Where the Domino Fell - America And Vietnam 1945-1995
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Ngo Dinh Diem soon had the Khmer even angrier at him, along with the Buddhists and the Montagnards.
As soon as the Geneva Accords divided the country, Diem, Lansdale, and CIA operatives had encouraged northern Catholics to move south, warning that the communists would persecute them if they stayed where they were. Agents sent messages that the Virgin Mary was living in Saigon. More than 600,000 Catholics moved to South Vietnam. Another 300,000 North Vietnamese—former soldiers in the Vietnamese National Army, colonial administrators, and businessmen afraid of what the communists would do to them—also left. They emigrated in complete village units, led by the parish priest, with nothing but what they could carry. Once in South Vietnam these people increased the Roman Catholic population to 1.5 million people. Those with good educations moved into the South Vietnamese civil service. For others the government established 319 villages, giving the immigrants land and financial support until they could establish an economic foothold. More than 400,000 settled in the Mekong Delta, most of them on land that had traditionally been worked by the Khmer. The Khmer sense of alienation strengthened. Diem also placed nearly 100,000 immigrant Catholics in the Central Highlands, giving them Montagnard land. Diem believed the Montagnard should learn to speak Vietnamese, leave the mountains, study a useful trade, and adopt Vietnamese values. He approached the Montagnard much as Americans had treated the Indians in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. The South Vietnamese developed programs to relocate the Montagnard and provided them with schools, all the while giving their land to other Vietnamese. The expulsion gave the Vietminh the opportunity to promise the Montagnard that once the Diem government was eliminated their land would be returned.
Northern Catholics were intensely anti-Buddhist. Led by Father Hoang Quynh, they joined the Luc Luong Dai Doan Ket, or Greater Unity Force, which demanded the conversion of all of South Vietnam. Quynh asked Diem to promote Catholics over Buddhists and destroy infidelity. Diem’s personal inclinations were less militant, but northern Catholics were his strongest supporters. Large numbers of Buddhists as well as Montagnard and Khmer saw their land go to Catholic refugees. And taking land from well-to-do South Vietnamese for redistribution to the landless and the expelled would rob Diem of a loyal constituency. By 1960, in the Mekong Delta, nearly half of cultivated land was owned by two percent of the people.
Finally, to reinforce his power in the countryside, Diem abolished local elections and appointed his supporters to official village posts. For centuries, even under the Nguyen imperial court and the French, local politics had been governed by the ancient slogan, “The empire stops at the village gates.” Peasants elected their own officials to govern local affairs, and neither the emperor nor the French interfered. Diem destroyed the only democratic institution functioning in South Vietnam.
Diem then turned on the national elections that the Geneva Accords had guaranteed for 1956. The CIA chief Allen Dulles sent a memo to President Eisenhower in 1956 predicting an overwhelming victory by Ho Chi Minh in both North and South Vietnam. The Vietminh had assumed that France would stay in South Vietnam, honor the accords, and supervise the elections. But the French were gone. South Vietnam was an independent nation wallowing in American money. The United States was the new Western power in Vietnam, and its entire foreign policy revolved around anticommunism. The United States wanted an anticommunist government in Saigon—democratic or not. In 1955 Diem canceled the scheduled elections. Ho Chi Minh denounced the decision, but there was little he could do about it since the United States had no intention of forcing Diem to keep an agreement he had never signed.
Diem ruled South Vietnam as close to an absolute monarch as he could come. But he was always worried, with good reason, about conspiracy, revolution, and assassination. He led a monklike existence inside the presidential palace, sleeping on a narrow cot, covered by a mosquito net, and cooled by a slow-moving ceiling fan. Diem got up early, went to pray in a private chapel near his room, and breakfasted on a soup of noodles and pork. He visited with staff members after breakfast and then underwent a medical examination every morning. On his desk was a crucifix and a picture of the Virgin Mary. Diem received visitors in the afternoon, but the Saigon diplomatic corps dreaded his summons, knowing that it meant listening to a monologue of anywhere from three to ten hours. He worked all day and much of the night, falling asleep at 1:00 or 2:00 a.m., with documents on his lap. And since he could trust nobody outside his immediate family, Ngo Dinh Diem created a family dynasty.
