Trần Văn Đôn

Trần Văn Đôn (born August 19, 1917 in Bordeaux, France) was a general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, and one of the principal figures in the coup d'état which deposed Ngô Đình Diệm from the presidency of South Vietnam.

Đôn's father was the son of a wealthy Mekong Delta landowner, which allowed him to travel to France to study medicine. It was during this period that Đôn was born. He returned to France as an adult for his university study. He became a French Army officer when World War II began, later training at École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr, the French equivalent of West Point.

He returned to Vietnam and served in the French-backed Vietnamese National Army of the French-backed State of Vietnam, fighting against the Việt Minh in the First Indochina War. Đôn was a colonel in 1955, when he and then fellow colonel Dương Văn Minh helped Ngô Đình Diệm establish himself in control of South Vietnam following the Geneva Accords and partition by helping to subdue the private armies of the Hòa Hảo and Cao Đài religious sects, as well as the Bình Xuyên organized crime syndicate. Both were immediately promoted to the rank of general. With the proclamation of the Republic of Vietnam, military officers were faced with becoming Vietnamese citizens if they wanted to remain in their positions. Đôn became a Vietnamese citizen.

...
Wikipedia