Tag: ngo dinh diem

Categories
Education Reading Vietnam War

Latest read: Death of a Generation How the Assassinations of Diem and JFK Prolonged the Vietnam War

Death of a Generation: How the Assassinations of Diem and JFK Prolonged the Vietnam War by Howard Jones is a compelling well written topic that focuses on the critical years of the Kennedy Administration and the evolving US war in Vietnam. Jones has painstakingly researched how Diem was a key part of the increase of Vietcong success in and around Saigon from 1960.

Death of a Generation: How the Assassinations of Diem and JFK Prolonged the Vietnam WarThe first half of the book details the repeated frustration all political and military leaders had with Diem only to see in 1961 the transfer of power to his brother Nhu.

Jones brings the opening eight chapters into focus on Diem’s inability to reform the political and social process in the south, locking his family into full control of the country’s wealth. The role of the US ambassadors were to move the Diem family towards democracy. We never succeeded.

At the same time the coming crisis is revealed with behind the scenes accounts of the multiple clashes within the Kennedy Administration. This contributed to Kennedy’s lack of trust with the Joint Chiefs of Staff following their Bay of Pigs fiasco. Jones has done well to bring the European and Cuban conflicts into the scope of how the US was approaching Vietnam, and ultimately China and the Soviet Union.

The Battle of Ap Bac in 1963 proved to be a perfect sign of how bad the South would fight in their first major battle. John Paul Vann‘s role in Ap Bac is now legendary. Coupled with the June Buddhist crisis and the worldwide attention to the self-immolation of Quang Duc which forever turned the south against Diem and his family. It was the fallout of this event that the Kennedy administration began exploring how to engineer a coup de tat.

Continue reading “Latest read: Death of a Generation How the Assassinations of Diem and JFK Prolonged the Vietnam War”
Categories
Education Vietnam War

50th anniversary: Diem assassination

This weekend marks the 50th anniversary of the US-backed assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of South Vietnam. He was America’s handpicked leader to the stillborn democracy in Saigon.

Ngo Dinh Diem assassination

This anniversary marks the beginning of a long reflection over America’s involvement in the Vietnam war. The coup d’état and murder of Diem and his brother Nhu deepened America’s already long standing commitment to a war against the communist north.

Spearheading the upcoming anniversary will certainly be the Pentagon Papers from the US National Archives. Declassified and released for the first time in history these papers now allow permit further insight surrounding the US involvement in Southeast Asia following World War II.

Coupled with the slow release of books, classified documents and interviews with combatants from all sides we now understand our mistakes in Vietnam. Documents reveal a splinter within the Kennedy White House.

The direction for the coup was driven by Henry Cabot Lodge and McGeorge Bundy, not by President Kennedy. Lodge and Bundy made critical decisions without Kennedy’s knowledge or involvement.  A military aid acting only on the orders of Lodge was in contact with the military leaders who drove Diem from Saigon.  It is now known Lodge’s aid also gave $40,000 to the military as payment for the coup. Kennedy was assassinated just three weeks later.

Categories
Education Reading Vietnam War

Kennedy’s planned withdrawal from Vietnam

The Pentagon Papers reveal President Kennedy’s planned withdrawal from Vietnam in August 1961.  The Papers [Part V. B-4] Justification of the War. Internal Documents. The Kennedy Administration. Book II reveal (page 544) a clear frustration with South Vietnamese President Diem.

Pentagon PapersThe frustration with Diem appears to have actually reached a point of abandoning the US commitment. Diem’s totalitarian rule against all dissent, especially with the backdrop of the Buddhist crisis had driven a wedge between Washington and Saigon.

Diem and his brother Nhu (who ran the South Vietnamese secret police) used the crisis as a way to arrest all suspected threats to their rule.  Torture was widely used to force confessions.

This included arresting members of military who were just on the outside of Diem’s inner circle of generals. Subsequent files reveal the US had to interject to secure the release of some senior military advisors who were supporting Washington who were among those students arrested and tortured during the Buddhist crisis.

The President initiated a series of meeting which outcome reporting from Saigon showed a shift in US views towards fighting communism in Asia:7b. The second basic factor, as outlined by Hilsman, was what effect will be felt on our programs elsewhere in Asia if we acquiesce to a strong Nhu-dominated government. In this connection, he reported that there is a Korean study now under-way on just how much repression the United states will tolerate before pulling out her aid. Mr. McNamara stated that he had not seen this study and would be anxious to have it.

7c. The third basic factor is Mr. Nhu, his personality and his policy. Hilsman recalled that NQu has once already launched an ef~ort aimed at withdrawal of our province advisors and stated that he is sure he is in conversation with the French. He gave, as supporting evidence, the content of an intercepted message, which Mr. Bundy asked to see. Ambassador Nolting expressed the opinion that Diem will not make a deal with Ho Chi Minh on Ho’s terms.

Continue reading “Kennedy’s planned withdrawal from Vietnam”
Categories
Education Reading Vietnam War

Latest read: The Making of a Quagmire

Hindsight makes us brilliant.  David Halberstam brought his experiences writing in Saigon for the New York Times in late 1962 into this book “The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam During the Kennedy Era” in which he won a pulitzer prize for international reporting from Vietnam in 1964.  In many ways its a perfect prequel to his wonderful book The Best and the Brightest.

There are terrible lessons from the long US involvement in Vietnam that echo today.  Its fair to say we Americans like to repeat history.  This book written almost thirty years ago yet tells much about our approach in Afghanistan and Iraq.  The quick lesson is that America regardless of party backed Ngo Dinh Diem from 1955 until plotting his assassination in 1963.  Diem was actually living in a catholic monastery in New Jersey for three years before returning to Vietnam to become South Vietnam’s first President.

Halberstam makes it clear early in the book that the war in Vietnam was lost during the Eisenhower Administration. The war against the North continued to fail throughout the coutnryside of South Vietnam during Kennedy’s short Presidency.

Halberstam shows how the war was not lost in Saigon or the Central Highlands. It was lost in the Mekong Delta between 1956-1959. But the US back Diem insisting on saving Vietnam from communism, tolerated a corrupt Diem family and fought a war for another 20 years before finally giving up.  Halberstam does not spare America its sinking America’s loss as a world power.  Again I find his writing to be powerful lessons for today.

Continue reading “Latest read: The Making of a Quagmire”