No More Vietnams by Richard Nixon Page A

regrouped.
    Meanwhile, direct, relentless pressure was leveled on Diem.United States delegations toured South Vietnam without calling on him. Lodge granted Tri Quang political asylum in the American embassy. The CIA cut off support for South Vietnam’s special forces. The White House publicly suspended United States aid for financing commercial imports. Kennedy stated in a televised interview that South Vietnam’s government needed changes in policy and “perhaps” in personnel. The administration sought to do everything possible to show its disapproval of Diem and to do nothing to undermine the impression that it would welcome a change in government.
    On November 1, 1963, the troops of General Tran Van Don and General Duong Van Minh besieged the Presidential Palace. Four days earlier, Lodge had asked those plotting the coup if they needed any help and assured them of American support afterward. Throughout the fighting, a CIA agent in constant contact with the United States Embassy was present at the military’s headquarters. Diem and Nhu temporarily eluded the generals and surrendered only when Lodge and the generals gave them guaranties of safe conduct. But after they turned themselves in, the generals murdered them in cold blood with American weapons in the back of an American-made armored personnel carrier.
    The Kennedy administration had concluded that Diem should be overthrown because he had completely lost touch with his people. But in fact Kennedy and his advisers were the ones who were out of touch. Kennedy was shocked when he heard that Diem had been murdered by the generals, but he should not have been surprised. Diem’s assassination was no accident. Those who overthrow popular leaders frequently must kill them in order to remove the possibility of their return to power. General Minh later explained, “Diem could not be allowed to live, because he was too much respected among simple, gullible people in the countryside, especially the Catholics and the refugees.”
    Prime Minister Tran Van Huong, whose government lasted only three months amid the political chaos in late 1964, concurred with Minh, saying, “The generals knew very well thathaving no talent, nor moral virtues, and no popular support whatsoever, they could not prevent a spectacular comeback of the President and Mr. Nhu if they were alive.”
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    President Diem stabilized South Vietnam as a keystone holds up a dome. Political forces converged on him from all directions, but by balancing one against another, he locked all of them into place. And just as a keystone’s importance is not apparent unless it is removed, Diem’s vital role became clear only after his demise, when the entire South Vietnamese political system came crashing down.
    What the coup supporters in the Kennedy administration should have known all along now became painfully clear: The choice in South Vietnam had been not between Diem and somebody better but between Diem and somebody worse.
    Whatever his faults, Diem possessed a significant measure of legitimacy. He was a strong leader of a nation that desperately needed strong leadership. With him gone, power in South Vietnam was up for grabs. The administration officials who had so eagerly hatched the plots against Diem soon discovered that their South Vietnamese collaborators were hopelessly bad leaders. Skills needed to overthrow a government are not useful for running one. Leading a coup and leading a country are two entirely different jobs. The chaotic leadership crisis that followed in South Vietnam was a direct consequence of the overthrow of President Ngo Dinh Diem.
    For two years, the gates of the Presidential Palace were a revolving door. South Vietnam endured ten changes of government, and even more in the military high command. Intrigue became Saigon’s form of government. During one chaotic week, a new government took power, one faction attempted a