Word: viets
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...from Loneliness. For austere, scholarly Ngo Dinh Diem (pronounced 'n go din d'zee-em), President and Premier of the Southeast Asian republic of South Viet Nam, Ike's invitation to make an official state visit was a triumph almost as great as Viet Nam's freedom is a shining vindication of U.S. foreign-aid policies. Less than three years ago Diem was a lonely, almost unknown Vietnamese patriot and onetime provincial governor living in self-imposed exile from French colonial rule-among other places, in the U.S., where he spent several years as a guest...
Recalled to Saigon by the French, and named Premier after the Communist victory at Dienbienphu, Roman Catholic Diem (his family has been Catholic since the 17th century) took office just as the big powers at Geneva were about to halt the Indo-China war by splitting Viet Nam in two-with the industrialized northern half going to Communist Ho Chi Minh. Sixteen months later Nationalist Diem took the final step. Overwhelmingly victorious in a national referendum which ousted the French puppet-Emperor, and named Diem chief of state, he proclaimed Viet Nam a republic, became its first President. Even with...
...Backwardness. In speeches to a joint session of Congress and the National Press Club last week, President Diem talked earnestly on three themes. Time and again he thanked the U.S. for its outpouring of "moral and material aid," without which Viet Nam could not have "overcome the chaos brought about by the war and the Geneva accords . . I could not repeat too often how much the Vietnamese people are grateful for American aid." Unequivocally he denounced Red China and Russia: "Since Communism is not neutral, we cannot be neutral...
Like every other chief of state in Southeast Asia. South Viet Nam's President Ngo Dinh Diem was disturbed by the disproportionate economic influence wielded by his country's closely knit 1,000,000 "overseas Chinese."* In South Viet Nam 75% of the country's rice and corn trade is Chinese-controlled, and Chinese entrepreneurs dominate much of the nation's export-import trade, banking and shopkeeping. President Diem felt that Chinese who lived and worked in South Viet Nam should become Vietnamese citizens. The Chinese, respectable, law-abiding, but ever prideful of their heritage, disagreed...
Eight months ago Diem issued executive decrees disbarring Chinese and other foreigners from eleven lines of business, proclaimed 500,000 Viet Nam-born Chinese males (known as "uncles") forthwith Vietnamized, and commanded them to take new names. South Viet Nam's Chinese, one of Southeast Asia's most outspokenly anti-Communist communities, reacted promptly. Some Chinese businessmen simply took in a Vietnamese partner as a cover, stayed right on in business. But many others, partly from pride, partly because they thought Diem was bluffing, decided to hold...