Word: diem
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Successful military coups, by their very nature, must come by surprise. Yet an attempt to overthrow the Diem regime in Viet Nam has been "in the wind" for months, as TIME readers know. Last September, in a five-column story, TIME discussed the dissatisfaction in the army and illustrated it with photographs of five generals and one colonel. Our top two pictures were of Generals Minh and Don, who led last week's coup. In Saigon, TIME Correspondent Murray Gart watched the attack on Diem's palace lying flat on his belly on a rooftop less than...
...even with that fact taken into consideration, there remained considerable doubt that the U.S.-encouraged coup would actually achieve what it was intended to. One major charge against the Diem regime was that it was not democratic enough to win and hold the support of the Vietnamese populace. There is certainly no assurance that a military junta will be any more democratic. Indeed, in some broader areas of policy, the U.S. appears to have painted itself into a corner. Recently the U.S., in protesting coups in such Latin American countries as Peru, Honduras and the Dominican Republic, has said that...
...that policy is to speed a successful end to the war against the Communists. To achieve that, the U.S. is now clearly committed to back General Minh with even more American money and, if necessary, even more American lives. If it works, if Minh does manage better than Diem, if the war's pace is indeed stepped up, and if the U.S. is thereby enabled to pull out of Viet Nam sooner, then the policy will be a triumph. But these are a lot of ifs. And if they turn sour, the outcome could affect the cold war balance...
...week in Saigon began and ended with death. At its start, another Buddhist, the seventh, chose the now notorious way of protest against President Ngo Dinh Diem's regime. Soaked in gasoline, he rode up to a crowded square, struck a spark, and went up in flames before anyone could stop him. At week's end, Diem himself lay dead alongside his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu. The two men who had fought so long and so stubbornly-against Communism, against their critics, against the Buddhist demonstrators-had been consumed by a fire more slowly and carefully prepared...
Planned withdrawals could save the United States from stranding itself in the South Vietnamese swamps because of policy inertia. When the approved American line was to support Diem regardless of his liabilities because Washington was concerned with defeating the Vietcong, this support was justified by two main points in favor of Diem: (1) Any attempt to overthrow him would disrupt the war effort and (2) no suitable substitutes existed...