晤中，泰勒譴責解散全國高級委員會，並表示這與美國希望南越政府表現出的穩定與忠誠不符。阮慶回應說，在關係中雙方都需要忠誠，並堅稱他的國家不是美國的衛星國。阮慶回憶說，有一次，吳廷琰曾說美國對他不忠誠。泰勒脫口說出他對阮慶失去了信心。阮慶反駁說，大使不應該有這樣的行為。




在這場激烈交流之後，阮慶發起了一場激烈的反美宣傳運動。他在越南電台上宣布，「寧可貧窮但驕傲地作為獨立國家的自由公民生活，也不願在安逸與恥辱中作為外國人與共產黨人的奴隸。」阮慶告訴一位美國記者，「如果泰勒不能更明智地行事，東南亞將會淪陷。」為了在越南取得成功，美國人必須「更務實」，停止試圖將南越變成美國的翻版，這是對泰勒堅持保留全國高級委員會完全合理的抨擊。




陳文香並未對將領們近期的行動採取堅定立場，這最終說服美國人修復與南越領導人的關係。阮慶似乎願意配合。1月6日，軍方正式將政治控制權移交給由陳文香領導的新文官政府。然而，阮慶與他的一些軍中同僚立即與釋智光聯手，進行旨在顛覆這個政府的新陰謀。佛教徒與學生領袖組織罷工與示威，並對陳文香發出新的譴責。一個跨信仰委員會懇求激進佛教徒透過與陳文香的代表會面，而不是在街頭抗議，來解決所謂的 grievances，但徒勞無功。




在與泰勒大使的一次會面中，釋智光堅持認為美國應該強迫陳文香辭職。泰勒回答說，為了政府穩定，越南人民需要支持陳文香。受到陳文香早期成功壓制激進佛教徒騷亂的鼓舞，美國人將陳文香視為遠比阮慶更好的領導人。此外，由於釋智光對政府毫無根據的指控以及缺乏建設性的政治理念，美國大使館官員對他的幻想破滅程度更勝以往。




在一次與釋智光的會面後，泰勒抱怨道：「我們得到的只是又一次重複的抱怨，這些抱怨只有在（佛教）弘法學院領導人耳中聽起來才是真實的。」當釋智光聲稱警察殺害了四名正在前往佛塔祈禱的人並傷及三十人時，美國人調查了該事件，發現沒有人被殺，只有四人受傷，該事件是由一名已知的麻煩製造者煽動的，而且沒有軍隊試圖鎮壓示威者。阮慶本人向亞歷克西斯・強森承認，佛教徒對陳文香政府的抱怨是「毫無根據的」，因為所謂的迫害行為「並不存在」。




大使館官員也對佛教徒近期未能動員人們參加示威印象深刻。美國人得出結論，這些失敗表明激進佛教徒並不代表佛教大眾。美國人決定，西貢政府終將需要勇敢面對釋智光的佛教弘法學院，而且愈快愈好，因為每讓佛教徒贏得一次勝利，這項任務就會變得更加艱難。




這些對激進佛教運動的嚴厲評判，也得到了許多其他西方消息來源的呼應，包括那些在1963年支持釋智光事業的西方新聞機構。《紐約時報》的彼得・格羅斯報導說：「越南和外國觀察家一致認為，（佛教政策）並非源自信仰者深切感受的政策，而是僧侶們試圖獲取直接政治權力的嘗試。」他觀察到，佛教徒不再能夠組織大量人群，「他們的公開示威，現在更加公開地政治化，更加不守規矩，與佛教宗教的平和信條格格不入。」《新聞周刊》評論說，釋智光和他的同僚「只代表越南佛教徒中的一小部分少數派」。除了在城市，激進佛教徒「鮮為人知，而且許多知道他們的鄉村佛教徒強烈反對他們將宗教熱情扭曲用於政治目的。」




美國大使館官員仍然相信大多數高層佛教領袖反對共產黨，但越來越多的人懷疑至少釋智光正在與共產黨合作。使館專家同意，較低層級的佛教領袖，特別是親近釋智光的人，與越共通敵。這個群體中最著名的莫過於釋玄光，他是佛教弘法學院的秘書長，也是釋智光的密友。佛教運動內外的許多人都指责他同情共產黨。釋玄光的副手陳廷也被同樣指認。




事實上，共產黨此時正在加速滲透反對派團體的努力。一位越共領導人後來透露，共產黨正在做出新的努力，利用表面非共產黨的組織來傳播反美與反政府宣傳。根據北越共產黨中央委員會的說法，城市中的祕密共產黨網絡正達到前所未有的高度。在1965年3月的一項決議中，委員會宣布：「城市運動在所有大城市和幾乎所有小城市都已發展壯大。」




1月18日，陳文香背離了他一貫的強硬立場，試圖透過罷免激進佛教領袖批評的兩名部長來安撫佛教徒。但讓步對陳文香的幫助，並不比對吳廷琰或阮慶好。兩天後的一場記者會上，釋智光與他的幾位追隨者宣布他們將開始絕食，直到陳文香下台為止。釋智光在佛教運動中最親密的同志釋明心補充說，如果陳文香不被撤職，那麼佛教徒將「呼籲和平」。在南越人中，公開呼籲和平被視為對西貢政府的攻擊，因為這是共產黨常用的宣傳手段，旨在削弱南越繼續戰爭的意志。由於河內在軍事上佔上風，和平協議顯然將有利於河內，並可能涉及美國撤軍。




釋智光承諾佛教領導層在春節假期結束前不會再組織示威，釋心珠則承諾在絕食期間不會有示威活動。跟隨熟悉的模式，激進佛教徒很快違反了這些承諾。在釋智光與釋心珠的領導下，佛教徒於1月23日發起了一場狂熱的反美抗議運動。其說法與先前激進佛教徒的努力一樣誇大其詞。在西貢，佛教徒與學生在美國大使館和美國新聞處的亞伯拉罕・林肯圖書館外進行了大規模示威。抗議者攻擊政府壓迫佛教徒，嘲笑陳文香是泰勒的「走狗」，並要求泰勒離開該國。僧侶與尼師高舉要求和平的橫幅。在示威者打破門窗並用石頭攻擊鎮暴警察後，陳文香派遣傘兵用催淚瓦斯與警棍驅散他們。在順化，五千名示威者洗劫了兩層樓高的美國新聞處圖書館，接著焚燒了八千本書籍。釋智光的同夥釋玄光發布公報稱：「美國大使與美國大使的走狗陳文香的政策，是讓越南佛教領袖死亡並消滅越南佛教。」在峴港、廣治與芽莊，激進佛教徒說服商店與餐館老闆拒絕為美國人服務。由於佛教領袖呼籲自我犧牲，一名在芽莊的尼師自焚身亡，一名在西貢的僧侶在一場大型學生示威中自刺。佛教徒暴徒也在西貢放火燒了一名天主教徒。




在北部各省，阮慶及其主要共謀者阮政施將軍沒有採取行動控制暴徒或保護美國與南越的財產。他們推斷，混亂將毀掉陳文香政府，並讓他們得以接管。在騷亂肆虐之時，阮慶與佛教領袖達成了協議。武裝部隊將接管政府，除掉陳文香，尊重「宗教自由」，並清洗任何在先前多次清洗後仍未清除的所謂吳廷琰主義者。作為回報，佛教徒將支持新政府至少兩年，並將釋智光、釋心珠與釋獲送至國外。




當亞歷克西斯・強森得知這些計畫時，他警告阮慶，美國希望軍方支持陳文香政府。阮慶無視於他。1月27日上午，阮慶在施將軍與阮高祺元帥的支持下，發動了一場不流血的政變。他說服了武裝部隊委員會讓他負責政府，並保證一旦一個由二十人組成的顧問委員會選出文職國家元首，他就會退出政治。然而，一些南越高級軍官之所以同意此安排，只是因為他們認為這會適得其反，有助於促成阮慶下台以及壓制激進佛教徒。




就在政變當天，釋智光已經在私下醞釀迫使阮慶下台，第二天下午他就開始朝這個方向努力。他的第一步是通知將領們，佛教徒將不再履行他們不干預政治、支持政府以及將三位僧侶送出國外的承諾。根據激進佛教徒的說法，這些承諾無效，因為軍方承諾在1月25日或26日推翻政府，但直到1月27日才行動。這個解釋不僅荒謬，而且不誠實，因為釋智光始終知道政變要到1月27日才會發生。此舉是激進佛教徒迄今為止最惡劣的背信棄義行為之一，並大大增強了批評者的論點，即他們是一群欺詐之人，更關心摧毀現有政府而非摧毀越共。背棄承諾激怒了一些將領；一人告訴美國人，如果阮慶現在不勇敢面對佛教弘法學院，「他的生命將有危險。」




阮慶沒有勇敢面對佛教徒，而是在盡力抓住權力的同時再次屈服於他們的要求。他將范文同從首都軍區司令調任第二軍區司令，這將他從權力中心調到了對西貢政治影響最小的地區。范文同因有效鎮壓西貢的佛教徒示威與騷亂而激怒了激進佛教徒。




佛教徒再次沒有回報這份情。誰將成為國家下一任領導人將由佛教徒決定，而阮慶不會是。最高職位落到了潘輝括博士身上，釋智光長期以來一直在推動他擔任此職。許多觀察家懷疑潘輝括完全受釋智光控制。政府中大多數其他成員也是釋智光的盟友，他們強烈反對「吳廷琰主義」——在激進佛教徒的用語中，這意味著堅定的反共主義以及不願容忍佛教運動的破壞性活動。




2月19日，就在新政府上台僅僅三天後，另一場政變在林文發將軍與范玉沼上校的領導下展開。叛軍佔領了西貢廣播電台與新山一機場，但阮慶再次逃脫了抓捕，這次他逃到了頭頓。西貢附近的大多數部隊選擇不在此次爭端中選邊站。