Ngo Dinh Thuc, the oldest surviving brother, was a relaxed man blessed with congeniality and a fine sense of humor. With great political skills as well as a genuinely spiritual nature, he had risen steadily in the Roman Catholic hierarchy, becoming a monsignor during World War II and then bishop of Vinh Long. In 1957 Pope Pius XII named Thuc the archbishop of Hue, the Roman Catholic primate for all of Vietnam. Diem’s younger brother, Ngo Dinh Luyen, was international spokesman for the family. Born in Hue in 1909 and educated at the French lycée there, Luyen was bright and articulate. In 1956, Diem named Luyen ambassador to Great Britain and roving ambassador to the rest of the world. Luyen preached a single message: Survival of the Republic of Vietnam was essential to the future of Asia.
The next youngest brother was Ngo Dinh Can. Unlike the others, Can was poorly educated and had never traveled abroad. He lived a simple, reclusive life in Hue with his mother, and although he held no official position in the Diem regime, he was warlord of central Vietnam, absolute ruler of the region between Phan Thiet Province and the seventeenth parallel. Protected by his own secret police and private army, Can was autonomous, the law in the northern half of South Vietnam. Diem deferred to him in all matters concerning that region.
Diem’s youngest brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, was his closest associate as well as the political boss of South Vietnam from Phan Thiet Province to the Ca Mau Peninsula. Nicknamed “Smiley” by Americans because of a permanent smile fixed on his face, Nhu was privately contemptuous of the United States. Americans had too much power, too much money, and too little humility. Nhu was short on humility himself. A devout Roman Catholic educated at the École de Chartres in Paris, Nhu hated the Buddhists and wanted to “put the monks in their places.” He was commander of the Vietnamese Special Forces and transformed them into his own personal army of henchmen, hit men, and spies. Nhu, a heavy opium user and a chain smoker, admired Adolf Hitler. Next to Diem, Nhu was the most powerful man in South Vietnam.
Because of Diem’s vow of celibacy, it fell to Nhu’s wife, Tran Le Xuan, to serve as first lady or, in the words of her critics, the “Queen of Saigon.” She was completely Gallicized. Educated at private Catholic schools in France, she was more comfortable speaking French than using Vietnamese. Arrogant, intolerant, insensitive, and prudish, fancying herself a reincarnation of the ancient Trung sisters, she led public campaigns against card playing, adultery, blue movies, gambling, horse racing, fortune telling, boxing, divorce, prostitution, dancing, and beauty contests. She wanted to outlaw the use of “falsies” in women’s bras but gave up on the idea when she realized it would be impossible to enforce. Using her own private police force, Madame Nhu had people arrested for wearing loud clothing and boots or bizarre hairstyles. Her father, Tran Van Chuong, was a major landowner and during World War II had been foreign minister for the Japanese regime. He was minister of state for Diem and then ambassador to the United States.
May 9, 1963—Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother and advisor to South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, sits in front of a map of Southeast Asia in his study in the presidential palace in Saigon. (Courtesy, AP/Wide World Photo.)
Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu, wife of Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother and close advisor to President Diem. She was officially the first lady of Vietnam and an active leader in anti-Buddhist government actions. (Courtesy, AP/Wide World Photo.)
Ensconced in power, the Ngo family then turned on its last real rival in South Vietnam—the Vietminh. Fewer than 10,000 Vietminh remained in South Vietnam a
fter the Geneva Accords; the other 100,000 or so withdrew to North Vietnam to wait for the elections. Diem refused to call them Vietminh, preferring the derogatory term “Vietcong,” or “Vietnamese Communist.” Diem launched a violent campaign against the Vietcong late in 1955, using ARVN soldiers and village officials to expose them. His slogan: “Let us go mercilessly to wipe out the Vietcong, no longer considering them human beings.”
