Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao a.k.a Albert Thao was a South Vietnamese colonel who began his military career as the Vietminh's head of espionage in Saigon but renounced communism after the country was divided. He later achieved prominence after putting down a coup led by disloyal officers against President Ngo Dinh Diem. He managed to become fast friends with the President's family, as he was seen amongst the armed forces as a pious Catholic. Soon, he was named overseer of the Strategic Hamlet Program, which was a program to transfer the rural population to villages defended against Viet Cong guerillas.
The program soon failed as the poorly funded and underequipped villages proved to be easy pickings for the insurgents. However, this was all according to plan as Colonel Thao had never truly renounced communism, he had been a spy for the North Vietnamese all along. He later supported the overthrow of President Dinh and became a prominent member of the military junta that followed. He became close allies with his former subordinate, Nguyen Khanh, the de facto leader of Vietnam who was involved in a power struggle with Tran Thien Khiem, his own deputy.
Thao began siding with Khiem in his power struggle and began a new plot to overthrow Khanh and destabilize the nation. He did this with the backing of several pro-Diem officers including Lam Van Phat, whose previous coup attempt was stopped largely thanks to Thao. However, the U.S refused to back Thao, worried that his pro-Diem policies would isolate the Buddhist majority, causing the coup to fail. While Thao's coup did fail, it did force Khanh to resign, creating massive instability.
This would later cause South Vietnam to descend into an alliance of warlords who were then united under Nguyen Cao Ky, a man who named Hitler his greatest hero. But what if Thao was successful in his coup? How would a spy rule a country his employers were at war with? Would he continue to destabilize the nation even further? How would this affect the course of the war? And how will South Vietnam react when they find out their leader was working for the enemy all along?
The program soon failed as the poorly funded and underequipped villages proved to be easy pickings for the insurgents. However, this was all according to plan as Colonel Thao had never truly renounced communism, he had been a spy for the North Vietnamese all along. He later supported the overthrow of President Dinh and became a prominent member of the military junta that followed. He became close allies with his former subordinate, Nguyen Khanh, the de facto leader of Vietnam who was involved in a power struggle with Tran Thien Khiem, his own deputy.
Thao began siding with Khiem in his power struggle and began a new plot to overthrow Khanh and destabilize the nation. He did this with the backing of several pro-Diem officers including Lam Van Phat, whose previous coup attempt was stopped largely thanks to Thao. However, the U.S refused to back Thao, worried that his pro-Diem policies would isolate the Buddhist majority, causing the coup to fail. While Thao's coup did fail, it did force Khanh to resign, creating massive instability.
This would later cause South Vietnam to descend into an alliance of warlords who were then united under Nguyen Cao Ky, a man who named Hitler his greatest hero. But what if Thao was successful in his coup? How would a spy rule a country his employers were at war with? Would he continue to destabilize the nation even further? How would this affect the course of the war? And how will South Vietnam react when they find out their leader was working for the enemy all along?