如同1964年9月19日的政變，主要陰謀者宣稱欽佩吳廷琰，並傾向於恢復一個更接近吳廷琰的政府。叛軍在西貢電台上宣布：「洛奇鼓勵推翻吳廷琰的政變，而不是糾正錯誤，這是錯誤的。」林文發與范玉沼私下告訴阮高祺，如果阮慶被撤職，他們及其叛軍同僚將同意結束政變。他們三人達成了協議，之後叛軍迅速且平靜地散去。武裝部隊委員會命令阮慶立即離開該國。在試圖爭取各省官員支持失敗後，阮慶同意下台並出國。




一旦潘輝括政府開始運作，它便採取了許多釋智光贊成的措施。它釋放了所有在反陳文香示威期間被拘留的人，其中一些人是共產黨員。為了滿足釋智光並防止進一步叛亂，潘輝括及其主要軍事支持者進行了新一輪的清洗。被清洗的對象包括范文同將軍、陳文明將軍、陳誠本上校、鍾晉鋼海軍上將與但文光將軍——這些能幹的人之所以被釋智光反對，是因為他們曾鎮壓不守規矩的佛教徒示威或以其他方式干擾了他的計畫。潘輝括及其盟友將軍隊的權力分散，防止任何單一軍官擁有過多權力。




由於清洗、軍事領導層的分裂以及佛教徒對潘輝括的認可，潘輝括政權面臨的公開反對遠少於前幾屆政府。四月初，中央情報局能夠報告說：「自吳廷琰政權倒台以來，政治局勢的持續惡化似乎首次得到遏制。」然而，穩定是付出沉重代價換來的。政府的清洗以及對佛教徒其他要求的順從，導致軍事領導層嚴重削弱。在越南共和國二十一年的歷史中，沒有任何其他時期像潘輝括統治期間那樣在對抗共產黨的戰鬥中表現如此糟糕。3月26日，魏摩蘭將軍觀察到，南越武裝部隊「已開始顯示分裂的跡象，不再有有效的指揮鏈。武裝部隊由委員會運作。委員會本身就是一個陰謀與個人野心的舞台。」潘輝括政權糟糕的表現證明了阮慶執政期間已變得明顯的一個事實：由釋智光及其激進佛教徒同僚主導的政府，不會以技能或活力來進行戰爭。




雖然釋智光與佛教弘法學院的其他領導人表示贊同潘輝括政府，並避免製造騷亂，但他們並未遠離其他形式的惡作劇。光蓮與佛教弘法學院的另外幾位領導人公開支持一項涉及美軍撤出越南的和平計畫。佛教弘法學院的其他高層官員（包括釋智光在內）告訴美國官員，他們不同意光蓮的觀點。然而，在其他聽眾面前，這些人卻贊同光蓮的立場。釋智光告訴《香港標準報》，河內與華盛頓應「立即開始會談」以實現和平，因為「我們已經遭受了太多苦難，無論是在人命還是我們所擁有的一切上。」當美國人詢問這次採訪時，釋智光採用了他慣用的伎倆，告訴美國人他贊成美國的政策。他聲稱他並不是真的認為美國現在應該談判，實際上他認為美國人應該等到軍事局勢改善後再避免談判。




幾週後，釋智光建議泰勒轟炸北越。在這個例子中，有直接證據表明這個建議是為了維持美國的好感，以便激進佛教徒能繼續他們的顛覆活動。英國在馬來亞反叛亂行動中著名的資深專家、後來擔任南越政府高級顧問的羅伯特・湯普森回憶說，在向泰勒提出此建議後，釋智光「直接去找法國人，解釋說他只是為了平息泰勒的疑心，以便能放手推進他祕密進行的、不惜任何代價換取和平的運動。」




更令人對釋智光所聲稱的、支持美國對抗共產黨戰爭的熱情產生懷疑的，是這位僧侶在五月中旬寄給美國人的一封信。信中，釋智光將美國描繪成南越的折磨者而非救世主。他指責美國人「偏愛信任天主教徒並謀劃偏袒他們」，而同時美國人「對待佛教徒就像統治者對待原住民一樣憂慮和猶豫不決」。越南人民認為美國人「利用天主教徒消滅佛教徒」，並「確信所有的壓迫都是由美國人組織和縱容的。」釋智光警告說，除非美國人停止偏袒天主教徒，否則他們將輸掉戰爭。這些指控是荒謬的，不僅因為沒有人試圖消滅佛教徒，也因為無論是美國人還是南越政府，都沒有表現出任何偏袒天主教徒而非佛教徒的跡象。




在潘輝括統治期間，南越出現了要求和平或中立化的新團體，此類團體的宣傳品產量激增。潘輝括反對這些團體的言論出奇地直言不諱。他宣稱，除非北方停止向南方滲透人員，否則不會有和平。他宣布政府將採取「一切必要措施，粉碎共產黨正在進行的虛假宣傳行動，這些行動旨在欺騙輿論、在民眾中製造混亂、利用輕信者……並執行他們奪取整個越南的馬基雅維利式策略。」潘輝括解僱了三百名簽署要求談判結束戰爭文件的公務員。然而，他並未對佛教弘法學院中任何提倡和平或中立化的人採取行動。潘輝括說服光蓮放棄他的中立化計畫，但代價是釋放所有與佛教徒有聯繫的和平運動領導人。




1965年5月底，西貢爆發了新的政治危機。起因是國家元首范克授阻止了潘輝括試圖更換兩名部長的企圖，潘輝括與美國人都認為這兩名部長不稱職。范克授受到交趾支那政治家與天主教領袖的鼓勵來抵制潘輝括，他們反對潘輝括對激進佛教徒的偏袒。隨著危機發展，釋智光開始背離他堅定支持潘輝括的立場，因為潘輝括表現出一定程度的獨立性，這讓釋智光感到困擾。在與美國駐順化領事的一次談話中，釋智光說，如果潘輝括無法在不向對手讓步的情況下擺脫當前危機，軍方應該取代他。釋智光顯然擔心潘輝括會向天主教徒以及他所不贊同的其他人讓步太多，而且他會對中立主義者採取進一步措施。釋智光說，如果需要撤換潘輝括，新的國家元首應該是「一個沒有宗教信仰的人」。他唯一提到的名字是他的親密盟友施將軍。他說：「施名義上是佛教徒，但並不在乎宗教」，這個判斷非常可疑，因為施一直持續與激進佛教徒合作。




6月9日，潘輝括呼籲南越將領們調解爭端。在一次與潘輝括的會面中，將領們明確表示他們厭倦了文官政府的政治無能。他們也對潘輝括統治期間南越軍方的清洗，以及最近幾週的重大軍事失利感到不滿。將領們的批評令潘輝括灰心，他同意下台並將政府移交給軍方。




一切都按照釋智光的願望進行，直到選出新領導層為止。最高職位並非由施將軍出任，而是由阮高祺元帥（擔任總理與執行主席）以及阮文紹將軍（擔任統治將領委員會主席）獲得。軍事領導人顯然希望終結釋智光對政府的支配，因為阮高祺與阮文紹對打擊共產黨的興趣，遠大於安撫激進佛教徒。




這種態度很快就顯現出來。阮高祺、阮文紹與其他將領決定，新政府將以舉行「無喘息週」作為開端。該週的活動包括實施審查、關閉許多報紙以及中止公民自由。他們的下一個目標是將爭吵不休的西貢政客們送到一個「老樹村」，在那裡他們將「舉辦研討會，並制定支持政府政策的計畫與方案」。關於宗教與政治團體的反對問題，他們決心「無視此類反對團體，並規定將槍殺麻煩製造者」。將領們還採取措施，將全體居民組織成準軍事組織。為民政管理注入活力與方向後，主要將領們毫不拖延地將他們的計畫付諸行動。




釋智光顯然沒有對阮高祺與阮文紹的任命提出強烈反對，並且相信他能像操縱阮慶那樣操縱他們。起初，釋智光聲稱支持新政權。然而，不到一個月，一旦政府顯示出一些希望的跡象，釋智光就開始要求推翻它。他譴責阮文紹曾屬於吳廷琰的人民勞動革命黨——儘管阮文紹在推翻吳廷琰的過程中發揮了主導作用——並指責他具有「法西斯主義傾向」。釋智光聲稱，「阮高祺將軍周圍的前人民勞動革命黨成員正在破壞他的計畫。」如同以往，釋智光的概括性說法遠遠超出了他的具體指控。當被要求提供破壞阮高祺計畫的例子時，釋智光只能給出這個奇怪的回答：「阮高祺決定槍決所有投機者，因為此舉顯然永遠無法執行。」




釋智光將繼續他對政府毫無根據的譴責以及對讓步的無饜足要求——這些共同構成了他破壞政府的主要手段——直到1966年的佛教危機。當那場危機爆發時，反叛的佛教徒製造了太多麻煩，以致政府領導人動用軍隊以武力一勞永逸地鎮壓了激進佛教運動。阮高祺將釋智光流放到山區隱居。政府終於與激進佛教徒進行了攤牌，並且獲得了豐厚的回報。佛教徒再也沒有給南越政府造成這樣的政治麻煩。




從吳廷琰時代一直到1966年佛教危機，釋智光與其他激進佛教徒都遵循著同樣的策略。他們試圖透過公開抗議和獲取一個又一個讓步來削弱現有政府。保障宗教自由並非他們的主要目標之一，因為他們的宗教自由從未受到威脅。相反地，他們追求的是政治主導權。一些激進佛教徒想要一個在南越社會中偏袒佛教徒而非其他團體的政府，而另一些人則祕密勾結，為共產黨政府開路。倘若南越軍方在1965年未能抵抗激進佛教徒並在1966年鎮壓他們，激進佛教徒很可能會將政府引向共產黨陣營，因為該運動的領導人物釋智光，要嘛與共產黨勾結，要嘛懷有幻想，認為沒有強大、親美政府的幫助，他也能抵擋共產黨。




