Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 16, 2013

Lê Quang Tung (1923–63) was the commander of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces under the command of Ngô Đình Nhu, brother of South Vietnam's president, Ngô Đình Diệm. During the 1950s, Tung was a high-ranking official in Nhu's Cần Lao, a secret political apparatus which maintained the Ngô family's grip on power. Appointed as commander of the special forces in 1960, his leadership was noted more for repressing dissidents than fighting the Viet Cong insurgents. His most well-known attack was the raid on Xá Lợi pagoda in August 1963 in which hundreds died or disappeared. Tung's main military programme was a scheme in which army personnel attempted to infiltrate North Vietnam for intelligence gathering and sabotage. The program was ineffective, with the vast majority of infiltrators being killed or captured. Tung was also reported to be planning an assassination attempt on Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., the U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam. Following the pagoda raids, America terminated funding to Tung's men because they were used as a political tool rather than against the communists. Along with Diệm and Nhu, Tung was assassinated during the November 1963 coup. (Full article...)

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