Ng� ��nh Diệm (January 3, 1901–November 2, 1963) was the first President of South Vietnam (1955-63).

Contents

1 Rise to power 2 U.S. ties 3 Coup and assassination 4 Quotes 5 Further Reading 6 External links

Rise to power

Diem was born in Huế, the original capital of the Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam. The Ngo family is a Catholic noble family in Vietnam. He was a civil servant in the government of Emperor Bao Dai before World War II but resigned after accusing the Emperor of being a "tool" of the French. He was a strong nationalist and anti-Communist; his elder brother (Dinh Thuc) was archbishop of Hue.

In 1945 he was imprisoned and exiled to China following conflicts with anti-French Communist forces that were gaining power in Vietnam. After his release, he refused to join in the brief post-war government of Ho Chi Minh and went into exile in the USA. He returned to be appointed Prime Minister of South Vietnam by Emperor Bao Dai in 1954 following the French withdrawal. He rejected the Geneva Accord (which called for unification and elections in 1956); on October 26, 1955, in a disputed nationwide referendum, the people voted to remove the emperor Bao Dai as head of state and elect Diem the first President of the Republic of Vietnam.

When the referendum was held, Diem's troops guarded the polls and those who attempted to vote for the Emperor were assaulted. Diem's detractors say that the fraud was obvious. In Saigon, for example, Diem claimed more votes than there were registered voters in the entire area. Emperor Bao Dai was forced to abdicate rather than divide the country further and issued one last appeal for the country to unite under a democratic government. Diem's American advisors were frustrated by this, as no one believed the long-absent former monarch could have posed much of a popular threat from his chateaux in France.

His rule was firm, puritanical and nepotistic. His most trusted official was his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, leader of the primary pro-Diem political party. His brother's wife Madame Nhu was South Vietnam's First Lady and she led the way in Diem's programs to reform Saigon society according to his own Catholic values. Brothels and opium dens were closed, divorce and abortion made illegal and adultery laws were strengthened. Diem also won a street war with the forces of the gangster Le Van Vien, the notorious ruler of the Cholon brothels and gambling houses who had enjoyed special favors under the French and Bao Dai. Ngo Dinh Diem was also passionately anti-Communist and many attribute rising sympathy for the NVA-backed National Liberation Front (more commonly known as the Viet Cong) to his rule.

U.S. ties

Diem forged a relationship with the United States for support, while retaining policies toward the Buddhist majority which were criticized as hostile and biased in favor of the minority Roman Catholic population (of which Diem was a member). The United States supported Diem out of concern that the North's Communist influence, growing more popular, would permeate South Vietnam. Furthermore, the U.S. government was worried that corruption in a democratic referendum would inevitably lead to the installation of a Communist government. Given these fears, the U.S. continued to provide Diem with support in spite of his unpopularity.

Diem's acquiescence to large-scale support by the United States ensured his political dominance, but also rendered his government subordinate to U.S. decision-making.

Diem's ineffective land reforms are thought to have contributed to increasing popular support in the South for Ho Chi Minh and his more successful reforms in the North. The enforcement of his moral values was often unpopular and the Buddhist community resented the favor he showed to his fellow Catholics. While the U.S. had supported Diem's rise to power, it grew frustrated by his desire for independence. The nominal U.S. support he retained was based on a situational allegiance only, and the U.S. was increasingly wary of Diem's ineffectiveness as President.

The U.S. strategists had originally hoped that Diem could be the charismatic equivalent of Ho Chi Minh, but their opinions began to change in the 1960s. They were annoyed that Diem had not implemented land reforms to compete with the highly popular Communist program, and U.S. planners agreed that the nepotism and corruption in his government was hurting the Southern cause.

Coup and assassination

When the regime turned on a protest by Buddhist monks in June 1963, the U.S. stopped giving aid. A small number of monks had immolated themselves in public protest, and the U.S. grew intensely annoyed with Diem's unpopular public image. In their defense, Diem and Nhu claimed that the Communists had infiltrated the Buddhist groups, and that their crackdown was in accordance with the agreed-upon anti-Communist policy. Madame Nhu infamously referred to the incident as a 'barbequeing'.

U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge refused to meet with Diem and began to encourage ARVN Generals led by General Duong Van Minh that overthrew the government and ordered Captain Nhung to execute President Diem, his younger brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, on November 1, 1963.

The U.S leadership had publicly expressed shock and disappointment that Diem had been killed, but records show that they made no attempts to dissuade the plotters from such an action, and were not surprised with the coup. It could be said that America's reticence to intervene in the coup gave lie to the idea that the U.S. was wantonly propping up such 'puppet regimes'.

At the time of the coup d'etat Madame Nhu was in Beverly Hills, California with her daughter, Le Thuy, for a trip to the United States and Italy, where she intended to expose a scheming President John F. Kennedy and the CIA to the American public.

When Madame Nhu learned of the coup d'etat she immediately suspected the United States saying, "Whoever has the Americans as allies does not need enemies". Madame Nhu went on to predict a dark future for Vietnam and that, by being involved in the coup, the troubles of the United States in Vietnam were only begining.

U.S. President John F. Kennedy was soon after assassinated as well. The new President Lyndon Johnson would pursue the strategy of creating a "proxy war" in Vietnam with far more gusto than Kennedy had shown, confirming Nhu's predictions.

Quotes

• "If Your Majesty ever has cause to be dissatisfied with my handling of our country's affairs, you have but to speak the word and I will step down."

• "The Communists will defeat us, not by virtue of their strength, but because of our weakness. They will win by default."

Further Reading

Frances Fitzgerald. 1972. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-31-615919-0, ISBN 0-67-972394-3, ISBN 0-31-628423-8.

Robert Mann. 2001. A Grand Delusion: America's Descent into Vietnam. New York: Perseus. ISBN 0-46-504370-4, ISBN 0-46-504369-0.

See also: Vietnam War

External links

• JFK and the Diem Coup (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB101/index.htm) - Provided by the National Security Archive.
• Diem Biography (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/VNngo.htm) From Spartacus Educational

de:Ngo Dinh Diem ja:ゴ・ディン・ジェム vi:Ngô Ðình Diệm zh:吴庭艳