Politician who became State of Vietnam premier in 1954, ousted Bảo Đại and was South Vietnam’s first president until killed in 1963
Born into a Catholic mandarin family in Huế and a former colonial official, he was an anti-communist nationalist. Bảo Đại appointed him prime minister of the State of Vietnam in June 1954, during the Geneva conference. With American support he ousted Bảo Đại in a 1955 referendum and became the first president of South Vietnam (the Republic of Vietnam), and the reunification elections promised at Geneva for 1956 were never held. His family-centred authoritarian rule and repression of Buddhists provoked opposition, and he was captured and killed in the CIA-backed coup of 1963.