In August 1998, I presented a preliminary report about General Hieu’s death in the article Cover-up of General Hieu’s Death. After an extended six-year journey attempting to uncover this mysterious death, now I have reached the final phase in the analysis of the collected data – which are quite adequate –allowing to ascertain a plausible conclusion.
I was fortunate to discover and made contact with the principal witnesses who were present at III Corps Headquarters on the day General Hieu was assassinated: (1) Brigadier General Ly Tong Ba, 25th Division, (2) Colonel Nguyen Khuyen, Chief of III Corps Military Security Bureau, (3) Lieutenant Colonel, Nguyen Khuyen, III Corps Military Police Commander, (4) Military Doctor Luong Khanh Chi, III Corps Medical Unit Chief, (5) Colonel Ta Thanh Long, Head of Vietnamese Delegation, member of the 4-Party and 2-Side Combined Military Committee, (6) Colonel Le Van Trang, III Corps Artillery Unit Commander, (7) Major General Dao Duy An, III Corps Deputy Commander/Territory, (8) Colonel Phan Huy Luong, Assistant to III Corps Deputy Commander/Operations, (9) Captain Do Duc, General Toan’s Attaché, (10) General Nguyen Van Toan, (11) Brigadier General Le Trung Tuong, III Corps Chief of Staff, (12) Colonel Le Trong Dam, II Corps Police Force Commander, and (13) Lieutenant Colonel Ly Ngoc Duong, M.D., General Toan’s Chief of Cabinet.
Among these 13 witnesses, the first nine stood at the peripheral area, and the last five stood at the center vis-a-vis General Hieu’s death. Colonel Khuyen narrated the crime scene as he heard from Colonel Luong. Colonel Long, Colonel, Trang and Major General An said that after having left III Corps Headquarters and reached the office or home, they got a phone call from Colonel Luong breaking the news of General Hieu’s death and when they returned to III Corps Headquarters, they were forbidden to approach General Hieu’s body. Meanwhile Colonel Luong’s whereabout when things occurred was unknown, and he said that he was not the one who first ran into General Hieu’s office, and also he did not place a phone call to anyone whatsoever to communicate the bad news.
These discrepancies between Colonel Khuyen, Colonel Long, and Colonel Trang’s testimonies on one side and Colonel Luong’s on the other hand, can be explained by a mix up of identities between Brigadier General Tuong, III Corps Chief of Staff and Colonel Luong, Assistant to III Corps Deputy Commander/Operations. Colonel Khuyen wrote: I did not know what to do but to go in to see Colonel Phan Huy Luong, who was the Chief of Staff of the 3rd Corps. Colonel Long wrote: During the meeting, General Hieu sat in the middle. At his left: General Dao Duy An, chief of Staff and Colonel Phan Huy Luong, Deputy Chief of Staff/Operations. And he added further: At that point, Colonel Luong stepped in to invite General Hieu to go to supper. General An and I stood up and excused ourselves. Meanwhile, Brigadier General Tuong and Doctor Duong both said General Hieu invited Brigadier General Tuong, and not Colonel Luong to join him for dinner. Furthermore, Brigadier General Tuong wrote that he was the one who ran into General Hieu’s office when he heard the gunshot, and Doctor Duong said that Brigadier General Tuong phoned him to break the news: "Hieu is dead".
Captain Do Duc recounted that when he returned to III Corps Headquarters, "General Toan had ordered General Hieu's office cordoned, and so, I did not get to see the crime scene."
Lieutenant Colonel Quyen and Doctor Chi were summoned to III Corps Headquarters to write up forensic reports; however, it was clear that they were pressured by General Toan and his clique not to tell the truth and to present the facts according to the cover-up scheme concocted by III Corps Headquarters.
Not only the four last individuals were first-hand witnesses, but they were also key players in plotting and carrying out the assassination of General Hieu.
The likely scenario of the event unfolded as follows.
