Cauldron of Resistance: Ngo Dinh Diem, the United States, and 1950s Southern Vietnam 9780801467417, 9781501725104, 9780801450617

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CAULDRON OF RESISTANCE

A volume in the series

The United States in the World Edited by Mark Philip Bradley, David C. Engerman, and Paul A. Kramer

A list of titles in this series is available at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

CAULDRON OF RESISTANCE Ngo Dinh Diem, the United States, and 1950s Southern Vietnam

Jessica M. Chapman

Cornell University Press Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2013 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2013 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Chapman, Jessica M. (Jessica Miranda), 1977—

Cauldron of resistance : Ngo Dinh Diem, the United States, and 1950s southern Vietnam / Jessica M. Chapman. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8014-5061-7 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. Vietnam (Republic)—Politics and government. 2. Ngo, DInh Diem, 1901-1963. 3. Vietnam (Republic)—Foreign relations— United States. 4. United States—Foreign relations—Vietnam

(Republic) I. Title. DS556.9.C454 2013

327.59707309'045—dc23 2012028850 Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 41

For my parents, Sharon and David Chapman

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Contents

Preface 1X Abbreviations Xill Introduction 1 1. Anticolonialism in Vietnam’s Wild South 13

America’s Cold War 40

2. The Crucible of Southern Vietnamese Nationalism and

3. “Sink or Swim with Ngo Dinh Diem” 61

in Vietnam 86

4. The “Sect” Crisis of 1955 and America’s Miracle Man

5. Destroying the Sources of Demoralization: Ngo Dinh

Diem’s National Revolution 116

Depose Bao Dai 146

6. A Different Democracy: South Vietnam’s Referendum to

vill Contents

Conclusion 196

7. The Making of a Revolution in South Vietnam 173

Notes 207 Biblhography 251 Index 269 Appendix: Select Vietnamese Names with Diacritics 205

Preface

A few notes on language and sources are necessary at the outset. Readers familiar with the Vietnamese language will notice the absence of diacritics

and tone markers on Vietnamese words in the pages of this book. These marks are, of course, critical for understanding and identifying Vietnamese

words. I have chosen to exclude them from the text to render it more accessible to a wider range of readers. However, several important proper names, place names, and names of organizations appear with diacritics in an appendix. This book is a product of many years of research in Vietnam, France, and the United States, in the languages of those three countries. My desire to understand the complex political sphere of 1950s southern Vietnam took me first to Ho Chi Minh City, where I poured over documents from the Republic of Vietnam in the Vietnamese National Archives #2, as well as stacks of southern Vietnamese newspapers from that same period in the General Sciences Library across town. While those sources did not always illuminate the inner workings of Ngo Dinh Diem’s government, they spoke volumes of his administration’s broad objectives, methods, and processes. Just as important, they presented a full picture of the southern Vietnamese civil society with which his government interacted.

x Preface French sources from the colonial archives in Aix-en-Provence and the army archives in Vincennes provided a surprisingly rich supplement to the materials I collected in Vietnam. The collections I explored contained detailed French intelligence reports and translations of pamphlets, petitions, letters, and radio broadcasts produced by a variety of southern Vietnam’s most influential political groups. These sources revealed a great deal about the perspectives of those organizations and their leaders, as well as the views of the French officials who commented on them. The insights I gleaned from Vietnamese and French sources led me to approach American archives with a very different set of questions than I might have otherwise. Rather than simply asking how Washington made the early decisions that would eventually lead the United States to wage war in Vietnam, I wondered how American officials perceived southern Vietnam’s wide range of political actors, why they assessed them as they did, and what the consequences of their views might have been. Trips to the National Archives II in College Park, Maryland, the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, and the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas, provided ample material to help me answer those questions. I could not have conducted all of this research without generous funding from a number of sources. I am deeply grateful for support from the following: the Foreign Language and Area Studies Program, the Fulbright

