He was exiled by the French in 1947 after forming the anti-French and anti-communist National Union Front. He returned to South Vietnam in 1954 with joint US and French support and, in the following year, became President of an anti-communist government of South Vietnam. He had commenced military resistance against the Vietcong by 1960 and had achieved some degree of success with both social and economic reform. However, his harshly repressive regime, in which his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, earned particular notoriety as head of political police, aroused strong local resentment and he was killed in a military coup in 1963.