激進佛教運動的政治成功取決於西貢政府的領導以及美國的態度。在進行了一系列徒勞的讓步之後，吳廷琰意識到讓步無助於安撫佛教徒，便不再讓步。他透過關閉佛塔和逮捕關鍵人物來壓制佛教運動，但這場勝利是短暫的，因為它促使美國支持推翻吳廷琰。阮慶允許對其政權的公開反對，並花費大量時間向佛教徒讓步，但所有這些措施只導致國家反共力量的削弱，以及激進佛教徒進一步的抗議與要求。陳文香選擇效法吳廷琰而非阮慶的做法，拒絕容忍公共騷亂或滿足佛教徒的要求。這項政策顯然有更好的成功前景，而且美國人現在更願意接受強硬行動。然而，陳文香未能完成實施，因為阮慶把他推翻了。




激進佛教徒的影響力在潘輝括統治國家時期達到頂峰，潘輝括在其大部分掌權時間裡，做了佛教徒希望的一切。

👄潘輝括的行動使南越的戰爭努力效能降至歷史最低點，

👄強化了阮慶時代的教訓：

👄有效進行戰爭與滿足激進佛教徒的要求是互不相容的。




阮慶與其他人對使用吳廷琰的方法對付激進佛教徒所提出的主要反對意見是，這會疏遠佛教大眾，嚴重損害戰爭努力。阮慶大大高估了激進佛教徒對大眾的影響力；只有一小部分少數派支持激進佛教事業。1966年的佛教危機將證明，激進佛教徒可以被粉碎而不會破壞戰爭努力。1966年對佛教徒的鎮壓，使政府永久擺脫了佛教徒的有害壓力，並使南越從那時起有可能實現更大程度的國家團結。


翻譯成正體中文


Political Monks: The Militant Buddhist Movement during the Vietnam War 


MARK MOYAR


Political Monks: The Militant Buddhist

Movement during the Vietnam War

MARK MOYAR

University of Cambridge

Summary: From November 1963 to July 1965, the militant Buddhist

movement was the primary cause of political instability in South Vietnam.

While the militant Buddhists maintained that they represented the

Buddhist masses and were fighting merely for religious freedom, they

actually constituted a small and unrepresentative minority that was

attempting to gain political dominance. Relying extensively on Byzantine

intrigue and mob violence to manipulate the government, the militant

Buddhists practiced a form of political activism that was inconsistent with

traditional Vietnamese Buddhism. The evidence also suggests that some of

the militant Buddhist leaders were agents of the Vietnamese Communists.

The period from the end of 1963 to July 1965 has received more

attention than any other segment of the Vietnam War, largely because

it was during this time that President Lyndon B. Johnson reached a

decision to enter the ground war. Virtually all historians of this period

have recognized the weakness of South Vietnam’s government as a

central cause of American intervention. Few, however, have analyzed

the reasons behind this weakness. Those who do address the subject

generally attribute the government’s frailty solely to the inferior skills

and motivation of the ruling elite.1 Some of the individuals who

assumed power were indeed poor leaders, but there were others who

had the characteristics of a good leader. The failure of these able individuals was largely the result of an outside force, the militant

Buddhists.2

The dominant school of Vietnam historians, known as the orthodox

school, generally portrays the Buddhists as non-Communists who were

merely seeking freedom from religious intolerance and repression.3

In reality, the militant Buddhist leaders deliberately attempted to

subvert every government that held power from 1963 onwards for

reasons that had nothing to do with religious freedom. The vast

majority of charges of religious persecution that they used to justify

their actions were spurious. In addition, at least a few of the Buddhist

leaders willingly collaborated with the Communists. To some extent,

therefore, the Buddhist movement was engaged in covert action,

and in a highly effective fashion at that. Rarely has an opposition

movement undermined multiple governments so effectively and with

so few resources.

Most of the information currently available on the Buddhist

movement and South Vietnamese politics comes from Western

sources. From the beginning of American involvement in 1950 to

the end in 1975, large numbers of American governmental personnel

and journalists were stationed in South Vietnam. America’s European

allies, most notably Britain, also had diplomats and journalists in South Vietnam. This article relies primarily on American and

British sources, the two richest of the available sources. The relevant

records for South Vietnam, or the Republic of Vietnam as it was

officially called, are now in the hands of the Socialist Republic of

Vietnam. These records and the corresponding North Vietnamese

records remain unavailable to foreign researchers. While the Socialist

Republic has published some useful histories since the war, none of

them contains substantial information on the Buddhist disturbances

of the mid-1960s. Whenever such records become available, they

will yield critical information on certain topics, particularly the

North Vietnamese involvement in the Buddhist movement. The

Western sources, nevertheless, provide coverage of the Buddhist

movement that in most respects is very thorough, and they are

considerably more objective than any Vietnamese sources are likely

to be.

Indian merchants and clerics brought the Buddhist religion to

Vietnam in the first century a.d. The religion soon gained a large

following, and many who did not become practitioners of Buddhism

adopted Buddhist rituals and principles. But Buddhism and Indian

culture would never dominate Vietnam, as they would its eastern

neighbors in Cambodia, Siam, and Burma. The primary source of

influence was always the Chinese, who already controlled Vietnam

when Buddhism first arrived and would continue to do so until the

tenth century. The Chinese had deeply implanted Confucianism in

Vietnam, and Confucianism would play a pre-eminent role in Vietnam

for most of the country’s history, up to and including the twentieth

century. Although Buddhism exerted great influence over the spiritual

lives of king and commoner during certain epochs, Confucianist

precepts dominated familial and political relationships even among

Buddhists.4

The South Vietnam of the twentieth century has often, and

mistakenly, been called a Buddhist country. In a land with fifteen

million people, there were between three and four million Buddhists,

and of these only about one half practiced the religion. Roughly four

million considered Confucianism to be their guiding set of beliefs.


Some of these Confucianists had a loose Buddhist affiliation, but they

did not identify themselves with organized Buddhism. During the

period of religious strife from 1963 to 1966, such individuals did not

generally support the militant Buddhist movement. One and a half

million of the nation’s citizens were Roman Catholics, and between

two and a half and three million belonged to the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao

sects. Most of the remaining people were animists, Taoists, Protestant

Christians, Hindus, or Muslims.5

While there had been something of a Buddhist revival in the

years preceding the upheavals of 1963–1966, Vietnamese Buddhism

remained relatively weak. The Buddhist masses were not brimming

with religious zeal, in contrast to the Buddhists in other Asian

countries. Until the Buddhist crisis of 1963, Vietnamese Buddhist

monks rarely had taken an active role in national politics. They and

their followers had used their religion to address their inner spiritual

concerns, not the worldly affairs of the state. The Buddhists were

splintered into numerous sects, none of which had a strong hierarchical

organization. Vietnam’s three regions— Tonkin in the north, Annam

in the center, and Cochinchina in the south—each had distinctive

regional groups of Buddhists. South Vietnam consisted of Cochinchina

and the southern half of Annam, and it also had a considerable

number of refugees who had left Tonkin and northern Annam in

1954. Vietnamese Buddhism was further divided by the Theravada

and Mahayana branches, meaning Lesser and Greater vehicles.6

The conflict between the Buddhists and the Saigon government

began on 8 May 1963, when nine civilians were killed at a Buddhist

protest under mysterious circumstances. Led by the monk Tri Quang,

a group of Buddhists organized demonstrations and told the foreign

press that the Diem government was oppressing Buddhists. This group

became known as the militant Buddhists. Diem refused to make

concessions and undertake the reforms the militant Buddhists and the Americans were demanding. As a result, the United States turned

against Diem. In October 1963, the U.S. embassy gave its blessing to

a plot conceived by several senior generals, and on 1 November the

generals ousted Diem and put him to death.

A committee of generals, led by General Duong Van Minh, took

control of the government after the coup. Seeking to obtain the support

of the most troublesome political groups, the new regime promptly

freed all of the student and Buddhist oppositionists whom Diem

had jailed. Upon the advice of the American embassy, the generals

promised to implement many of the Western political reforms long

championed by the Americans, including freedom of the press and

freedom of political expression. Despite the release of the jailed

Buddhists and the other reforms, however, the Buddhist problem

did not disappear. During the regime’s first month in office, three

Buddhists committed suicide in protest against the government.7 It

was the same technique that the Buddhists had used against Diem.

More Buddhists would kill themselves for political purposes in the first

four months after Diem’s death than during all the years of Diem’s

presidency.

General Minh proved to be incompetent as a national leader. The

other generals failed to make up for his deficiencies, and instead

occupied much of their time bickering with each other and arresting

former Diem supporters.8 The resultant governmental inactivity gave

the Viet Cong an opportunity to improve their military position, which

they exploited to the maximum extent possible.

This incompetent government-by-committee soon proved to be

intolerable to Americans and Vietnamese alike. At the end of January,

General Nguyen Khanh told the Americans that some pro-French

generals were about to launch a coup, after which they intended to

make South Vietnam a neutral country. A neutral South Vietnam

would end its alliance with the United States and reach some sort of

accommodation with the North Vietnamese. The veracity of Khanh’s

allegation has never been established, for want of evidence. Khanh

also was appalled by the ineffectiveness of Minh and his committee

of generals, and he thought he could do better. Furthermore, Khanh

resented the Minh junta for killing Diem, for Khanh had liked Diem and the coup leaders had promised that Diem would not be harmed.9

On 30 January, with the blessing of the Americans, Khanh overthrew

the government in a bloodless coup. Khanh incarcerated Minh and his

closest associates and made himself prime minister.

