A more serious effort to bring down the central government occurred in November when a group of military officers led by Colonel Nguyen Chanh Thi, the commander of a newly formed (1959) ARVN airborne brigade, staged an abortive coup d’etat in Saigon. Two companies of Vietnamese Marines joined Thi’s rebellious paratroops.[3-C] But the power struggle, which began in the early morning hours of 11 November, ended when units loyal to President Diem converged on the capital. Realizing that the balance had been tipped against them, the coup leaders fled the country and the incident was closed. While it had failed to bring down the Diem government, Thi’s attempted coup had revived the possibility of efforts by military leaders to seize control of the government and had injected a new element of uncertainty into South Vietnam’s already unstable internal situation. [3-C] Vietnamese Marine participation in the abortive coup of 10 November 1960 is covered in greater detail elsewhere in this chapter. Two other danger signals flashed across Southeast Asia shortly after the abortive coup. In January 1961, Communist leaders in Hanoi announced that the National Liberation Front (NLF) had been founded in the South on 20 December 1960 with the stated purpose of closely uniting the “various classes of the South Vietnamese patriotic population in the struggle against the Americans and Diem....”[3-6] In truth, the NLF emerged as a fully developed Communist political organization imported from North Vietnam for the purpose of controlling, directing, and coordinating the insurgency south of the 17th parallel. For American officials, the announced establishment of the NLF signified that Ho Chi Minh’s government had opted for the forceful reunification of North and South. Elsewhere in Southeast Asia, another event led to further speculation that the war in Vietnam was about to enter a new phase. Backed by the North Vietnamese Army, Communist Pathet Lao forces seized control of the southeastern portion of the Laotian panhandle. Thus, the North Vietnamese obtained a protected corridor along South Vietnam’s northwestern border through which men and materiel could be infiltrated to the South. The establishment of the NLF and the Communist takeover in southern Laos coincided roughly with approval in Washington of a comprehensive plan designed to help President Diem restore internal order. Designated the Counter-Insurgency Plan (CIP), this study had been ordered by President Eisenhower in early 1960. Developed by Lieutenant General Lionel C. McGarr, U.S. Army, the officer who had relieved General Williams as MAAG Chief, the completed CIP reached the White House shortly after President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in January 1961. Significantly, its arrival came at a time when the Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev, was publicly pledging his country’s support for “wars of national liberation.”