Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America's War in Vietnam, 1950-1963

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Rowman & Littlefield, 2006 - Biography & Autobiography - 207 pages
For almost a decade, the tyrannical Ngo Dinh Diem governed South Vietnam as a one-party police state while the U.S. financed his tyranny. In this new book, Seth Jacobs traces the history of American support for Diem from his first appearance in Washington as a penniless expatriate in 1950 to his murder by South Vietnamese soldiers on the outskirts of Saigon in 1963. Drawing on recent scholarship and newly available primary sources, Cold War Mandarin explores how Diem became America's bastion against a communist South Vietnam, and why the Kennedy and Eisenhower administrations kept his regime afloat. Finally, Jacobs examines the brilliantly organized public-relations campaign by Saigon's Buddhists that persuaded Washington to collude in the overthrow--and assassination--of its longtime ally. In this clear and succinct analysis, Jacobs details the "Diem experiment," and makes it clear how America's policy of "sink or swim with Ngo Dinh Diem" ultimately drew the country into the longest war in its history.
 

Contents

The Kind of Asian We Can Live With Diem Wins American Support
15
Let Our People Go The Geneva Accords and Passage to Freedom
37
This Fellow Is Impossible The Collins Mission
59
Miracle Man Diems Regime in Myth and Reality
83
Truth Shall Burst Forth in Irresistible Waves of Hatred Cracks in the Facade
111
A Scenario of Torture Persecution and Worse The Diem Experiment in Decline
135
No Respectable Turning Back Collapse of the Diem Experiment
157
Conclusion
185
Bibliographic Essay
191
Index
195
About the Author
Copyright

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Page 1 - You have certainly done your duty. As I told you only this morning, I admire your courage and your great contributions to your country. No one can take away from you the credit for all you have done. Now I am worried about your physical safety. I have a report that those in charge of the current activity offer you and your brother safe conduct out of the country if you resign.
Page 1 - LODGE: I do not feel well enough informed to be able to tell you. I have heard the shooting, but am not acquainted with all the facts. Also it is 4:30 AM in Washington and the US Government cannot possibly have a view.
Page 2 - I admire your courage and your great contributions to your country. No one can take away from you the credit for all you have done. Now I am worried about your physical safety. I have a report that those in charge of the current activity offer you and your brother safe conduct out of the country if you resign. Had you heard this? Diem: No. (And then after a pause) You have my telephone number. Lodge: Yes. If I can do anything for your physical safety, please call me. Diem: I am trying to re-establish...

About the author (2006)

Seth Jacobs is assistant professor in the Department of History at Boston College. He is the author of America's Miracle Man in Vietnam: Ngo Dinh Diem, Religion, Race, and U.S. Intervention in Southeast Asia. In 2001, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations honored him with its Stuart Bernath Prize for the best article published in the field of diplomatic history.

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