In terms of providing national leadership, Khanh showed himself to

be more capable than his predecessors. He chose, however, to continue

the shuffling of province and district chiefs that had undermined the

previous government.10 Some of his initial replacements were proDiem officials who had been ousted in November 1963. Re-entering

the political stage at this point were the militant Buddhists, who

in early 1964 had combined to form a single association known as

the Institute for the Propagation of the Buddhist Faith, headed by

Tri Quang and Tam Chau. Tri Quang and other militant Buddhists

made baseless claims that Khanh—who was a Buddhist—and his

predominantly Buddhist government were reverting to Diemist

persecution of Buddhists. Inexperienced and easily intimidated,

Khanh succumbed to this pressure. He stopped appointing pro-Diem

officials, sacked some of those already in office, and put more Diem

supporters in jail.11

Khanh’s yielding to these demands did not spare him from

the criticism of the militant Buddhists.12 While some Buddhist

Institute leaders and many other prominent Buddhists approved of

Khanh, Tri Quang accused him of denying religious freedom to

Buddhists and giving government officials unrestricted license to

imprison Buddhists.13 As had occurred during Diem’s conflict with the Buddhists, Tri Quang only demanded more when Khanh made

concessions. Unlike Diem, Khanh continued to satisfy the neverending stream of demands. Part of the explanation for Khanh’s

behavior lay in his belief that resisting the Buddhists would alienate

the Americans, as had happened to Diem. The other part was Khanh’s

political naivety and timidity. To satisfy Tri Quang, Khanh had the

Army remove all Catholic chaplains.14 Pressure from Tri Quang

induced Khanh to give a life sentence of hard labor to Dang Sy, a

Catholic officer who was involved in the mysterious and fatal incident

of 8 May 1963.

15

Unlike most of the other Buddhists, Tri Quang demanded a

death sentence for Diem’s brother Ngo Dinh Can, whom the Khanh

government was trying for various alleged crimes. Presenting what was

to become his rationale for most every criticism of the government,

Tri Quang warned that Can had to be executed in order to protect

against a sinister conspiracy involving Catholics, members of Diem’s

Can Lao Party, and other former Diem supporters, which supposedly

sought to bring back a Diemist government.16

U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge pleaded

with the South Vietnamese leaders to spare Can’s life, pointing out

that the Saigon government had failed to muster any evidence against

Can.17 Prime Minister Khanh, however, decided that it was more

important to please the militant Buddhists than the Americans, and

he had Can executed on 9 May. Khanh would not have placated the

Buddhists rather than the Americans unless he possessed an enormous

fear of Buddhist opposition, for the Americans could be offended easily

and neither Khanh nor his country could survive without American

support.18

Ambassador Lodge had supported Tri Quang strongly in 1963. Early

in his tenure, in fact, Lodge had proposed having Tri Quang serve

in the government as part of a plan to ‘broaden the base’ of the

government. But during early 1964, Lodge soured on the monk and his

movement. Lodge remarked in the spring, ‘I do regard the Buddhists as a possible source of danger to the government. In particular, I think

that Tri Quang, the Buddhist leader, is a potential troublemaker.

Having overthrown one government, he may feel like trying again

against Khanh.’ Commenting on Tri Quang’s objections to Khanh,

Lodge noted that Tri Quang ‘has indicated to me that he does not

regard Khanh as a “good Buddhist”—meaning, presumably, that he

is a Buddhist who does not follow Tri Quang’s direction.’ On another

occasion, Lodge said that Tri Quang ‘is ambitious, anti-Christian, full

of hatreds, and agitating against Khanh,’ and that ‘some communist

infiltration of Buddhists exists.’ Many other members of the diplomatic

community and the press corps who had supported Tri Quang and

other militant Buddhists in 1963 similarly became suspicious of them

during 1964.

19

From the beginning, many Vietnamese observers charged that Tri

Quang was a Communist agent. By and large, the evidence supported

this view, although there was no absolute proof. A Northerner by

birth, Tri Quang had served with the Vietnamese Communists

during the Franco-Viet Minh War. Tri Quang’s brother was an

official in the North Vietnamese government, a fact that Tri Quang

himself acknowledged. When the Buddhist protests erupted in South

Vietnam, this brother reportedly headed North Vietnam’s covert

action programs in South Vietnam.20 In June 1963, Tri Quang urged

his fellow Buddhists to seek assistance from the Viet Cong in opposing

the Diem government.21 Tri Quang’s methods of political mobilization

bore a close resemblance to those practiced by the Communists,

and they were far more advanced than those of other Vietnamese

Buddhists. When the Communists conquered South Vietnam in 1975,

they gave Tri Quang a job in Hue and he voiced no objections to their

regime, whereas they imprisoned many other monks who had a record

of political activism.22


Tri Quang repeatedly claimed that he supported the war against

the Communists, despite his denunciations of the government.23 His

deeds, however, were not consistent with those words. Tri Quang’s

actions caused enormous harm to every South Vietnamese government

that held power from 1963 to 1966, and they would have destroyed the

government had military leaders not decided finally to stop Tri Quang.

If Tri Quang was not a dedicated Communist, then he suffered from

a wild delusion that he somehow could hold off the Communists after

the collapse of the Saigon government.

On 5 August 1964, the United States bombed North Vietnamese

boats and naval installations in retaliation for the so-called Tonkin

Gulf incidents, which consisted of two apparent attacks on U.S.

warships in the Tonkin Gulf. President Lyndon Johnson used the

incidents to obtain Congressional authorization for all necessary

measures in Southeast Asia. General Khanh similarly believed that

this moment of high international tension offered a fine opportunity

to enlarge his authority. He therefore decided to declare a ‘state of

urgency’ on 7 August. By decree, Khanh empowered his police to

ban demonstrations, search private homes at any time of day, and

imprison ‘elements considered as dangerous to national security.’ The

government would impose censorship and prevent ‘the circulation

of all publications, documents, and leaflets considered as harmful

to public order.’24 Khanh also drafted a new constitution, for the

purpose of increasing his own power and depriving General Minh of

his remaining authority.25

Instead of strengthening Khanh’s political hand, however, these

moves sparked a devastating political crisis. At large demonstrations

in the cities, militant Buddhists and student groups—many of which

were heavily influenced by the militant Buddhists—demanded that

Khanh end the state of urgency and revoke the new constitution.26

The Buddhists declared that there was a Diemist conspiracy afoot,

involving Can Lao veterans, Catholics, and Dai Viets and led by

Generals Khiem and Thieu. Already, the militants alleged, the

Diemists were oppressing the Buddhists. Exaggerating the influence

of Catholics in the Khanh government, Tri Quang told U.S.

embassy officials that ‘the Buddhists could not accept government by

Christians.’ Unless the Catholics were dispossessed of their influence

in the government, Tri Quang warned, the Buddhists ‘would prefer

to withdraw from struggle, leaving Catholics aided by Americans to

fight the Communists.’27 These latest charges of religious persecution

were as unfounded as the previous accusations. Maxwell Taylor, who

recently had replaced Lodge as U.S. Ambassador, commented that the

supposed Can Lao–Catholic–Dai Viet conspiracy was ‘only a specter,’

for there was no evidence that the government was trying to mistreat

Buddhists.28

Buddhist mobs destroyed Catholic houses and churches. Government soldiers and policemen did not intervene to halt the violence,

even when the rioters were right in front of them.29 Memories of

the Diem regime undoubtedly convinced government officials that

suppressing demonstrations, especially those led by monks, would

alienate the Americans. In Da Nang, three days of clashes between

Buddhists and Catholics claimed the lives of twelve people. While the

Buddhists had carefully avoided antagonizing the United States in the

past, they now turned some of their fury onto the Americans; 2,000

demonstrators stoned an American army billet while shouting antiAmerican slogans.30 The militant Buddhist movement was moving

further and further from the spirituality that had always characterized

Vietnamese Buddhism.

As they had numerous times before, Tri Quang and other Buddhist

leaders were telling the Americans privately that they opposed

the Communists. Yet they refused to announce their opposition in public. Tri Quang claimed that it was not yet necessary to state

his anti-Communism publicly, and that he preferred to keep quiet

because it would shield him from allegations that he was working for

the government or the Americans.31 Considering that Tri Quang’s

activities were gravely undermining the anti-Communist cause, it

is difficult to believe that Tri Quang really considered a public

declaration unnecessary. Other Buddhists claimed that they did not

denounce the Communists because they were not interested in politics,

only religious freedom. Yet at the same time they were condemning

Khanh, the Saigon government, the South Vietnamese military, and

the Americans, none of whom were impinging on religious freedom.32

By this point in time, most impartial observers had concluded that

Communist agents were playing a significant role in the militant

Buddhist movement. Infiltration of the movement was very easy.

Anyone could become a monk simply by shaving his head and

putting on a saffron-colored robe. Prior to November 1963, the South

Vietnamese police had been able to hold down Communist activity in

the cities, but the post-Diem purge of police leaders had crippled the

organization. The Vietnamese Communists had undertaken covert

subversion numerous times before and it was inconceivable that they

would not have inserted agents into such an influential and highly

penetrable organization.33 A substantial number of the Buddhists

who were arrested for unruly behavior were found to be without

national identity cards, which was a strong indicator of Viet Cong

affiliation. Some Buddhist protesters moved in military formations

under the direction of whistles and drums, and they established

elaborate defenses against government forces.34 The Buddhists clearly

could not have developed such tactics on their own.


More and more people were coming to the conclusion that Tri

Quang himself was a Communist. During 1964, other Buddhist

leaders—including some of the most prominent of Tri Quang’s

former followers—began accusing Tri Quang of collaborating with

the Viet Cong.35 Tri Quang claimed to have no involvement with the

recently established People’s Revolutionary Committees in coastal

Annam, which were carrying out anti-government activities and

announcing aims very similar to those of the Communists.36 But one

of Tri Quang’s lieutenants, Dr Le Khac Quyen, headed the People’s

Revolutionary Committee in the critical city of Hue. Tri Quang’s

frequent denunciations of able government leaders with no history

of discriminating against Buddhists gave further cause to suspect the

monk’s motives.37

Some high U.S. officials now were among those who believed

Tri Quang to be a Communist. The CIA, however, remained

unconvinced. During the riots, the agency conducted a special analysis

of Tri Quang’s possible collaboration with the Communists. It found

that although numerous reports indicated that Tri Quang was a

Communist, ‘there is a lack of hard intelligence which will definitely

support the belief of many Vietnamese that Tri Quang is indeed a

Communist.’ Based on the lack of firm evidence and an admittedly

subjective assessment of Tri Quang’s personality, the report concluded

that Tri Quang was not an agent of the Vietnamese Communists. It

attributed his opposition to the government to ambition, xenophobia,

and a desire to make South Vietnam a Buddhist theocracy.38

Prime Minister Khanh again displayed his susceptibility to

demagogues and mass demonstrations. During a protest where thousands were chanting ‘down with military dictatorship,’ Khanh

joined the demonstrators in the chant in a voice as loud as any.

