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If sheer heft could help him run South Viet Nam, Big Minh would have no problem. A Gulliver among his country's Lilliputians, he stands just under 6 ft. and weighs around 200 lbs., has a pronounced slouch caused from constantly having to stoop over to hear his countrymen. American military advisers nicknamed him Big to distinguish him from a smaller-statured fellow officer who is not related to him, Lieut. General Tran Van ("Little") Minh. Vietnamese good-naturedly call Minh "Beo," or Fat Boy.
Prison to Prison. Born in Mytho, 35 miles southwest of Saigon, Minh graduated from a lycée run by the French, in 1940 enlisted in the French colonial army and was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant. He spent most of World War II serving under a Vichy colonial administration that did the bid ding of the Japanese invaders. But in March 1945, when Vichy surrendered the French colony to the Japanese outright, Minh joined a band of defiant, lower-echelon soldiers who organized heroic but futile resistance to the capitulation. Minh was taken prisoner by the Japanese, beaten and tortured by having most of his teeth yanked out. Minh is proud of his dental scars and today, when he neglects to wear his false-tooth plate, he smiles just the same, uninhibitedly showing off his half-empty mouth.
Released by the Japanese after two months, Minh duly reported back to the French—only to be jailed for his insurrection. He and several other prisoners were put in a crowded, reeking cell with neither light nor toilet, ankle-deep in human excrement. Minh "almost went crazy," was freed after three months, thanks to a fellow prisoner who was released before Minh and intervened on his behalf with the French commandant. The friend: Nguyen Ngoc Tho, Diem's Vice President and the military junta's choice last week for Premier. Although Minh is universally deemed anti-Communist and pro-West, the experience in jail heightened his nationalism. However, after his release, he accepted a promotion to 1st lieutenant in the French forces, spent four years attached to the puppet regime of Emperor Bao Dai.
In 1952, with independence only two years away, Minh transferred to the newly formed Vietnamese army with the grade of major. After a stint of advanced study at Paris' general staff school, he returned and, following Diem's installation in 1955, launched his guerrilla-style campaign against the Binh Xuyen bandits. He also helped Diem in his campaign to subdue two fanatic, rebellious religious sects, the Hoa Hao and Cao Dai. After a second training tour abroad—this one at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, where he picked up serviceable English—Minh in 1958 was chosen by Diem to be the first boss of a field operations command to coordinate the mounting war against Communist Viet Cong guerrillas.