Word: diem
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Henceforth, Diem's path was increasingly beset by missed opportunities and aborted chances. To some extent, he became a captive of his own close-knit family. Brother Nhu, without holding elective or appointive office, became the intellectual power behind the regime, as well as the organizer of its secret police. Brother Can supplied muscle, running central Viet Nam like a warlord. Brother Thuc, Archbishop of Hué, offered spiritual guidance, undismayed by occasional, barely concealed reproofs from the Vatican. To the band of brothers was added the indomitable sister-in-law, Mme. Nhu, whose dedicated feminism resulted...
Into this seemingly doomed situation stepped a scholarly, introverted and humorless man of 53, whose major qualification for the job was that he was one of the few South Viet Nam leaders who had not already failed. A convinced nationalist and an intense Roman Catholic, Ngo Dinh Diem came from a mandarin family long accustomed to rule. Diem himself nearly became a priest but decided against it because, says his brother, Archbishop Thuc, "the church was too worldly...
...nearly everything else. Because he distrusted their motives, Diem refused his support to the French colonialists, the Japanese invaders and the local Communists. He went into self-exile in the U.S. and Belgium, living in Roman Catholic monasteries. In 1954, needing a scapegoat for their collapsing policies in Asia, France offered Diem the premiership of South Viet...
Smashed Gangsters. All his early opponents underestimated him. An army commander, who boasted that he had only to lift a phone to stage a coup, soon found himself out of a job and out of the country. Playboy Emperor Bao Dai challenged Diem at the polls, and found his throne voted out of existence by 98% of the citizens. Diem smashed the gangsters who ran Saigon and routed the armies of the religious sects-with the help of the general who last week supplanted him. He also launched a comprehensive land reform program and, on a grass-roots tour...
Inevitably, the concentration of family power evoked hostility and even hatred. But talk of revolts and assassination attempts only increased Diem's reliance on his family. After the abortive coup against his regime three years ago, he said with icy calm: "It was nothing-a handful of adventurers." He grew less and less willing to delegate authority. In the war against the Communist Viet Cong, Diem took personal charge of army units as small as a battalion. Often, able field commanders were switched to desk jobs in Saigon where, as potential rivals, they could be carefully watched...