Phạm Ngọc Thảo

Colonel Phạm Ngọc Thảo, also known as Albert Thảo, was a communist sleeper agent of the Viet Minh who infiltrated the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and also became a major provincial leader in South Vietnam. In 1962, he was made overseer of Ngô Đình Nhu's Strategic Hamlet Program in South Vietnam and deliberately forced it forward at an unsustainable speed, causing the production of poorly equipped and poorly defended villages and the growth of rural resentment toward the regime of President Ngô Đình Diệm, Nhu's elder brother. In light of the failed "land reform" efforts in North Vietnam, the Hanoi government welcomed Thao's efforts to undermine Diem.