Word: diem
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...south, in the non-Communist half of Indo-China, the story was dismally different. In Saigon, Premier Ngo Dinh Diem struggled against heavy odds to keep his shaky government alive. Every petty chieftain and palace politician with a few friends and a few guns seemed to be demanding a share of power. Diem had few friends and no guns...
Many Guns. Emperor Bao Dai had dipped a negligent finger into the troubled waters, sent orders to Diem from his comfortable villa in Cannes to take three bit ter rivals into his Cabinet. One was General Le Van Vien, whose principal qualification for office was that he headed the Binh Xuyen, a "religious" sect which controls the city's police and also Saigon's gambling (last spring Bao Dai gave him control of the national "surete," too). Another was General Nguyen Van Xuan. who had been Premier of Viet Nam in 1946. The third was General Nguyen...
...three weeks Diem stalled while...
Hinh went around Saigon's cafes boasting that he could bring off a coup d'etat any time. "Diem doesn't know the people, and the people don't like him," Hinh said. "He has two good qualities. He's honest and pure. So is my daughter...
...outlook in Viet Nam, reported Mansfield bluntly, is "grim and discouraging." Diem is a virtual prisoner in his residence, the victim of "an incredible campaign of subversion by intrigue." His "constructive program . . . remains largely a paper program. It is kept that way by a kind of conspiracy of noncooperation and sabotage by those who oppose him." The army "is on the way to being converted into the private army of its commander" for political use, said Mansfield. "The petty-power groups in South Viet Nam appear completely oblivious to the overhanging shadow of the Viet Minh, which before long...