And that is just what Diem tried to do. Between late 1955 and early 1960, ARVN soldiers arrested more than 100,000 people accused of being Vietminh, even though at the most there were only 10,000 Vietminh in South Vietnam. Executions took place near the homes of the accused, so their bodies could be found and the village intimidated. Somewhere between 20,000 and 75,000 South Vietnamese were killed and another 100,000 sent to concentration camps for “reeducation.” Diem also desecrated Vietminh war memorials and cemeteries, an unforgivable insult in a culture practicing ancestor worship and family obedience. Though the terrorism successfully reduced the number of Vietminh in South Vietnam from 10,000 people in 1955 to only 3,000 in 1958, it inspired surviving Vietminh leaders to conduct a dedicated guerrilla war against the Diem government. Because most of Diem’s victims were simple peasants, the terrorism drove a greater wedge between the Vietnamese people and the government.
The Vietminh leader in South Vietnam was Le Duan, born in Quang Tri Province in 1908. As a student, Duan had become an anti-French nationalist. He spent most of the years between 1931 and 1945 in the French prison on Con Son Island. After World War II, he stayed in southern Vietnam. Convinced that the French were just trying to preserve their empire, Duan opposed the Geneva Accords of 1954—better to destroy French troops in the south just as the Vietminh had destroyed the French at Dienbienphu. The Flame of the South, so called for his commitment to reunification, Le Duan went along with Ho Chi Minh’s decision to sign the Geneva Accords, but when Ho called the Vietminh back to North Vietnam in 1954, Duan stayed behind. Between 1954 and 1956, the year reunification elections were supposed to take place, Vietcong activities had been primarily political: working with peasants, helping plant and harvest crops, delivering rice to markets, improving community buildings and peasant homes, and providing drugs and basic medical care. Diem’s decision to cancel the elections precipitated a bitter debate in North Vietnam. Most party members in North Vietnam were cautious about reigniting the armed struggle in the south. They were busy consolidating their power, and they wanted to avoid a confrontation with the United States. But most Vietminh who pulled out of South Vietnam after the Geneva Accords were native southerners who resented the division of Vietnam. The old ethnic rivalry between northern and southern Vietnamese was revived within the Vietcong. Southerners accused northerners of abandoning them, of enjoying the fruits of power in the north while southerners suffered under the oppression of Ngo Dinh Diem. While circumspect in his proposals, Le Duan represented that southern point of view. As early as 1956 Duan urged Ho Chi Minh to overthrow the Diem regime, but Ho was cautious, preferring political to military action. Duan was obedient and worked hard to keep southerners in line, but he knew their patience was running out. In December 1956 North Vietnamese leaders compromised, agreeing that firming up the revolution in North Vietnam was their priority while southerners should work to destabilize the Diem regime politically and defend themselves if necessary.
In mid-1957 the Vietcong launched their campaign against Diem. In 1958 they assassinated more than 1,100 village officials in South Vietnam, and they increased that number in 1959. Minh instructed the Vietcong not to engage in military operations; that would lead to defeat. Do not take land from a peasant. Emphasize nationalism rather than communism. Do not antagonize anyone if you can avoid it. Be selective in your violence. If an assassination is necessary, use a knife, not a rifle or grenade. It is too easy to kill innocent bystanders with guns and bombs, and accidental killings of the innocent will alienate peasants from the revolution. Once an assassination has taken place, make sure peasants know why the killing occurred. Vietcong assassins went after the most corrupt village officials first, those who stole from the peasants or raped women. Regardless of political affiliation, peasants were glad to see those officials dead. Where Diem had appointed Roman Catholics to preside over Buddhist villages, the Vietcong assassinated the Catholics, earning silent praise from local monks. And to strike terror into village leaders, to let everyone know that nobody was safe, the Vietcong sometimes targeted the best, most efficient officials for assassination. The Vietcong often decapitated their victims. Vietnamese spiritualism held that people who lost their heads were destined to an eternity of restless wandering in the world of spirits. Ho Chi Minh told the Vietcong that the quickest way to the heart of a peasant was land. The Vietcong seized the land from absentee landlords, gave it to poor farmers, and spread the word that the Vietcong robbed from the rich to give to the poor.
