Word: mecklin
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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MISSION IN TORMENT, by John Mecklin. The author, who was USIS chief in Saigon from 1962 to 1964, takes a balanced second look at U.S. policy toward Viet Nam and especially toward the late Ngo Dinh Diem. Mecklin feels that the U.S. measured Diem only by his intransigence and overlooked his legitimate sovereignty, thereupon condoning the coup that unleashed warring factions and led to six more coups...
...from Washington flew a new ambassador, Henry Cabot Lodge. "For application of the new policy," says Mecklin, "the President had found exactly the right man. Ambassador Lodge proved to be an able executioner...
...Desperate Surgery." Mecklin's account of the coup and of the murder of Diem and Nhu is colorful but carefully subjective-he reports only what he saw. Although he states categorically that Lodge was intent on getting rid of Diem and that he knew the coup was planned-indeed had spoken with the coup leaders-Mecklin does not charge that the U.S. Mission was directly involved...
Still, the deed was done. Was it justified? Mecklin thinks not. "A coup d'etat in such circumstances," he writes, "was desperate surgery. The odds against success were comparable with, say, a kidney transplant." And indeed the graft didn't take. Diem's successors proved unable to halt the "relentless deterioration, confirming in dreary succession all the black predictions of those who had opposed the coup...
...Unalterable Obligation." The lessons that emerge from Mecklin's account are sad but simple. Highhanded as he was, Diem deserved greater understanding from the U.S. Writes Mecklin: "Just as the U.S. should insist on effective action against a guerrilla enemy, we should rigidly limit our interference to this objective. We should accept almost any extreme of public embarrassment, even at the expense of our 'dignity,' to permit the host government to enjoy the trappings of independence...