Eventually, Ba Cụt was surrounded, and sought to make a peace deal with the Diệm government to avoid being taken prisoner. Ba Cụt sent a message to Nguyễn Ngọc Thơ, the public official who oversaw the civilian side of the campaign against the Hòa Hảo, asking for negotiations so that his men could be integrated into mainstream society and the nation's armed forces. Thơ agreed to meet Ba Cụt alone in the jungle, and despite fears that the meeting was a Hòa Hảo trap, he was not ambushed. However, Ba Cụt began asking for additional concessions and the meeting ended in a stalemate. According to historian Hue-Tam Ho Tai, Ba Cụt's lifelong antipathy towards Thơ's family influenced his behaviour during his last stand. Ba Cụt was arrested by a patrol on 13 April 1956, and his remaining forces were defeated in battle. Contemporary political commentators based in France and Vietnam saw his capture as the death knell for domestic military opposition to President Diệm, while US Embassy official Daniel Anderson speculated that defeat of "the most able and spectacular leader" of the sects would lead to a collapse in non-communist armed opposition.