Program, the Pacific Rim Research Program, the Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation, the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, the UCSB Department of History, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the Society

for Historians of American Foreign Relations, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National History Center, the Oakley Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Hellman Foundation. Williams College provided funding to support the research and publication of this book. Special thanks must be reserved for Fredrik Logevall, who was a wonderful graduate adviser and remains a remarkable colleague and friend. So many steps along the way to this book began with sage advice from Fred, from the suggestion that I learn Vietnamese to the proposal that there

might be something interesting to discover about Vietnam in the 1950s. I am deeply appreciative of his enduring interest in this project. I am also extremely grateful for the stimulation, support, encouragement, and critical feedback that I received from professors and fellow graduate students at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Toshi Hasegawa, Mark Elliott, Jennifer See, and John Sbardellati especially helped me see how the subject

Preface x1 of this book fit into the larger processes of decolonization and the Cold War in which we all share a great interest. Thanks also to Darcy Ritzau, a wonderful graduate assistant, for making sure I never fell through the administrative cracks.

I could not possibly name all of the scholars who have contributed in some way to my thinking about this book. I owe a great debt to those who patiently helped me learn the Vietnamese language and navigate my way through Vietnamese archives and libraries, especially Bac Tran, Mai Thi

Thuyet Anh, Nguyen Van Kim, Nguyen Thi Huong Giang, and Nguyen Thi Hue. Bob Brigham, Mark Lawrence, Hue Tam Ho Tai, Edward Miller, Nu Anh Tran, and Peter Zinoman provided especially useful feedback as I wrote this book. I could never sufficiently thank Mark Bradley for his insightful and patient comments on several drafts. 1 am so thankful as well for Michael McGandy’s amazing work ushering this book through the publication process, for the editorial support provided by Sarah Grossman, Karen Laun, and Jack Rummel, and for the detailed, thoughtful comments provided by two anonymous readers. For their companionship, insights, and countless laughs along the way I thank Scott Laderman, Julie Pham, Jessica Elkind, Chi Ha, Lien Hang Neuyen, and Paul Chamberlin. My colleagues at Williams College have provided invaluable feedback and support, for which I am grateful. My wonderful research assistant, Madeleine Jacobs, went above the call of duty and helped reinvigorate my excitement about this book. Of course, any mistakes remaining in the book are mine alone. Last but certainly not least, I thank J. J. Kercher, Jolene Griffith, Dave Gore, Andrea Thabet Waldman, Maeve Devoy, April Rose Haynes, Elizabeth Pryor, and Amanda Peeples for their enduring friendship. Without them I could never have finished this project. I can only hope that my parents, Sharon and David Chapman, realize how grateful I am for their encouragement. Better parents do not exist. Whatever I say about Bill Colvin will be insufficient. He has brought light to all things in my life, including this book.

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Abbreviations

ARVN Army of the Republic of Vietnam CCC Candidates’ Campaign Committee

CIA Central Intelligence Agency DRV Democratic Republic of Vietnam EDC European Defense Community ICC International Control Commission ICP Indochinese Communist Party NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NLF National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam

NRM National Revolutionary Movement PRC People’s Republic of China

RVN Republic of Vietnam SRV Socialist Republic of Vietnam

SVN State of Vietnam VNQDD Vietnamese Nationalist Party

VWP Vietnam Workers Party

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CAULDRON OF RESISTANCE

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Introduction

In February 1957, Hollywood director Joseph Mankiewicz arrived at the Cao Dai Holy See in Tay Ninh to film one of the organization’s colorful festivals for the original cinematic version of Graham Greene’s The Quiet American. The previous year, Cao Dai pope Pham Cong Tac—the group's religious leader and one of southern Vietnam’s most notable nationalist politicians—had been forced to flee across the border to Cambodia to escape capture by South Vietnamese government forces. As Mankiewicz’s crew arrived at the Holy See, a rumor spread that Hollywood magic had somehow arranged for the pope’s return to Tay Ninh. The festival kicked off pleasantly enough, but quickly turned hostile when the vice pope Bao The announced, “Our dear Pope is not here, but his spirit is among us.” At this, the crowd of Cao Dai followers began shaking their fists at the Americans and chanting in Vietnamese, “We want our Pope.’ Followers wielded photographs of their beloved Pham Cong Tac and unfurled banners with similar requests for his return printed in both Vietnamese and English. This was simply the latest in a long string of Cao Dai efforts to gain American support in their struggle with Ngo Dinh Diem’s increasingly oppressive government. The protest ended almost as quickly as it began, but

not before one of the cameramen could comment, “This is not religious.

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