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All About Ph?m Ng?c Th?o
Colonel Ph?m Ng?c Th?o (IPA:, ), also known as Albert Th?o , was a communist agent of the Viet Minh (and, later, of the Vietnam People's Army) who infiltrated the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and also became a major provincial leader in South Vietnam
In 1962, he was made overseer of Ng� ��nh Nhu's Strategic Hamlet Program in South Vietnam and deliberately forced it forward at an unsustainable speed, causing the production of poorly equipped and poorly defended villages and the growth of rural resentment toward the regime of President Ng� ��nh Di?m, Nhu's elder brother.
During the First Indochina War, Th?o was a communist officer in the Vietminh and helped oversee various operations in the Mekong Delta in the far south, at one point commanding his future enemy Nguy?n Kh�nh, who briefly served the communist cause
After the French withdrawal and the partition of Vietnam, Th?o stayed in the south and made a show of renouncing communism
He became part of the military establishment in the anti-communist southern regime and quickly rose through the ranks
Nominally Catholic, Th?o befriended Di?m's elder brother, Archbishop Pierre Martin Ng� ��nh Th?c�the devoutly Roman Catholic Ng� family strongly favored co-religionists and had great trust in Th?o, unaware that he was still loyal to the communists
He went on to serve as the chief of B?n Tre Province, and gained fame after the area�traditionally a communist stronghold�suddenly became peaceful and prosperous
Vietnamese and US officials, as well as journalists hostile to or supportive of Saigon, misinterpreted this as a testament to Th?o's great ability, and he was promoted to a more powerful position where he could further his sabotage
Th?o and the communists in the local area had simply decided to stop fighting, so that the communists could quietly recuperate, while Th?o would appear to be very skillful and be given a more important job where he could do more damage.
Through intrigue, Th?o also helped destabilise and ultimately unseat two South Vietnamese regimes�Diem's and the military junta of Kh�nh
As the Di?m regime began to unravel in 1963, Th?o was one of the officers planning a coup
His plot was ultimately integrated into the successful plot and his activities promoted infighting which weakened the government and distracted the military from fighting the Viet Cong insurgency
Throughout 1964 and 1965, as South Vietnam was struggling to establish a stable state after the ouster of Di?m, Th?o was involved in several intrigues and coup plots which diverted the government from implementing its programs
In 1965, he went into hiding after a failed attempt to seize power from Kh�nh and was sentenced to death in absentia
Although this coup also failed, the subsequent chaos forced Kh�nh's junta to collapse
Th?o died the same year he was forced into hiding; it is believed that he was murdered after a bounty was placed on his head
After Vietnam was reunified at the end of the Vietnam War, the victorious communists claimed Th?o as one of their own and posthumously made him a one-star general.