The Binh Xuyen, a private army led by criminal warlord Le Van Vien, was an obstacle to the stabilisation of South Vietnam in the 1950s. This report on the Binh Xuyen and Ngo Dinh Diem‘s responses appeared in the New York Times on April 24th 1955:

“There is a quality of nightmare about Saigon. It is like one of those dreams in which the horror comes, suddenly, from the realisation that the normal has become grotesque and the everyday has become strange and frightening.

Here is a city that looks like one of a dozen in southern France, a monument to the homesickness of its colonisers… But everything is out of focus and somehow wrong. The cafe sitters joke nervously about their own bravery because wasn’t it only a couple of nights ago that somebody tossed a grenade at the Hotel Majestic Cafe… In a hotel, a drunk hammers on his door and 50 people call the reception desk, wanting to know if the place is under attack… Two truckloads of soldiers pass each other and people on the street step into a doorway. The soldiers are enemies. This time they pass each other quietly. Next time, maybe they won’t.

The nightmare is carried over into politics… In the centre of this nightmare is Premier Ngo Dinh Diem, a small, intense man and a deeply religious Roman Catholic. He took office 10 months ago and has been battling keep politically alive. At first, it was the Army Chief of Staff, Nguyen Van Hinh, who defied him. Ngo Dinh Diem won that fight, only to find himself fighting an armed rebellion in his capital.

Ranged against Ngo Dinh Diem are some of the religious sects and especially the non-religious private army of General Le Van Vien, known as the Binh Xuyen. The Binh Xuyen have lived on government subsidies and on the profits from prostitution, gambling and other vice industries. They were helpful to the French in the fight against the Communists [but] Ngo Dinh Diem began cutting their income and powers and the Binh Xuyen declared war.

At first the United States was in favour of crushing the Binh Xuyen. But Ngo Dinh Diem, held back by the French, missed the psychological opportunity – the night of March 29th and 30th, when the Binh Xuyen attacked and the [South] Vietnamese Army was ready to go on the counter-offensive. Since then, the United States has come to believe that an open fight now would lead to civil war, that the Binh Xuyen might be defeated in Saigon but could carry on a guerrilla war in the back country…

As for the French, there are few Frenchmen in Saigon who would not be happy to see Ngo Dinh Diem go. They say he is hard to deal with, a dictatorial, stubborn man. Ngo Dinh Diem’s backers say the French simply mean they cannot control him. The French believe that the time has come to replace Ngo Dinh Diem with a “like-minded but more flexible man”…

As for the Americans, there is little doubt that a certain disenchantment with Ngo Dinh Diem has set in. There is criticism that he does not know how to cooperate with other political figures and that there is too much nepotism in the government. But the fact remains that the United States still believes that to force out Ngo Dinh Diem now would be a victory for the feudalistic and separatist elements in Vietnam, and would make a Communist takeover that much easier.

For the time being, at least, the United States will stick with Ngo Dinh Diem, and the chances are the French will have to go along… But as long as the private armies exist in South Vietnam, no government will be secure. Meanwhile, to the north, the Communists keep a satisfied watch.”