Ngo Dinh Diem

Paper Summary:

The paper reviews the life of Ngo Dinh Diem as a means to understanding the causes of the Vietnam war. After touching on Diem's early life and rise to the premiership, the paper focuses on his correspondence with the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. The paper analyzes Diem's and his brother Nhu's campaign of deception against the American government in order to secure more funds for their personal use. The paper ends with their death, and concludes that following their build up of the threat of war, and Kennedy's subsequent assassination, there was no more possibility of a peaceful solution.

From the Paper:

"A symbol of the political and moral disaster of Vietnam is the life and death of Ngo Dinh Diem. "Born in 1901, Ngo Dinh Diem was born into an aristocratic, Roman Catholic family with close ties to the Emperor. He served in Emperor Bao Dai's administration under French colonial rule until 1933." [1] During and after World War II he opposed both French colonial rule and the communist-led independence movement. As an anti-Communist he turned down an offer from Ho Chi Minh to become part of his government, in 1945. As a result of his opposition to the French and to the communists, he spent several years in exile, where he worked to get American political support for a postwar independent Vietnam. He, of course, wanted to lead that government,. "One chronicler dubbed Ngo 'the last Confucius', who believed that Vietnam needed the benevolent, authoritarian rule of enlightened elites." [2]"

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