Diem's Final Failure: Prelude to America's War in Vietnam (Modern War Studies) [Hardcover]

Philip E. Catton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 17, 2003 | Series: Modern War Studies

Often portrayed as an inept and stubborn tyrant, South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem has long been the subject of much derision but little understanding. Philip Catton's penetrating study provides a much more complex portrait of Diem as both a devout patriot and a failed architect of modernization. In doing so, it sheds new light on a controversial regime. Catton treats the Diem government on its own terms rather than as an appendage of American policy. Focusing on the decade from Dien Bien Phu to Diem's assassination in 1963, he examines the Vietnamese leader's nation-building and reform efforts-particularly his Strategic Hamlet Program, which sought to separate guerrilla insurgents from the peasantry and build grassroots support for his regime. Catton's evaluation of the collapse of that program offers fresh insights into both Diem's limitations as a leader and the ideological and organizational weaknesses of his government, while his assessment of the evolution of Washington's relations with Saigon provides new insight into America's growing involvement in the Vietnamese civil war. Focusing on the Strategic Hamlet Program in Binh Duong province as an exemplar of Diem's efforts, Catton paints the Vietnamese leader as a progressive thinker trying to simultaneously defeat the communists and modernize his nation. He draws on a wealth of Vietnamese language sources to argue that Diem possessed a firm vision of nation-building and sought to overcome the debilitating dependence that reliance on American support threatened to foster. As Catton shows, however, Diem's plans for South Vietnam clashed with those of the United States and proved no match for the Vietnamese communists. Catton analyzes the mutually frustrating interactions between Diem and the administrations of Eisenhower and Kennedy, highlighting personality and cultural clashes, as well as specific disagreements within the American government over how to deal with Diem's programs and his hostility toward American goals. Revealing patterns in this uneasy alliance that have eluded other observers, he also clarifies many of the problems, setbacks, and miscalculations experienced by the communist movement during that era. Neither an American puppet, as communist propaganda claimed, nor a backward-looking mandarin, according to Western accounts, Catton's Diem is a tragic figure who finally ran out of time, just a few weeks before JFK's assassination and at a moment when it still seemed possible for America to avoid war.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"A fresh and provocative look at a neglected but crucial period during the Vietnam War. Catton’s penetrating study explodes the contrasting portrayals of Ngo Dinh Diem as villain or savior to present a more nuanced view of one of the war’s most tragic figures."—-William J. Duiker, author of Ho Chi Minh: A Life

"A richly detailed and thoughtful study that will force scholars of the Vietnam War to rethink traditional interpretations of the Diem government, the military-political struggle in South Vietnam, and the interaction between the Kennedy administration and Saigon."-—Gary Hess, author of Vietnam and the United States: Origins and Legacy of War

"Easily one of the best studies we have of the Saigon government. A major work of lasting value."—-Robert K. Brigham, author of Guerrilla Diplomacy: The NLF’s Foreign Relations and the Vietnam War

About the Author

Philip E. Catton is assistant professor of history at Stephen F. Austin State University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: University Press Of Kansas (January 17, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0700612203
• ISBN-13: 978-0700612208
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #601,145 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Catton's Success Explaining Diem's Failure, February 12, 2003

By 

Walter S. Mcintosh "walter james (mac)mcintosh" (Invercargill, New Zealand) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Diem's Final Failure: Prelude to America's War in Vietnam (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)

This is the first book that I have read about this period that really puts the Vietnamese side of this drama in center stage. I happened to serve in Vietnam during a couple of years while Diem's was President and had the advantage of speaking fairly fluent Vietnamese and have always thought that the 'Last Mandarin' image of Diem was quite off base. Catton actually manages to explain 'Personalism' , something that Diem himself had trouble doing to the people of Vietnam. The book does not attempt to whitewash any of Diem's many faults but does show Diem to actually be a modern nationalist who was determined to follow his own own agenda for nation building . It was this determination to follow his own agenda that was the major source of friction with his American backers. This book is a must read for any serious student of the war as it was the overthrow of Diem that really brought about the Americanization of the war.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A telling tale of political misakes... but, April 18, 2006

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Christoph P. O'connell - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Diem's Final Failure: Prelude to America's War in Vietnam (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)

This book has very detailed information regarding three major POLITICAL blunders that contributed to the collapse of the Diem regime, but omits some of the more important reasons that the American supported Coup eventually ousted him, and led to his and his brother's death.