He tried to placate his accusers rather than defend himself against

the accusations or use force to restore order. Thus, he promised

to satisfy the newest demands.39 In Vietnam, such tolerance and

coddling of the opposition resulted in a severe loss of face and

hence in a loss of confidence among government personnel and

the public. Inheritors of the Confucian tradition, the Vietnamese

people favored the rule of the single mighty figure who brooked no

opposition.

Recognizing that the situation was becoming desperate, Khanh

sought out the militant Buddhist leaders on the night of 24 August.

He asked Tri Quang, Tam Chau, and Thinh Minh to come talk with

him at Vung Tau. They refused. Khanh then rushed to Saigon for

the same purpose, which undoubtedly reinforced the Buddhists’ view

that they could take advantage of Khanh. The three monks presented

Khanh with a written list of demands. According to this list, Khanh

would nullify the new constitution, the Military Revolutionary Council

would elect a president, and then the council would be disbanded,

thereby removing the army from politics. The monks also demanded

the dismissal of all former Can Lao members in the government.

Khanh, furthermore, had to announce publicly that he was meeting the

Buddhists’ demands. If Khanh refused to carry out these actions, they

warned, the Buddhist leadership would organize a massive campaign

of passive resistance.

Immediately after his meeting with the militant Buddhists, Khanh

asked Ambassador Taylor for advice. Taylor told him, ‘I think it is a

mistake to give in to pressure from a minority group on an issue of

this importance, particularly to an ultimatum with a short deadline.

To do so may only create further demands.’40 Taylor had identified

this danger by observing the last months of the Diem regime and

portions of Khanh’s rule. Khanh had been directly involved in those

events, yet he had not learned the lesson. The South Vietnamese

premier expressed a willingness to accept the Buddhists’ demands, on

the grounds that it would prevent Buddhist–Catholic discord in the civilian populace and the military. Khanh thought the war could not

be won without Buddhist support.41

Just a few hours after this meeting, Khanh released a communiqu´e

in which he promised to revise the constitution, cut back the press

restrictions, permit public demonstrations, and correct past abuses

with special field courts. As Taylor had predicted, however, these

concessions only led to more demands and protests from Buddhist

and student activists. Khanh then came up with a new plan, which he

succeeded in selling to a rump session of the Military Revolutionary

Council. Under this plan, the new constitution would be revoked, the

Military Revolutionary Council would elect a new chief of state, and

the council then would dissolve itself.42 Khanh had now yielded to all

of the latest Buddhist demands and had made additional concessions.

This capitulation was still insufficient to secure an expression of

support from the militant Buddhists. Only after Khanh had given

them $300,000 in cash did Tri Quang and Tam Chau agree to sign

a letter expressing support for the government, which Khanh then

publicized to show he had Buddhist backing.43 The letter, moreover,

contained yet more demands. In order to keep the monks’ support, the

letter stipulated, Khanh had to combat the Can Lao and create a new

national assembly within one year.44

Astute observers in Saigon recognized that Khanh’s lavish

concessions to the Buddhists meant that power effectively had been

handed from those desiring some semblance of order and military

effectiveness to Buddhist monks intent on promoting their own

interests and perhaps those of the Communists. In delivering the

promised concessions, Khanh would have to end many of the most

effective counter-subversive measures.

Many of the South Vietnamese generals were among those deeply

troubled by this state of affairs. The generals who had given Khanh

their consent at the rump session of the Military Revolutionary

Council had done so reluctantly, and in considerable measure because of Khanh’s firm American backing. Some of the generals who had

been absent from the rump session were outraged when they learned

what had transpired, decrying Khanh for adopting measures certain

to undermine the government’s authority. The most prominent of the

generals opposed to Khanh’s Buddhist policy were Generals Khiem

and Thieu. They were soon attempting to gain support for replacing

Khanh with General Duong Van Minh, and they were able to obtain

the cooperation of many others who had sided with Khanh initially.45

The cabal went to Taylor and sought permission to remove Khanh.

Taylor, however, replied that there should be no more coups because

they would weaken the government further. This warning sufficed to

prevent the generals from moving against Khanh.46 Several days of

squabbling among the generals resulted in an agreement that Khanh,

Minh, and Khiem would form a triumvirate that would govern for two

months, until a new government could be formed.

The triumvirate brought paratroopers to Saigon and put an end to

the rioting.47 This initial decisive action, however, was not followed

by others, and it soon became obvious that the triumvirate lacked

unity and a sense of purpose.48 Khanh made the key decisions while

Khiem and Minh had little influence, and Khanh remained a servant of

the militant Buddhists. Pressure from the Buddhists and the People’s

Revolutionary Committees caused Khanh to sack many civilian and

military officials who were not considered anti-Buddhist, including

some of the country’s best leaders.49 Buddhist clamoring also caused

Khanh to end press censorship and order the release of all the people

arrested during the rioting, at least eleven of whom were known Viet

Cong leaders.50


翻譯成正體中文


These moves and Khanh’s other concessions to the Buddhists

increased opposition to the government among the generals and

also among civilian Catholics, former Can Lao members, and Dai

Viets.51 These groups expressed nostalgia for the Diem regime,

which had performed much more effectively than its successors. On

13 September, elements of the military transformed this dissatisfaction into open rebellion. The coup attempt began in Saigon under

the leadership of former Minister of the Interior Gen. Lam Van

Phat and IV Corps Commander General Duong Van Duc. These two

men were disgusted with Khanh’s weak leadership and especially his

subservience to Buddhist demands. They were among those officers

whom Khanh had just decided to remove in response to Buddhist

pressure.52 The rebel forces took the city center without having to fire

a shot, but they were unable to find the elusive Khanh, who had fled

to Dalat when the excitement started.

On national radio, General Phat announced that he had overthrown

the government and was going to arrest Khanh.53 The new leadership

would restore the philosophy of Diem, Phat said, and Diem’s prestige

would provide strength to the regime.54 Phat described his political

plans in private conversations with Deputy Ambassador U. Alexis

Johnson and General William C. Westmoreland, who was the head

of the U.S. military command. The Americans, however, concluded

that the rebel leaders were ill-prepared to create a new government.

They told Phat and his colleagues to end the revolt, and warned that

the United States still supported the existing regime. The American

opposition to the coup dissuaded other generals from joining the

rebellion, which then convinced Phat and Duc to give up.55


Distraught by the persistent feuding among the South Vietnamese

elites, the Americans warned Khanh, Minh, and other prominent

South Vietnamese that further infighting could cause the United

States to withdraw its support of South Vietnam, which was certain

to lead to the country’s destruction.56 These warnings, however, had

little effect. After the coup attempt, Khanh replaced three of the four

corps commanders and six of the nine division commanders for failing

to support him during the coup.57

Montagnard tribesmen and the Vietnamese Confederation of

Labor, from observing Khanh’s concessions to the Buddhists, concluded that now was the time to demand concessions for themselves.

Khanh proceeded to satisfy the demands of both groups. Ambassador

Taylor, once again demonstrating his strong grasp of the South

Vietnamese political situation, observed that by making these

concessions, ‘Khanh contributes further to the atmosphere of

weakness that increasingly surrounds him.’ Khanh ‘has survived only

by making virtually unending concessions to every pressure group that

has presented itself. There is general recognition that such a process

cannot continue indefinitely and still have anything left deserving the

name of a government. We are now close to that stage.’58

Other disorders continued in the cities, most notably a large riot

in Qui Nhon that disabled the local government for a short time.

Viet Cong participation in the unrest grew further.59 In the cities

of northern South Vietnam, government commanders did nothing to

stop the rioters and provocateurs. They were not receiving any orders

from their superiors, and they had learned from experience that those

who tried to enforce the law would be removed in response to Buddhist

complaints. Demoralization set in among the governmental officials

in cities throughout the country, including Saigon.60

The High National Council, a recent creation containing representatives from the country’s major groups, assembled in late October

to select the nation’s new leadership. The council chose the aging

Pham Khac Suu as chief of state, and Suu selected Tran Van Huong as prime minister, which was the position with the most power.61 Huong,

like Diem, was a stubborn and conservative nationalist who disliked

the Communists but had refused to serve in the Bao Dai government.

He was one of the very few men with the stature and determination

that would be needed to end the political chaos in Saigon. He opposed

Khanh’s policy of lenience towards the Buddhists and intended to

implement a policy similar to Diem’s, whereby order would be restored

even if it meant suppressing Buddhist opposition.

Like Diem and unlike Khanh, Huong viewed Tri Quang as an

implacable menace to national survival. During an interview with the

American journalist Marguerite Higgins, Huong said of Tri Quang,

‘He talks like a Communist. The things he does help the Communists.