Around 8:00 a.m. on April 8, 1975, the Presidential Palace was bombed. President Thieu panicked at the thought of an imminent coup. He ordered the determination of the positions of military commanders throughout the four military regions and received an intelligence report from General Quang stating that all military commanders were at their regular locations, except General Hieu who was present at Go Dau Ha having some meeting with Brigadier General Tran Quang Khoi, III Corps Assault Task Force Commander. President Thieu immediately suspected General Hieu was fomenting a coup. He recalled that four years ago, in June 1971, General Nguyen Van Minh had alerted him that General Hieu colluded with Brigadier General Khoi in maneuvering units of III Corps Assault Task Force to Loc Ninh under the pretext of rescuing the besieged troops in Snoul to bring tanks in Saigon for a coup. General Vinh Loc wrote in Lá Thư Gửi Người Bạn Mỹ (Letters to an American Friend) that President Thieu was paranoid even toward his own reflection and projection, and dread that Paratroopers and Armored units might topple him down (page 82). He sensed that this time, he must eliminate General Hieu as a preventive measure. The order was relayed to General Toan, III Corps Commander.
Around 9:00 a.m., General Hieu, flew back to III Corps Headquarters. From his office, he phoned home at Chi Hoa Officers Co-op to caution his wife not to allow the children to play on the streets because a 100 percent camp confinement was promulgated, then went on working as usual.
Around 10:00 am, General Hieu, held a meeting with Colonel Nguyen Khuyen, III Corps Chief Bureau of Military Security. The meeting ended before 11:00 am. After sending off everybody for lunchtime, he returned to his office. Upon entering the office, the assassin jumped over from behind, delivered a chopping blow at the back of neck causing a temporary immobilization, then used a small Browing P6.35 mm caliber pistol to shoot at the right-hand side of the chin. The bullet pierced the chin, traveled up to the brain and lodged inside the skull without exiting the head. After killing General Hieu with the particular tiny pistol, the assassin put General Hieu’s pistol in his hand, pointed it to the ceiling, and used General Hieu’s finger to trigger a shot. Afterward, he slipped back to a safe haven within General Toan’s office...
Upon hearing the gunshot, Colonel Phan Huy Luong, General Hieu's Assistant, ran over and witnessed the crime. He immediately called the Military Police to come to do the investigation then phoned to break the news to Colonel Khuyen and Brigadier General Tran Dinh Tho, G3 Chief/JGS.
Ranks and files at III Corps Headquarters received a gag order not to discuss General Hieu’s death. General Toan kept secret the fact the killing happened by noontime and worked out a cover-up scheme with his three co-conspirators (Duong, Dam and Tuong) that pointed the time of death at 7:00 pm and the motive of death as a suicide/an accidental death caused by a self-inflicted wounded.
General Tuong had his staff communicate the news to General Hieu’s family by phone and by dispatching General Hieu’s driver to Saigon. The driver drove Madame General Hieu and her eldest son to Bien Hoa that same night. Upon their arrival, she was ushered directly into General Hieu’s office, where she found her husband’s head slump on his desk. Consequently, there was a cover-up attempt in carrying General Hieu’s body from the dispensary back to the office. When she returned home, she told her father-in-law: "there was no blood anywhere-just a speck of it under his chin."
In the official press conference at III Corps Headquarters, a reporter raised the question of how did General Hieu die; the spokesperson, being prompted General Hieu had committed suicide, improvised pitifully: "with a bullet wound in his mouth." (it is of common practice, when one commits suicide, to either press the pistol against one’s temple or insert its barrel into one’s mouth). Brigadier General Tuong, for his part, falsely recounted with impunity to Colonel Khuyen that he saw "General Hieu lying immobile in his armchair next to the desk. Blood streamed effusively down his face and chest. A bullet had pierced his forehead and went straight up to the brain. The bullet found the force to reach up to the ceiling and perforated it.[…] Blood and pieces of brain splattered on the wall!"
Doctor Duong was somehow wiser than Brigadier General Tuong in rejecting the suicide scenario: "I did not think so because General Hieu was a devoted catholic." He therefore creatively advanced the theory of a self-inflicted wound caused by an accidental pistol discharge since General Hieu liked to play with pistols. Thus, when he was asked how did General Hieu die, General Toan responded: "I saw he had died from a pistol bullet piercing through his eye and exiting the top of his head, causing him to die right at his desk.". He visualized General Hieu, after cleaning his pistol, turn it around, closing one eye, the other eye peering directly into the barrel to detect any residual dust!
