• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Vietnam - The Fall of Ngo Dinh Diem

US involvement in Vietnam began during the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961), which sent US military to South Vietnam. Their numbers increased as the military position the Saigon government became weaker. In 1957 Communist rebels -- Viet Cong -- began a campaign of terrorism in South Vietnam. They were supported by the government of North Vietnam and later by North Vietnamese troops. Their goal was to overthrow the anti-communist government in the South.

President Ngo Dinh Diem had from the beginning relied primarily on the suppression of known and suspected Communists to contain the insurgent threat. This repression decimated-indeeel, by 1959, had nearly destroyed-the Communist political organization in the South. But the combination of Diem's essential indifference to the conditions of peasant life and his often indiscriminate campaign against the Communists alienated much of the rural population. When in late 1959 Hanoi added a military dimension to its original strategy of political organization and agitation, the burgeoning insurgency rapidly weakened Diem's hold on the countryside. In 1961 the rapid increase of insurgency in the South Vietnamese countryside led President John F. Kennedy's administration to decide to increase United States support for the Diem regime. Some $US65 million in military equipment and $US136 million in economic aid were delivered that year, and by December 3,200 United States military personnel were in Vietnam. The United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) was formed under the command of General Paul D. Harkins in February 1962.

The cornerstone of the counter-insurgency effort was the strategic hamlet program, which called for the consolidation of 14,000 villages of South Vietnam into 11,000 secure hamlets, each with its own houses, schools, wells, and watchtowers. The hamlets were intended to isolate guerrillas from the villages, their source of supplies and information, or, in Maoist terminology, to separate the fish from the sea in which they swim. The program had its problems, however, aside from the frequent attacks on the hamlets by guerrilla units. The self-defense units for the hamlets were often poorly trained, and support from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) was inadequate. Corruption, favoritism, and the resentment of a growing number of peasants who were forcibly being forced to resettled plagued the program. It was estimated that of the 8,000 hamlets established, only 1,500 were viable.

Diem grew steadily more unpopular as his regime became more repressive. His brother and chief adviser, Ngo Dinh Nhu, was identified by regime opponents as the source of many of the government's repressive measures. By the spring of 1963, when Buddhist-inspired popular unrest signaled the paralysis of the regime's authority, the US military advisory presence stood at some 12,000. Diem's draconian suppression of Buddhists dissent offended American standards of religious freedom. Harassment of Buddhist groups by ARVN forces in early 1963 led to a crisis situation in Saigon. On May 8, 1963, ARVN troops fired into a crowd of demonstrators protesting the Diem government's discriminatory policies toward Buddhists, killing nine persons. Hundreds of Buddhist bonzes responded by staging peaceful protest demonstrations and by fasting. In June a bonze set himself on fire in Saigon as a protest, and, by the end of the year, six more bonzes had committed self-immolation.

On August 21, special forces under the command of Ngo Dinh Nhu raided the pagodas of the major cities, killing many bonzes and arresting thousands of others. When Diem declared martial law on 22 August and began mass arrests of Buddhists, a resolution was introduced into the U.S. Senate calling for the withdrawal of all American forces and halting all aid unless the Diem government abandoned its repressive policies. Following demonstrations at Saigon University on August 24, an estimated 4,000 students were rounded up and jailed, and the universities of Saigon and Hue were closed. Diem ended martial law on 16 September, but economic aid was nonetheless at a virtual standstill during October.

Outraged by the Diem regime's repressive policies, the Kennedy administration indicated to South Vietnamese military leaders that Washington would be willing to support a new military government. The immediate problem was finally solved when Diem was killed during the coup of 1-2 November. Diem and Nhu were assassinated in a military coup in early November 1963, and General Duong Van Minh took over the government.