But you Americans want absolute proof. And evidence is not the same

as absolute proof. We can prove that Thich Tri Quang held a secret

meeting with Viet Cong leaders near Cap Saint Jacques. But Thich Tri

Quang is capable of saying that he was down there trying to convert

the Communists to Buddhism—and some people would believe

him !’62

The militant Buddhists immediately put Huong to the test. They

organized demonstrations to denounce his government and they

demanded the resignation of his cabinet. In a public communiqu´e,

they called Huong ‘stupid, a traitor, a fat, stubborn man without any

policy.’ The Huong government was ‘not revolutionary’ and contained

‘vestiges of the Diem regime,’ which was a particularly unjustified

charge since most members of the government had been chosen

for their lack of partisan political activities. Tri Quang offered no

alternative to Huong, saying, ‘We never want anything, and to say that

Buddhism wants this or that is wrong. We never sponsor anybody.’63

This statement ignored his organization’s fierce denunciations of

Diem, Khanh, Huong, the Catholics, the Can Lao, and the Dai Viets,

as well as the pledge of support that Tri Quang had sold to Khanh

in August. Tri Quang’s sponsorship of, and opposition to, political

individuals would only grow in the coming months.


Although the militant Buddhists usually resorted to vague generalities when explaining their opposition to Huong, what certainly

bothered them most was Huong’s intent to restore order and

resist Buddhist demands. Buddhist leaders fiercely condemned

Huong’s plans to curb public protests, and some even called for a

reduction in the government’s military activities.64 Buddhist leaders

announced that they preferred continued disorder and governmental

disintegration to a capable Huong government, despite the obvious

fact that it would abet the Viet Cong. ‘It is better to have a political

vacuum than have Huong in power,’ one Buddhist leader said. ‘This

government will have to go.’65

The Buddhist pressure notwithstanding, Huong refused to tolerate

unruly protests or make concessions. When the militant Buddhists

and students organized large demonstrations, Huong sent troops to

disperse the crowds with fire hoses and tear gas. The soldiers did their

job efficiently.66 The militant Buddhists claimed that government

security forces caused numerous fatalities and injuries in the first

weeks of Huong’s term, but no one actually perished and the number

of injuries was far lower than Buddhist leaders alleged.67 Huong

also imposed censorship and shut down ten newspapers suspected

of collaborating with the Communists.68

At a large anti-government demonstration in late November, the

militant Buddhists stepped up the violence. A mob consisting of

militant Buddhists and other protesters hurled rocks at policemen and

hit them with clubs. A few oppositionists threw concussion grenades

of the sort used by the Viet Cong, prompting a paratroop officer to

fire his pistol in their direction. Rounds from his pistol killed a fifteenyear-old boy. The Buddhists then issued an ultimatum demanding

that the army and police not touch any demonstrators and that

Huong be removed from office. Huong responded by prohibiting public

gatherings and closing schools. Reflecting his suspicion of Communist complicity, Huong announced on the radio that the disorders were

the fault of ‘irresponsible people who have either innocently or

deliberately fallen in with the Communist plan.’69

Huong succeeded in quelling the unrest in Saigon, but he did not

make progress in several other important fields. Buddhist intrigue

and disagreements arising from Buddhist protests sharpened divisions

within the South Vietnamese leadership. Huong’s cabinet and the

military leadership were split into pro- and anti-Huong factions,

and some of the anti-Huong individuals were conspiring with Tri

Quang. Because of this disunity and the devastation that had

taken place already, Huong could not resuscitate the administrative

apparatus across the country. ‘The effects of the political impasse

in Saigon gradually are making an appearance in the provinces,’

Taylor commented in one report. ‘Civilian officials, in particular, are

uncertain how to act and normally follow their instinctive tendency

toward timidity when there is not a clear voice of authority to direct

them.’70

At the beginning of December, after conferring with President

Johnson in Washington, Ambassador Taylor undertook a covert

program to curb the Buddhist opposition. He ordered U.S. embassy

officers to find ways to isolate Tri Quang and Tam Chau from the rest

of the Buddhists. The conditions were suitable for this type of effort,

for more and more Buddhist leaders were becoming disenchanted

by Tri Quang’s fierce opposition to sabotage governments that had

demonstrated no religious intolerance. At the end of the year, Mai

Tho Truyen and his Cochinchinese Buddhists broke with Tri Quang.

Attempts to unite the Cochinchinese Buddhists with other groups

against Tri Quang, however, did not succeed because of fractiousness

among the Buddhists.71

Taylor also attempted to reduce Tri Quang’s oppositionist ardor by

applying direct pressure. Embassy officials informed Tri Quang and other Vietnamese leaders that the U.S. commitment to Vietnam could

not continue unless everyone united behind the Huong government.

These threats were based on the questionable premise that Tri Quang

did not want the Americans to abandon South Vietnam. For those

Buddhists who were agents of Hanoi, such American threats only

encouraged them to oppose Huong. Simultaneously, the CIA was

making covert approaches to Tri Quang’s lieutenants and urging them

to exert a moderating influence on the monk. The pressure campaign

did not bear much fruit. Tri Quang and other Buddhist leaders

continued to condemn the government in public for its supposed antiBuddhism, and they threatened to denounce the Americans as well if

they kept supporting Huong.72

The next political crisis began on 19 December, and once again it

was provoked and influenced by the militant Buddhists. Khanh and

a group of energetic young generals called the Young Turks asked

the High National Council to retire all military officers with more

than twenty-five years of service. Both Khanh and the Young Turks

thought that the older officers not only were lacking in talent but also

were excessively sympathetic towards the militant Buddhists. The

High National Council turned down the request, which prompted the

young generals to dissolve the High National Council and arrest its

members.73

Taylor was infuriated when he found out what had taken place. He

had expected the generals to inform him of such plans in advance,

and he believed that the move was politically disastrous.74 The move

was part of a scheme by Khanh to gain effective control over the

government, Taylor suspected, and past events had led Taylor to the conclusion that Khanh was incapable of governing effectively and

resisting Buddhist pressures.75

Taylor actually had misinterpreted what had happened, for Huong

had concurred in the dissolution of the High National Council, and

the Young Turks had supported it as a means of giving more power

to Huong, not to Khanh. Huong had allied himself with the generals

so that they would help him against the militant Buddhists, whom he

viewed as the country’s worst problem.76 When Taylor subsequently

urged Huong to reject the disbandment of the High National Council,

Huong brushed him off with the remark that the Vietnamese people

‘take a more sentimental than legalistic approach,’ and thus the role

of the High National Council was far less important than the ‘moral

prestige of the leaders.’77 American advisers and intelligence officers

who were in contact with Vietnamese generals found that the military

leadership similarly did not think it important that their actions had

been illegal.78

Beset by anger, Taylor berated the Young Turks. ‘Now you have

made a real mess,’ Taylor told them. ‘We cannot carry you forever

if you do things like this.’ Nguyen Cao Ky, the commander of the

South Vietnamese Air Force, replied that change was needed, for ‘the

political situation is worse than it ever was under Diem.’ Ky explained

that the council had to be dissolved out of practical necessity. ‘We

know you want stability, but you cannot have stability until you have

unity,’ he said. Some members of the High National Council were

spreading coup rumors and creating doubts, Ky asserted, and ‘both

military and civilian leaders regard the presence of these people in the

High National Council as divisive of the Armed Forces due to their

influence.’79 In a country where factionalism was making it nearly

impossible to accomplish anything and where split authority created

confusion in the minds of the Confucianized people, the dissolution of

the High National Council was, in fact, likely to improve governmental

performance.


During a private meeting with Khanh, Taylor denounced the

dissolution of the High National Council and said that it was

inconsistent with the stability and loyalty that the Americans wanted

from the South Vietnamese government. Khanh responded that both

sides needed to be loyal in a relationship, and asserted that his country

was not an American satellite. Once, Khanh recalled, Diem had said

that the United States had not been loyal to him. Taylor blurted

out that he had lost confidence in Khanh. Khanh fired back that an

ambassador should not behave in such a way.80

Following this tempestuous exchange, Khanh initiated a fiercely

anti-American propaganda campaign. Over Radio Vietnam, he

announced that it was ‘better to live poor but proud as free citizens

of an independent country rather than in ease and shame as slaves of

the foreigners and Communists.’81 Khanh told an American journalist

that ‘if Taylor did not act more intelligently, Southeast Asia would be

lost.’ In order to succeed in Vietnam, the Americans would have to be

‘more practical’ and stop trying to make South Vietnam into a copy

of the United States, which was a completely justified jab at Taylor’s

insistence on preserving the High National Council.82

Huong did not take a firm stance against the generals’ recent

actions, which eventually convinced the Americans to mend relations

with South Vietnamese leaders. Khanh seemed willing to go along.

On 6 January, the army officially turned political control over to a

new civilian government led by Huong.83 Khanh and some of his

military cohorts, however, immediately joined with Tri Quang in

new machinations aimed at subverting this government.84 Buddhist

and student leaders organized strikes and demonstrations and issued

fresh condemnations of Huong. An interfaith committee pleaded with

the militant Buddhists to settle alleged grievances by meeting with Huong’s representatives rather than by protesting in the street, but

to no avail.

During a meeting with Ambassador Taylor, Tri Quang insisted that

the United States should force Huong’s resignation. Taylor replied

that the Vietnamese people needed to support Huong in the interest

of governmental stability. Encouraged by Huong’s early successes in

suppressing militant Buddhist disturbances, the Americans viewed

Huong as a much better leader than Khanh. In addition, U.S. embassy

officials had become more disenchanted than ever with Tri Quang

because of his baseless accusations against the government and his

lack of constructive political ideas.85

After one meeting with Tri Quang, Taylor complained, ‘All we got

was another repetitious airing of grievances which ring true only in

the ears of the leaders of the [Buddhist] Institute.’86 When Tri Quang

alleged that the police had killed four people and injured thirty who

were walking to a pagoda for prayer, the Americans investigated the

incident and discovered that no one had been killed, that only four

people had been wounded, that the incident had been instigated by a

known troublemaker, and that no troops had attempted to suppress

demonstrators.87 Khanh himself conceded to Alexis Johnson that

Buddhist complaints about the Huong government were ‘groundless,’

for the alleged acts of persecution were ‘non-existent.’88

Embassy officials also were impressed by recent Buddhist failures to

mobilize people for demonstrations. These failures, the Americans

concluded, showed that the militant Buddhists did not represent

the Buddhist masses.89 The Americans decided that the Saigon

government would have to stand up to Tri Quang’s Buddhist Institute

at some point, and the sooner the better because the task would grow

harder with each Buddhist victory.

