Continued (3/3)

1959
North Vietnam launches its campaign to reunite Vietnam by all means necessary. Diem launches a violent campaign to destroy the Caodai, a monotheist Eastern Mystic religious sect, whose followers had shown opposition to his rule, the Hoa Hao, a Buddhist folk cult which saw urbanised modern life as inherently evil, and the Binh Xuyen, an ultra-nationalist paramilitary crime syndicate based in the army and in the Saigon underworld. Diem regarded these organisations as either potential allies of the Communists, or rivals to his power.

1960
Officers from the Airborne Division, without US knowledge, launch an unsuccessful coup.

1961
In preparation for an official visit to South Vietnam by the Vice-President, the US Director of Central Intelligence (CIA Director), Alan Dulles, reports that around half of the region south and south-west of Saigon, the capital, is under Communist control, with government officials unable to operate there without considerable military support. The report criticises Diem as autocratic, corrupt, and intolerant.

On 12th May Vice-President Lyndon Johnson visits Saigon to meet with Diem. He calls Diem the ‘Churchill’ of Asia. Johnson promises military aid, and upon his return to the USA, tells reporters that losing in Vietnam would mean the USA would have to fight Communism “on the beaches of Waikiki”, and eventually on the shores of the continental United States.

1963
Amidst the ongoing campaign against Buddhist protests sweeping the country, Diem enters into a secret negotiation with North Vietnam to exchange rice for coal, in order to relieve a famine in the north. The negotiations are conducted through the International Control Commission, set up by the French. Diem’s brother Nhu leaks the negotiation to the US journalist Joseph Alsop of The Washington Post. He is a close friend of President Kennedy, whose Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, orders the CIA to prepare a coup against Diem on the advice of Roger Hilsman, an intelligence chief with deep ties to the CIA.

On 2nd October, Duong Van Minh, a General in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, meets with Lucien Conein of the CIA, to ask how the USA might react to a coup by the military against Diem. Within days, the US Ambassador, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., replies that the US would not interfere.

On 2nd November, Conein gives Minh a bag containing around $400,000 in today’s money, and then informs the CIA station chiefs that the coup is starting. Once Diem and his brother Nhu are captured, they are assassinated in the back of an M113 armoured personnel carrier.

On 22nd November, President Kennedy is assassinated.

Pat X