Diem responded to the deteriorating political situation in the only way he knew how—increasing the use of force, which played into the hands of the Vietcong. To keep peasants from being converted by Vietcong propaganda, Diem launched the Agroville Program, relocating peasants into hastily constructed villages placed along Vietcong infiltration routes. The villages were heavily defended and surrounded by barbed wire. It was difficult for the Vietcong to get in, but to the peasants the new villages looked like prisons. People were rounded up into forced labor gangs to build the camps and then were forcibly moved there, far from ancestral villages. Since Vietnamese peasants looked upon their family land with deep reverence, relocation was a spiritual and physical crisis. The resettlement enraged peasants. Diem had the National Assembly pass Law 10/59 in May 1959. Designed to wipe out the Vietcong, it created special military tribunals to arrest any individual “who commits or intends to commit crimes... against the State.” Equipped with portable guillotines, the tribunals rendered one of three verdicts: innocent, life in prison, and death. The ensuing trials were kangaroo courts. Nhu’s secret police took part in the trials, sometimes carrying out the guillotining of convicted “traitors.” For the moment, the campaign was effective. Diem’s terrorism was so widespread and capricious that innocent peasants were afraid even to be seen with suspected Vietcong. Large numbers of Vietcong either quit the party or were killed. Communist party membership in South Vietnam shrank to 3,000 in 1959. But the 10/59 campaign also terrorized thousands of innocent peasants who came to hate the Ngo family.
Finally, the regime corrupted the 1959 National Assembly elections. Although there were opposition candidates, the government prohibited newspapers from publishing their names or printing campaign literature. Opposition posters were not allowed to be displayed, nor could candidates opposed to Diem speak to gatherings of more than five people. In the southern part of the country, Nhu’s secret police worked as election officials, handing out ballots and watching how people voted. In the northern provinces, Can’s secret police performed the same functions. When it appeared that large numbers of people might not vote, the government passed an ordinance requiring them to carry a voter identification card that had been punched at the polls. When the election turned out to be a resounding victory for the Ngo family, Diem announced, “The people have spoken.”
In 1959 Diem’s increasing consolidation of power, along with the decline of the Vietcong, brought about a change in Communist party policy. Recognizing that it would probably take an armed struggle to overthrow South Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh gave in to Le Duan’s urgings and began infiltrating cadres into South Vietnam. At first they were southern-born Vietminh who had relocated to North Vietnam. After five years away from his family, one Vietminh remarked, “I was joyous to learn of my assignment to go south. I was eager to see my home village, to see my family, to get in contact with my wife.” Another decision was to prepare for a more protracted military struggle throughout Indochina. In May 1959 the North Vietnamese military established Group 559 to develop a means of moving people and supplies from North Vietnam to Sout
h Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia. Group 759, established in July, was to develop techniques for infiltrating South Vietnam by sea. Another project was to establish Indochina as a single strategic entity. In order to bring about the reunification of North and South Vietnam, the communists had to prevent the United States from securing control of Laos and Cambodia. In 1958 and 1959, with United States assistance, right-wing forces in Laos ousted the neutral government of Prince Souvanna Phouma and tightened their power. The Royal Army then attacked strongholds of the Pathet Lao, the Laotian communist guerrillas. The civil war in Laos worried North Vietnam. If the Royal Army succeeded in expelling the Pathet Lao from their mountain strongholds, Group 559 would be hard-pressed to get people and supplies into South Vietnam, since the Laotian mountains were the vital communication link. In September 1959 North Vietnam established Group 959 to provide supplies to Pathet Lao guerrillas and urged Vietnamese soldiers to join the fight. In 1960 North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao troops defeated the Royal Army along the border and secured the corridor Hanoi needed into South Vietnam. When the time was right, North Vietnam would begin moving large numbers of cadres, supplies, and eventually soldiers down that Laotian corridor into South Vietnam. It became known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail.