In Saigon's yellow stucco Freedom Palace, South Viet Nam's President Ngo Dinh Diem woke with a start. Mortar shells were falling on the lawn, and paratroopers were assaulting the palace gate.
Tough, zealously anti-Communist Ngo Dinh Diem, 59, had been in tight spots before; he kept his nerve. From guard posts on the grounds and from within the building, Diem's two loyal battalions of palace guards gave as good as they got, turning back truckload after truckload of insurgents trying to charge the gate to the grounds. Diem himself repaired to a radio station that he had thoughtfully installed for...
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