Cold War Mandarin

Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America's War in Vietnam, 1950–1963

Seth Jacobs

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Year: 2006
• eBook ISBN: 9780742573956
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

For almost a decade, the tyrannical Ngo Dinh Diem governed South Vietnam as a one-party police state while the U.S. financed his tyranny. In this new book, Seth Jacobs traces the history of American support for Diem from his first appearance in Washington as a penniless expatriate in 1950 to his murder by South Vietnamese soldiers on the outskirts of Saigon in 1963.

Drawing on recent scholarship and newly available primary sources, Cold War Mandarin explores how Diem became America's bastion against a communist South Vietnam, and why the Kennedy and Eisenhower administrations kept his regime afloat. Finally, Jacobs examines the brilliantly organized public-relations campaign by Saigon's Buddhists that persuaded Washington to collude in the overthrow—and assassination—of its longtime ally.

In this clear and succinct analysis, Jacobs details the "Diem experiment," and makes it clear how America's policy of "sink or swim with Ngo Dinh Diem" ultimately drew the country into the longest war in its history.

Table of contents

• VIETNAM - America in the War Years
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Abbreviations Used in Notes
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• CHAPTER ONE - “The Kind of Asian We Can Live With”
• CHAPTER TWO - “Let Our People Go!”
• CHAPTER THREE - “This Fellow Is Impossible”
• CHAPTER FOUR - “Miracle Man”
• CHAPTER FIVE - “Truth Shall Burst Forth in Irresistible Waves of Hatred”
• CHAPTER SIX - “A Scenario of Torture, Persecution, and Worse”
• CHAPTER SEVEN - “No Respectable Turning Back”
• CHAPTER EIGHT - Conclusion
• Bibliographic Essay
• Index
• About the Author