These harsh judgments of the militant Buddhist movement were

echoed by a host of other Western sources, including the Western news organizations that had supported Tri Quang’s cause in 1963.

Peter Grose of the New York Times reported, ‘Vietnamese and foreign

observers agree that [Buddhist policy] is not a policy springing from

the deep feelings of the faithful but rather an attempt by the monks to

attain straightforward political power.’ The Buddhists were no longer

able to organize great numbers of people, he observed, and ‘their

public demonstrations, more openly political now, are more unruly, out

of keeping with the placid tenets of the Buddhist religion.’90 Newsweek

commented that Tri Quang and his colleagues ‘speak for only a small

minority of Vietnam’s Buddhists.’ Except in the cities, the militant

Buddhists ‘are little known and many of the rural Buddhists who do

know of them intensely disapprove of their perversion of religious

fervor to political ends.’91

American embassy officials continued to believe that most of the

top Buddhist leaders opposed the Communists, but more and more of

them entertained suspicions that at least Tri Quang was collaborating

with the Communists. Embassy experts agreed that less senior

Buddhist leaders, particularly those close to Tri Quang, were in league

with the Viet Cong. Most prominent among this group was Thich

Huyen Quang, the Secretary General of the Buddhist Institute and

a close friend of Tri Quang. Numerous people inside and outside

the Buddhist movement had accused him of having Communist

sympathies. Huyen Quang’s deputy, Tran Dinh, had been similarly

identified.92

The Communists, indeed, were accelerating their efforts to infiltrate opposition groups at this time. A Viet Cong leader later revealed that the Communists were making new efforts to use

allegedly non-Communist organizations to spread anti-American and

anti-government propaganda. According to the North Vietnamese

Communist Party Central Committee, the covert Communist networks in the cities were soaring to unprecedented heights. In a March

1965 resolution, the committee declared, ‘The urban movement has

grown strong in all the large cities and almost all the small cities.’93

On 18 January, in a break with his usual hard-line stance, Huong

attempted to placate the Buddhists by dismissing two ministers whom militant Buddhist leaders had criticized.94 But concessions

served Huong no better than they had served Diem or Khanh. At

a press conference two days later, Tri Quang and several of his

followers announced that they were starting a hunger strike that

would continue until Huong stepped down.95 Thien Minh, Tri Quang’s

closest comrade in the Buddhist movement, added that if Huong were

not removed, then the Buddhists would ‘call for peace.’96 Among the

South Vietnamese, a public call for peace was viewed as an attack on

the Saigon government, for it was a common Communist propaganda

measure aimed at eroding South Vietnam’s will to continue the war.

Because Hanoi held the upper hand militarily, a peace deal obviously

would favor Hanoi and likely would involve an American withdrawal.

Tri Quang promised that the Buddhist leadership would organize

no more demonstrations until after the Tet holiday, and Tam Chau

promised that there would be no demonstrations during the hunger

strike.97 Following a familiar pattern, the militant Buddhists quickly

broke these promises. Under the leadership of Tri Quang and

Tam Chau, the Buddhists initiated a rabidly anti-American protest

campaign on 23 January. Its claims were as wildly overblown as those of

previous militant Buddhist efforts. In Saigon, Buddhists and students

conducted sizeable demonstrations outside the U.S. embassy and the

U.S. Information Service’s Abraham Lincoln Library. The protesters

attacked the government for repressing Buddhists, derided Huong as

Taylor’s ‘lackey,’ and demanded that Taylor leave the country. Monks

and nuns carried banners demanding peace. After demonstrators

broke windows and doors and attacked riot policemen with stones,

Huong sent paratroopers to disperse them with tear gas and clubs.

In Hue, 5,000 demonstrators sacked the two-story U.S. Information

Service Library, then burned 8,000 books. Tri Quang’s associate

Huyen Quang released a communiqu´e stating, ‘The policy of the

United States Ambassador and Huong, lackey of the United States

Ambassador, is to let leaders of Vietnamese Buddhism die and to

exterminate Vietnamese Buddhism.’ In Da Nang, Quang Tri, and

Nha Trang, militant Buddhists convinced shop and restaurant owners

to deny service to Americans. As a result of calls from Buddhist leaders to undertake self-sacrifice, a bonzess in Nha Trang committed suicide

by setting herself on fire, and a monk in Saigon stabbed himself during

a large student demonstration. Buddhist ruffians also set a Catholic

person on fire in Saigon.98

In the northern provinces, Khanh and his principal co-conspirator,

General Nguyen Chanh Thi, took no action to control the mobs or

protect American and South Vietnamese property. They reasoned that

the chaos would ruin the Huong government and allow them to take

over.99 As the riots were raging, Khanh made a deal with the Buddhist

leaders. The armed forces would take control of the government, get

rid of Huong, respect ‘religious freedom,’ and purge any supposed

Diemists who had not been purged after the many preceding purges.

In return, the Buddhists would support the new government for at

least two years, and would send Tri Quang, Tam Chau, and Ho Giac

out of the country.100

When Alexis Johnson learned of these plans, he warned Khanh

that the United States wanted the military to support the Huong

government. Khanh simply ignored him. On the morning of

27 January, Khanh led a bloodless coup with the support of General

Thi and Air Marshal Ky. He convinced the Armed Forces Council to

put him in charge of the government, with the assurance that he would

leave politics once a twenty-man advisory council had chosen a civilian

chief of state. Some of the senior South Vietnamese officers, however,

gave their approval to this arrangement only because they thought it

would backfire, facilitating the removal of Khanh and the suppression

of the militant Buddhists.101 


On the very day of the coup, Tri Quang was already whispering

about forcing Khanh out of office, and the next afternoon he began

efforts in that direction.102 His first step was to notify the generals

that the Buddhists would no longer fulfill their promises to stay out of

politics, support the government, and send the three monks abroad.

The promises were null and void, according to the militant Buddhists,

because the military had promised to oust the government on 25

or 26 January but had not done so until 27 January. In addition to

being preposterous, this explanation was dishonest, for Tri Quang had

known all along that the coup would not take place until 27 January.103

This act of duplicity was one of the most egregious committed by

the militant Buddhists to date, and it significantly bolstered their

detractors’ argument that they were deceitful men who cared more

about destroying the existing government than destroying the Viet

Cong. The renunciation of the promises enraged some of the generals;

one told the Americans that if Khanh did not stand up to the Buddhist

Institute now, ‘his life would be in danger.’104

Khanh did not stand up to the Buddhists but instead gave in to

their demands once again while doing his best to cling to power. He

transferred Pham Van Dong from command of the capital military

district to the position of II Corps commander, which moved him

from the center of power to an area where he would have minimal

influence over Saigon’s politics. Pham Van Dong had upset the militant

Buddhists by his effective suppression of Buddhist demonstrations and

riots in Saigon.105

Once again, the Buddhists did not return the favor. It was the

Buddhists who would determine the country’s next leader, and Khanh

would not be it. The top position went to Dr Phan Huy Quat, whom Tri

Quang had long been promoting for the job. Many observers suspected

that Quat was entirely under the control of Tri Quang. Most of the

other members of the government also were Tri Quang allies who were

strongly opposed to ‘Diemism,’ which in militant Buddhist parlance meant vigorous anti-Communism and unwillingness to tolerate the

destructive activities of the Buddhist movement.106

On 19 February, just three days after the new government came

to power, another coup began under the leadership of Gen. Lam Van

Phat and Col. Pham Ngoc Thao.107 The rebels captured the Saigon

radio station and Tan Son Nhut airport, but Khanh once more evaded

his captors, this time escaping to Vung Tau. Most units in the vicinity

of Saigon chose not to take sides in the dispute.108

As had occurred in the coup of 19 September 1964, the chief

conspirators declared admiration for Diem, and they favored a return

to a government more closely resembling Diem’s. On Saigon Radio, the

rebels announced, ‘Lodge was wrong in encouraging the coup against

Diem rather than correcting mistakes.’ Phat and Thao informed Ky

privately that they and their fellow rebels would agree to end their

coup if Khanh were removed. The three of them struck a deal, after

which the rebel forces dispersed quickly and without incident. The

Armed Forces Council ordered Khanh to leave the country at once.

After an unsuccessful effort to rally support among officials in the

provinces, Khanh agreed to step down and go abroad.109

Once the Quat government began operating, it adopted a host of

measures favored by Tri Quang. It released every person who had

been detained during anti-Huong demonstrations, some of whom were Communists. In order to satisfy Tri Quang and prevent further

rebellions, Quat and his key military supporters carried out yet

another round of purges. Among the casualties of these purges were

General Pham Van Dong, General Tran Van Minh, Col. Tran Thanh

Ben, Admiral Chung Tan Cang, and General Dan Van Quang—able

men whom Tri Quang opposed because they had suppressed unruly

Buddhist demonstrations or otherwise interfered with his plans. Quat

and his allies dispersed authority across the military, preventing any

single officer from holding too much power.110

Because of the purges, the fragmentation of the military leadership,

and the Buddhists’ approval of Quat, the Quat regime faced much

less open opposition than previous governments. At the beginning of

April, the CIA was able to report, ‘For the first time since the ouster

of the Diem regime, the progressive deterioration of the political

situation seems to have been arrested.’ Stability, however, had come

at a heavy price. The government’s purges and its compliance with

other Buddhist demands led to a major weakening of the military

leadership. During no other period in its twenty-one-year history would

the Republic of Vietnam fight the Communists so poorly as during

Quat’s rule. On 26 March, General Westmoreland observed that

the South Vietnamese armed forces had ‘begun to show evidence of

fragmentation, and there is no longer an effective chain of command.