The Buddhist crisis of 1963 and the constant antagonizing overtures made by his brother, Nhu against the American's, were breezed over, despite them being prominent reasons for America finally giving up on his leadership skills.

6 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lessons for today from early involvement in Vietnam, November 25, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Diem's Final Failure: Prelude to America's War in Vietnam (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)

This is probably the definitive book on the reign of Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam. Every serious student of the American involvement in Vietnam should find this background on how we got into that mess in the first place well worth reading. It describes Diem's background, character and personality and explains why not only Diem himself but also the vast cultural differences between the Americans and the Vietnamese made for an extremely difficult relationship.

It also has current value as the United States searches for leaders we can work with in parts of the world that are as new to intense American involvement as Vietnam was in the 1950s and 60s. A better understanding of what we did wrong in Vietnam may help us to avoid repeating those same mistakes. My personal opinion, reinforced by this book, is that if we have only a lame horse to bet on then we would be better off not betting in that particular race.

Catton's many examples show how out of touch the Ngo family was with the majority of the Vietnamese people. Diem was an arrogant, opinionated bachelor, a Catholic in a nation that was 93 percent Buddhist. One of his brothers was a Catholic bishop and Catton describes "the sectarian character of the Diem regime." Another brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, served as "Political Counselor"--and enforcer. Catton describes him as the regime's "Rastputin." Nhu's wife was probably the worst female government spokesman since Marie Antoinette. Madame Nhu referred to the suicides of burning bonzes as "barbecues." When I first arrived in Vietnam in 1966 she was still infamous as "The Dragon Lady."

The author expanded what was originally a graduate student paper about the Strategic Hamlet program in 1961-1963 into a doctoral dissertation that was more focused on Diem, his government, and their developing relationship with the Americans. With that background, we should expect excellent documentation and indeed the 203 pages of text are backed up by 59 pages of notes.

However, it is still possible for a nitpicker to find a few gaps. For example, his bibliography includes the U.S. Army's Military History Institute but not its Center of Military History. "The Michigan State University Vietnam Advisory Group" is mentioned three times but we are not told what it was. My local guide in Plieku in 1999 spoke excellent English because he had spent a year at Michigan State University. (The downside was that it earned him a year in jail after the communist takeover.) What was the Michigan connection? Faced with being dumped by his American allies "Diem won a dramatic reprieve with a military victory over the Binh Xuyen (a mafia type crime organization) at the end of April 1955." How could he win "a military victory" over a bunch of civilian gangsters?

Catton apparently speaks and reads Vietnamese, which undoubtedly provides advantages in research and opens doors for him that are not available to most American authors of books about Vietnam. Even though the English language literature on Vietnam is vast, some of the information he provides from the many referenced books and articles in Vietnamese may well be published here for the first time

Diem continually carped and complained about the type and amount of U.S. aid but resisted doing the things the Americans wanted in return. In Stilwell and the American Experience in China, Barbara Tuchman relates Stilwell's complaints about our government's failure to demand a quid pro quo from our Chinese allies in return for the aid we provided them. We had the same problem in Vietnam. The more we did for them the less the Vietnamese did for themselves. I read Stilwell in the spring of 1972 during my second tour as an advisor to a Vietnamese Army unit in the field. Our failure to demand, and Vietnamese failure to provide, a quid pro quo was still a problem nine years after Philip Catton described this exchange between Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge and Diem in 1963:

"`Isn't there some one thing you may think of that is within your capabilities to do and that would favorably impress U.S. opinion[?]" Lodge asked finally. Diem gave the ambassador `a blank look and changed the subject.'"