Vietnam, Protest, and Counterculture 455tinued to feud, so Khanh was overthrown in the spring, returned in the sum-
mer, and was ousted again in September. At that point, Tran Van Huong
became president, only to be removed under Buddhist pressure in December
and replaced by Phan Huy Quat, who in turn was replaced by a government
led by both Huong and Khanh in January 1965. Between the Diem coup and
February 1965, there were over a dozen different governments in the RVN,
with 6 between September 1964 and the following February alone. Amid such
disarray, the ambassador in Saigon, General Maxwell D. Taylor, found it
“impossible to foresee a stable and effective government under any name in
anything like the near future.” The president, typically, was more blunt: “no
more of this coup shit,” he ordered his aides.
The government instability in the South was making things worse, and the
VC and NLF were gaining strength below the 17th parallel, leading Johnson
FIGuRE 9-3 Chart showing the u.S. Navy’s explanation of the Gulf of
Tonkin incident