The Armed Forces are run by committee. The committee itself

is an arena for intrigue and personal ambition.’111 The miserable

performance of the Quat regime proved a truth that had become

evident during Khanh’s time in office: a government dominated by

Tri Quang and his militant Buddhist cohorts would not prosecute the

war with skill or vigor.

While Tri Quang and other Buddhist Institute leaders expressed

approval of the Quat government and refrained from creating

disturbances, they did not stay away from other forms of mischief. Quang Lien and several additional leaders from the Buddhist Institute

openly espoused a peace plan involving the withdrawal of U.S. forces

from Vietnam. Other high officials of the Buddhist Institute, Tri

Quang among them, told American officials that they disagreed with

Quang Lien. In front of other audiences, however, these individuals

endorsed Quang Lien’s position. Tri Quang told the Hong Kong Standard

that Hanoi and Washington should ‘start immediate talks’ to bring

peace, for ‘we have suffered too much, both in human lives and in

what we have.’112 When the Americans inquired about the interview,

Tri Quang resorted to his common tactic of telling the Americans

that he favored America’s policy. He claimed that he did not really

mean that the United States should negotiate now, and that in fact

he thought the Americans should avoid negotiations until the military

situation improved.113

A few weeks later, Tri Quang advised Taylor to bomb North

Vietnam.114 In this instance, there is direct evidence that the advice

was a tool to maintain America’s favor so that the militant Buddhists

could continue their subversive activities. Robert Thompson, a

renowned veteran of Britain’s counterinsurgency in Malaya and

subsequently a senior adviser to the South Vietnamese government,

recalled that after making this recommendation to Taylor, Tri Quang

‘went straight to the French to explain that he was only lulling Taylor’s

suspicions so as to have a free hand to press on with his undercover

campaign for peace at any price.’115

Casting further doubt on Tri Quang’s professed enthusiasm for an

American war against the Communists was a letter that the monk

sent the Americans in mid-May. In the letter, Tri Quang portrayed

the United States as South Vietnam’s tormentor rather than its

savior. He charged that whereas the Americans ‘are prejudiced toward

having confidence in and plotting in favor of the Catholics,’ they

‘worry and hesitate about the Buddhists as the ruler does the natives.’

The Vietnamese people thought the Americans were ‘using Catholics

to exterminate Buddhists’ and were ‘certain that all oppression is organized and condoned by the Americans.’ The Americans would

lose the war, Tri Quang warned, unless they stopped favoring the

Catholics.116 These allegations were absurd, not merely because no

one was attempting to exterminate the Buddhists, but also because

neither the Americans nor the South Vietnamese government had

shown any favoritism towards Catholics over Buddhists.

During Quat’s rule, new groups demanding peace or neutralization

sprouted in South Vietnam, and the production of propaganda by such

groups surged. Quat was surprisingly vocal in opposing these groups.

There would be no peace, he proclaimed, until the North stopped

infiltrating people to the South. He announced that the government

would take ‘all necessary measures to smash the fallacious propaganda

maneuvers that the Communists are waging with a view to deceive

public opinion, sow confusion among the population, take advantage

of the credulous . . . and carry out their Machiavellian maneuver to

take over all of Vietnam.’ Quat fired 300 civil servants who had

signed a document demanding negotiations to end the war. He did

not, however, take action against anyone in the Buddhist Institute for

advocating peace or neutralization. Quat convinced Quang Lien to

back away from his neutralization program, but only at the price of

releasing all peace movement leaders who had ties to the Buddhists.117

A new political crisis developed in Saigon at the end of May 1965.

It began when Chief of State Suu blocked an attempt by Quat to

replace two ministers whom both Quat and the Americans considered

to be incompetent.118 Suu received encouragement to resist Quat from

Cochinchinese politicians and Catholic leaders, who objected to Quat’s

favoritism towards the militant Buddhists.119 As the crisis developed,

Tri Quang began to step away from his firm pro-Quat position, for Quat was showing a certain degree of independence that Tri Quang

found troubling. In a conversation with the U.S. consul in Hue, Tri

Quang said that if Quat could not get out of the current crisis without

granting concessions to his opponents, the military should take his

place. Tri Quang apparently was worried that Quat would concede too

much to Catholics and others of whom Tri Quang disapproved, and

that he would take further steps against neutralists. If Quat needed

to be removed, Tri Quang said, the new head of state should be ‘a

man who has no religious beliefs.’ The only name he mentioned was

his close ally General Thi. ‘Thi is nominally a Buddhist,’ he said, ‘but

does not really care about religion,’ a judgment that was very suspect

because of Thi’s consistent and ongoing collaboration with the militant

Buddhists.120

On 9 June, Quat appealed to the South Vietnamese generals to

mediate the dispute.121 During a meeting with Quat, the generals

made clear that they were fed up with the political ineffectiveness of

the civilian government. They also were upset by the purges of the

South Vietnamese military during Quat’s rule, and by large military

defeats suffered in recent weeks. Disheartened by the generals’

criticisms, Quat agreed to step down and turn the government over to

the military.122

Everything was proceeding according to Tri Quang’s desires, until

the new leadership was chosen. The top positions went not to General

Thi but to Air Marshal Ky, who became prime minister and executive

chairman, and General Thieu, who assumed leadership of the ruling

committee of generals. The military leaders clearly wanted to put an

end to Tri Quang’s dominance of the government, for Ky and Thieu

were more interested in fighting the Communists than in appeasing

the militant Buddhists.

This attitude quickly became evident. Ky, Thieu, and the other

generals decided that the new government would begin by holding

a ‘no breathing week.’ The week’s activities included the imposition

of censorship, the closing of many newspapers, and the suspension

of civil liberties. Their next objective was to consign the bickering Saigon politicians to a ‘village of old trees,’ where they would

‘conduct seminars and draw up plans and programs in support of

government policy.’ On the question of opposition from religious and

political groups, they resolved to ‘ignore such opposition groups with

the stipulation that troublemakers will be shot.’ The generals also

took measures to organize the entire population into paramilitary

organizations. Infusing the civil administration with energy and

direction, the leading generals wasted no time in putting their plans

into action.123

Tri Quang apparently had not mounted strenuous opposition

to the appointments of Ky and Thieu and had believed that he

could manipulate them as he had done with Khanh. At first, Tri

Quang professed support for the new regime. Within a month,

however, once the government had shown some signs of promise,

Tri Quang was demanding its removal. He denounced Thieu for

having belonged to Diem’s Can Lao Party—despite the fact that

Thieu had played a leading role in Diem’s overthrow—and accused

him of having ‘fascistic tendencies.’ Tri Quang alleged that the ‘exCan Lao around General Ky were sabotaging his program.’ As before,

Tri Quang’s generalizations far exceeded his specific charges. When

pressed to provide an example of the sabotaging of Ky’s program,

Tri Quang could offer only this bizarre answer: ‘Ky’s decision to

shoot all speculators, since such a move could obviously never be

implemented.’124

Tri Quang would continue his groundless denunciations of the

government and his insatiable demands for concessions—which

together constituted his principal means of undermining the

government—until the Buddhist Crisis of 1966. When that crisis

erupted, rebellious Buddhists caused so much trouble that government

leaders used the army to shut down the militant Buddhist movement

by force, once and for all. Ky would banish Tri Quang to a mountain

retreat. The government finally had its showdown with the militant

Buddhists, and it was richly rewarded. Never again would the Buddhists cause such political trouble for the South Vietnamese

government.

From the Diem era all the way through the Buddhist Crisis of

1966, Tri Quang and the rest of the militant Buddhists pursued

the same strategy. They sought to weaken the existing government

by protesting publicly and extracting one concession after another.

Securing religious freedom was not one of their main goals, for their

religious freedom was never in jeopardy. Instead, what they sought was

political dominance. Some militant Buddhists wanted a government

that favored the Buddhists over other groups within South Vietnamese

society, while others were secretly conniving to open the way for a

Communist government. Had the South Vietnamese military failed to

resist the militant Buddhists in 1965 and suppress them in 1966, it is

likely that the militant Buddhists would have steered the government

into the Communist camp, for the movement’s leading figure, Tri

Quang, either was in league with the Communists or else harbored

fantasies that he could hold off the Communists without the benefit

of a strong, pro-American government.

The political successes of the militant Buddhist movement were

dependent upon the leadership of the Saigon government and the

attitude of the United States. After a series of fruitless concessions,

Ngo Dinh Diem stopped giving in as it became clearer that the

concessions did nothing to placate the Buddhists. He stifled the

Buddhist movement by shutting down the pagodas and arresting

key figures, but this victory was fleeting because it prompted the

United States to support Diem’s overthrow. Nguyen Khanh permitted

open opposition to his regime and spent much of his time making

concessions to the Buddhists, but all these measures achieved was

a weakening of the country’s anti-Communist forces and further

protests and demands from the militant Buddhists. Tran Van Huong

chose to follow the example of Diem rather than that of Khanh,

refusing to tolerate public disorders or to meet the Buddhists’

demands. This policy clearly had better prospects for success, and

the Americans now were more amenable to tough action. Huong,

however, could not finish implementing it because Khanh threw him

out.

The influence of the militant Buddhists reached its zenith when

the country was ruled by Phan Huy Quat, who did everything that

the Buddhists wanted for much of his time in power. Quat’s actions

brought the effectiveness of the South Vietnamese war effort to an

all-time low, reinforcing the lesson of the Khanh era that effective prosecution of the war was incompatible with fulfillment of the

militant Buddhists’ demands.

The principal objection that Khanh and others had raised to using

Diem’s methods against the militant Buddhists was that they would

alienate the Buddhist masses to such a degree as to cripple the war

effort. Khanh greatly overestimated the influence of the militant

Buddhists on the masses; only a small minority supported the militant

Buddhist cause. The Buddhist Crisis of 1966 would show that the

militant Buddhists could be crushed without destroying the war effort.

The suppression of the Buddhists during 1966 permanently freed

the government from harmful Buddhist pressures and made possible

a greater degree of national cohesion in South Vietnam from then

onwards.



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