"A Bag of Earth, A Promise To Keep"

Viet Weekly ^ | November 26, 2006 | MIKE NALLY

[jason1998]

He is 80 years old, his hair and wispy goatee are snow whitẹ But his eyes are still sharp, alert, inquisitive, and his manner is feistỵ Gen. Nguyen Khanh was the man who overthrew the government of Gen. Duong “Big Minh” Van Minh in a coup on Jan. 20, 1964 in Saigon. The coup took place shortly after South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem was murdered. Saigon gained the reputation back then as the “double cross capital of the world.” Khanh, who some critics labeled ruthless, shrewd, and unreliable, was head of state of South Vietnam until Feb. 25, 1965 when he was forced out of power and boarded a plane at Tan Son Nhat Airport.In an interview with Viet Weekly last Sunday at the Ramada Hotel in Garden Grove, Khanh looked back on his 40 years in exilẹ