LYCOS RETRIEVER 
South Vietnam: North Vietnamese
built 657 days ago
Diem's unpopularity was so great that in November 1963, the South Vietnamese Army overthrew and killed him. The confusion at a political level in South Vietnam and the abuse of peasants rights within the agricultural community were two reasons for the spread of communism within the south. Such a development alarmed the American president, Lyndon Johnson, who had asked his military chiefs to formulate plans should a full-scale war break out. The one proviso the chiefs-of-staff had was that America had to be seen as the victim rather than the aggressor.
Source:
Seeking to complete the destruction of the Viet Cong unit that had withdrawn further south to the Batangan Peninsula, in September U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine, and South Vietnamese forces, including Coastal Force elements, conducted Operation Piranha. Learning from the costly Starlite setback... the Communists now avoided pitched battles on the coast and evaded the allied search. Although 178 enemy soldiers were reported killed, contact was light throughout the action.
Source:
...On November 1-2, 1963, a military coup toppled the South Vietnamese government; [Premier Ngo Dinh] Diem (1901-63) was killed; and a military-controlled provisional regime was established. A period of political instability ensued, with South Vietnam trying to strengthen its anti-communist military effort. By 1965, the Armed Forces Council, headed by Generals Nguyen Cao Ky (1930-) and Nguyen Van Thieu (1923-), was running the country.
Source:
Kennedy agreed and in 1961 he arranged for the South Vietnamese to receive the money necessary to increase the size of their army from 150,000 to 170,000. He ... agreed to send another 100 military advisers to Vietnam to help train the South Vietnamese army. As this decision broke the terms of the Geneva Agreement, it was kept from the American public.
Source:
The Tet Offensive was particularly tragic for the South Vietnamese populace. It ... reverberated loudly back home in America. In particular, it negatively impacted American public opinion, calling into question Pentagon and Johnson Administration claims that America was winning the war.
Source:
[T]he American advisers set about training the South Vietnamese army (ARVN) in modem fighting methods. For it was coming clear that it was only a matter of time before the anti-Diem forces would resort to open warfare.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
North Vietnamese