Читать книгу The Vietnam War: History in an Hour - Neil Smith - Страница 9

Building South Vietnam, 1954–63

The aftermath of the Geneva peace conference saw Ngo Dinh Diem appointed Prime Minister by Head of State, Bao Dai, and one million refugees flee south from above the parallel. With Vietnam partitioned at the 17th parallel, US settled on a policy of turning the southern State into a permanent bulwark against the rising tide of Asiatic communism, with Diem at the helm.

However, several obstacles were in the way of achieving this goal. For a start, Diem faced opposition from Bao Dai who gave Diem little authority, and only used him as a source of income from the US, and the main South Vietnamese sects: Binh Xuyen, a large militia with strong links to the criminal underworld; the Cao Dai; and the Hoa Hao. External powers also posed potential problems for Diem, with the French retaining 160,000 troops in the country, and a large concentration of communist agitators remaining around the Mekong Delta. Furthermore, the Geneva Accords included an agreement to hold a unification election in 1956. Using a combination of bribery, CIA counter-insurgency, and brute force, Diem was able to subdue the sect’s rebellion by June 1955. By October 1955, Diem annihilated Bao Dai in a rigged referendum (Diem won 98.2 per cent of the vote) over who should run the country, and transformed the monarchy into the Republic of Vietnam (RVN). As a result of concerted US pressure, the French were finally persuaded to leave Vietnam by April 1956. Regarding the unification elections, neither Diem nor his US supporters showed any willingness to participate. The US pointed to a legal technicality in that they had not signed the Accords, therefore were not bound by them, and suggested that as the North was effectively a one-party communist State, the elections there would, in no sense, be free.

Vietnamese Air Force pledging its support for President Ngo Dinh Diem after a political uprising, Saigon, South Vietnam, March 1962

NARA

Diem’s regime was not based on popular consent, nor did it aspire to win the support of the Vietnamese people. The government was dominated by Catholics, in a country where only 10 per cent were of a similar faith, and the major offices of State were placed in the hands of Diem’s own family. His youngest brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, held a variety of powerful positions: Minister of the Interior, Diem’s main advisor, and chief of the Can Lao secret police. Another brother, Ngo Dinh Thuc was also appointed the Catholic archbishop of Hue. The regime was the embodiment of political corruption, and consequently there was no meaningful attempt to introduce political, economic or social reforms. The US response was to ignore Diem’s failure to establish a mandated government in the South, while sending clear signals that he was on the right track.

Eisenhower’s government provided military aid at a ratio of 4:1 to that of general economic aid. In all public meetings with Diem, successive US politicians praised him and held him up as a bastion of anti-Communism. Diem’s 1957 visit to the US saw him extolled by President Eisenhower for his ‘heroism and statesmanship’, while he was given a ticker tape parade through New York. Four years later, Vice President Johnson hailed Diem as the ‘Churchill of Asia’. The main reason why the US chose to tolerate a dictator who appeared, in the longer term, to be harmful to their chances of building a stable republic below the 17th parallel is that, above all else, Diem’s credentials as an anti-communist were impeccable. He had made a name for himself as a hard-line opponent while serving as governor in Binh Thuan Province during the 1920s and early 30s. As leader of the RVN he instigated a brutal campaign against suspected and actual communists. Over 50,000 political opponents were sent to labour camps, and 12,000 executed during 1955–59, with a further 2,000 killed by the ARVN during the small uprising in 1957. The impact on the southern Communists was severe: of the 10,000 or so members of the Vietnam Workers Party who remained in the South after partition, an estimated 5,000 remained by 1959. However, the effect on the population at large was to further alienate Diem from the people.

As well as opposition from the communists, several other groups – Buddhists, nationalists, religious sects, and intellectuals – coalesced under the broad banner of the National Liberation Front (NLF) in 1960. Although it was dismissed as a communist front by the US, who referred to it as the Viet Cong communist party, it illustrated the range of groups who refused to accept Diem as leader. As infiltration from the north continued apace, non-violent protests also increased in frequency. The critical moment came on 8 May 1963 when ARVN troops attacked demonstrators in Hue, killing nine monks. One month later, on 11 June, a Buddhist monk, Thich Quang set himself on fire in Saigon; the self-immolation was captured on film and broadcast around the world. The response of the regime was as predictable as it was callous. Ngo Dinh Nhu’s wife, Mme. Nhu described the scene as a barbeque in a television interview, and on 21 August, Diem used Special Forces to impose martial law and attack pagodas, the Buddist places of worship, throughout the country.

A day after the attacks, Henry Cabot Lodge arrived in Saigon as US Ambassador to Vietnam. He was quickly informed by ARVN officers of an impending coup against Diem and his family. While US pressure forced the officers to postpone their plan, President Kennedy’s criticism of Diem in his interview with Walter Cronkite on 2 September made it clear that the US was unlikely to support Diem’s authoritarian strategy in the long term.