American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity by Christian G. Appy Read Free Book Online

what
Ramparts
dubbed the Vietnam Lobby , a politically diverse and loose-knit group, most of whom became members of the American Friends of Vietnam when it formed in 1955.
    They believed Diem could establish a popular, anti-Communist government because he had only served the French briefly, and never in the military. But that meant little in a land that gave the greatest patriotic credentials to those who had actively opposed foreign invaders. Diem did not fight
for
the French, but he had not fought against them.
    That key distinction did not deter the Vietnam Lobby. It launched an impressive public relations campaign to promote Diem as a nationalist reformer who would stand up to Communism without the stigma of colonial masters calling his shots. By the time the French were defeated in 1954, Diem’s name was on the lips of everyone shaping U.S. policy in the region. The U.S. government successfully pushed to have him appointed prime minister of South Vietnam. A year later he became president in a referendum guaranteed to produce an all but unanimous “election.”
    The Vietnam Lobby was not primarily responsible for U.S. intervention in Vietnam. That distinction belongs to Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who were already committed to building a non-Communist state in South Vietnam. But the lobby did play a key role in sustaining U.S. support for Ngo Dinh Diem, especially during his rocky first year when some U.S. officials were scouting around for a possible replacement.
    Once Diem consolidated his power over a variety of rival non-Communist sects in the spring of 1955, the Vietnam Lobby and the U.S. government practically competed over who could offer the most over-the-top praise. The pinnacle of official adulation for Diem came in May 1957, when he made a state visit to the United States. He was given a red carpet airport greeting by Eisenhower, a twenty-one-gun salute, a standing ovation by a joint session of Congress, a ticker-tape parade in New York City, and a banquet presided over by publishing magnate Henry Luce and attended by John D. Rockefeller, Eleanor Roosevelt, William Randolph Hearst Jr., and Senators Mansfield and Kennedy.
    The press did little more than echo the kudos. “Brave,” “courageous,” “devout,” “incorruptible,” “freedom-loving,” “miracle worker”—the praise for Diem was so lavish his American publicist, Harold Oram, should have raised his $3,000 monthly fee. Oram’s job was pretty easy, since five media moguls were members of American Friends of Vietnam.
    Beneath the stirring headlines, however, some of the brutal realities of Diem’s rule occasionally leaked through. For example, a
Life
magazine article (“The Tough Miracle Man of South Vietnam”) began with what had become a standard account of “the miracles he has wrought”—establishing “order from chaos,” initiating “reform,” saving Vietnam from “national suicide.” Yet the article goes on to offer a stunning revelation: “ Behind a façade of photographs , flags and slogans there is a grim structure of decrees, ‘re-education centers,’ secret police. . . . Ordinance No. 6, signed and issued by Diem in January 1956, provides that ‘individuals considered dangerous to national defense and common security may be confined on executive order’ in a ‘concentration camp.’”
    This level of candor about U.S. support for an authoritarian regime was rare in mass-circulation publications. Few Americans were aware of Diem’s harsh rule, or that it became even more draconian in 1959 with the creation of roving tribunals that traveled the countryside and summarily executed anyone regarded as a threat to national security. South Vietnamese papers had photographs of the executions showing people getting their heads chopped off with a guillotine . Diem wanted people to know what was in store for them if they rebelled. In the United States, no such photographs appeared. Even as