One strange fact ought to be pointed out: while testimonies from witnesses in terms of time, circumstances and bullet path in General Hieu’s death differed from each other, they all agreed in stating that General Hieu liked to play with pistol and had been a champion in pistol shooting competition; this trait, they all concurred, was likely the cause of his death. Doctor Duong even noticed that "that fateful morning, the Engineering Unit returned a pistol that General Hieu had asked to repair a faulty trigger mechanism."
Another strange fact is worthwhile mentioning; the majority of the witnesses opened their testimonies in stating that they recalled the event vividly like it just happened yesterday; but when they were pressed to come up with specifics, they fumbled pitifully with such expressions as I didn’t pay attention, I didn’t recall, I don’t know, I mixed up, and Let me double-check further
Two individuals came close to General Hieu’s body to examine the wound thoroughly: Doctor Duong and Doctor Tri. Doctor Duong recounted: "I saw General Hieu sitting on his chair, his head slumping on the desk, his left arm resting on the desk, his right arm dangling above the floor, and a pistol lying next to his hand on the floor. I noticed that the bullet went from his neck … uh … uh … uh…no, it was not so, let me repeat it, from the right-hand side jaw to the left hand side temple." When I asked him: "Was the temple churned up by the bullet impact?", he answered: "I did not pay attention to that detail." I drilled him further: "Was the pistol that lied next to General Hieu’s body a P.38 type?", he responded: "I am a physician, and am ignorant in terms of weapons." Doctor Tri, for his part, showed his sympathy in telling a relative of General Hieu’s who came to visit his body: "the bullet upon entering the chin, encountered the jaw bone which was too solid for it to go straight up to the top of the head, and had to veer down and exited to the back of the skull, resulting in an instantaneous death, with no feeling of pain." Not only these observations made by two medical professionals differed - one said the bullet exited the temple, the other the back of the skull - but they were also totally false, because, in fact, the bullet exited near the top of the head, slightly toward the right; the skull still intact with only a tiny red dot, as I had observed with my own eyes when I visited my brother’s body.
Two things indicate Colonel Dam was closely involved in General Hieu’s death. (1) Although it was thirty years ago, he still remembered he was present at III Corps Headquarters at 2:00 p.m that day and was adamant in contradicting Colonel Khuyen, Chief of III Corps Military Security, who claimed that General Hieu had died at noon. (2) When I poked him aiming at extracting from him how he left Saigon in 1975 on three different occasions, he did not reveal he was with General Toan on the last helicopter flight to the US 7th Fleet. The first time, he said he went by way of Ha Tien; the second time, he said he did like me, which was to be picked up by US Marines Corps from Tan Son Nhat airport; and the third time, he talked about General Toan’s helicopter flight but failed to mention the fact he was on it. When it was beneficial, even not asked, he volunteered information; but when it was detrimental, even under intense interrogation, his lips remained tight.
Upon learning General Hieu’s death, everybody speculated that General Toan shot General Hieu following a heated argument over tactics. General Hieu’s assassination was the result of careful plotting, carrying out by a small group composed of four members (Toan, Tuong, Duong, and Dam). General Toan could only be part of the killing of General Hieu in the case he received anorder from higher authority, and General Toan’s superior could only be President Thieu.
Therefore, in General Hieu’s death, Thieu was the mastermind ordering the killing, Toan the ring leader of the plotters carrying out the order, Tuong, Duong, and Dam the executors of the plot with Tuong and Duong playing the role of insiders leading the way, and Dam provided the particular P6.35 mm pistol to the assassin, Captain Do Duc.
On May 6, 2015, I received a revelation from an American military intelligence source :
At 10:45 am, when General Hieu entered his III Corps Deputy Commander's office, the assassin jumped over from behind, delivered a chopping blow at the back of neck causing a temporary immobilization, then used a small Browning P6.35 mm
caliber pistol to shoot at the right-hand side of the chin. The bullet pierced the chin, traveled up to the brain, and lodged inside the skull without exiting the head.
The assassin was General Toan's bodyguard, Captain Đỗ Đức, a third-degree black-belt Taekwondo.
Lieutenant Đỗ Đức standing behind General Toan (5/1972, Kontum)After the killing, General Toan called President Thieu and reported back to him: "Mission accomplie".
Nguyen Van Tin
03 October 2004
Updated on 05.07.2015