Instead of sending conventional ground troops, the president ordered the Pentagon to mount a large-scale counterguerrilla program using large numbers of American noncombatant advisers to train the ARVN to defend its own country. Communications equipment and military supplies, including helicopters, were to be sent to the Diem regime, but no combat troops. At the same time, however, the planning was begun in 1961 to commit American troops to Vietnam if necessary.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in Vietnam Magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

Diem reacted swiftly to Kennedy’s policy decisions, insisting that U.S. combat troops were necessary to defeat the Communists. Diem complained so loudly to U.S. Ambassador Frederick Nolting that Nolting cabled Washington reporting that Diem was considering asking the Nationalist Chinese government in Taiwan to supply a division of combat troops. As Diem became more estranged from the United States, he initiated more repressive actions to quell internal dissent at home. Kennedy studied the Taylor report and in the end decided on a middle course of action, recommended by both Rusk and McNamara. The United States would not allow South Vietnam to fall into Communist hands, but American troops would not be sent for the time being. Diem would have to make major internal reforms.

Despite those lofty goals, the war took its own course. By 1962 11,000 American troops were on the ground in South Vietnam advising and supporting ARVN units. Americans flew helicopter missions, taking fire and suffering 109 casualties in the process through that time. During the same year, McNamara called for the troops’ withdrawal, saying there was tremendous progress being made in the war.

By October 1963, more than 16,000 American troops were in Vietnam, and the casualties had mounted into the hundreds. That summer the Diem regime was waging an open, hard-hitting war against the Buddhist majority in the country. A campaign to that effect was personally directed by President Diem, his brother Nhu and Diem’s sister-in-law, Ngu Le Xuan — the flamboyant Madame Nhu. They closed Buddhist schools and made random arrests of dissident Buddhist leaders. ARVN elite troops attacked a Buddhist demonstration, arresting hundreds. Then a Buddhist monk named Thich Quang Duc set fire to himself in protest on a crowded Saigon street. The Ngo brothers believed that the Buddhist uprising was Communist inspired, and Madame Nhu, often known as the Dragon Lady, notoriously said that she would enjoy seeing more barbecues of Buddhists.

Much of the violence perpetrated by the Diem regime against the seemingly peaceful Buddhist majority was seen on American television. Reaction from the White House was swift. President Kennedy condemned the violence and urged Diem to get his house in order. Ambassador Nolting had meanwhile been replaced by Henry Cabot Lodge, who in August 1963 received a message from then acting Secretary of State George Ball, who noted that Diem had to get rid of his corrupt brother and inflammatory sister-in-law if he expected to receive continued U.S. support of his government. Lodge, in a memo to Washington, reported that the chances of Diem going along with the American demands were virtually nil. The fallout from the Buddhist uprisings in the summer of 1963 became the lightning rod for the coup that sealed the fate of both Diem and Nhu.

The first coup effort against Diem originated in August 1963, when CIA officer Colonel Lucien Conein met secretly with a number of high-ranking South Vietnamese military officers, including Generals Duong Van Big Minh, Tran Van Don, Le Van Kim and Tran Thien Khiem. Conein was a veteran of the World War II Office of Strategic Services and was on good terms with Diem. It was his job to act as an intermediary between the plotters and the U.S. embassy. During the initial meeting, Minh spoke about assassinating both Diem and Nhu. When Ambassador Lodge learned of this he cabled Washington. Upon receiving the report of the clandestine meeting, Kennedy responded by declaring that there was no turning back.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to