THE MAKING AND THE MURDER OF PRESIDENT DIEM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000300420009-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 6, 2000
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: June 8, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

P49 Pace raga t t
PORTLAND, MAINE FOIAb3b
PRESS ftppA1?mod For Release: 2000/05/05: CIA-RDP7
,_iu 8_1e67
by 'SILL CAL WELL
"FOCUS ON VIETNAM PART'2
he U S ; purpose was to build a political, ec)
Editor's note: Last Sunda (who was also a eolnnel in i M
SUNDAY TELEGRAU.
14- 56,002
S-107,251
.
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r
p
,-; visor to President::Magsaysay;`' in' the'.further spread of communist influent
"Background to Vietnam" told I Phiiinninra Th'
r ha had 1101Au,t r,a,~?_'. in S.E. Asia, especially to prevent th
the Telegram's s 1 Air ,Force) had , been "confidential nomic and military; bastion against the
ecial "series ,
-
--- - .._-- .?-.a-u ?r aaa :car ucr44aV 4V -:M..YG \!4Y ..'
leader iif Nnrih I communist Nuk auo :dine Tin C a M A '.Vietnam and to insure protection of Lao
aid over eight vital years in His avowed enemy-west IHo C!hi Minh d'1 V all Western nations The United States,
the hope Diem could unify.
t had been the sfirst ~vtoli of elr' to i a~ke Zealand Britain, f France, la t Now
g S pas on agains
backed him with $3 billion of DILM BECAME pretnierJiidV 7 1954, India) Joined The other Signers were
day We present the story Of,"' nimh and Vietcong glledllf5 1010 threit major Burma, India and inn do esi a, i sle
Diem, first leader of South ' ened to take over all Vietnam and put- Asia, refused to join, Only Thailand, the
Vietnam. The U. S. hand- the entire country, under the rule of Ho lPhilippines and Pakistan. (which saw the
picked Diem In 1954. and ` 'Chi Minh.
11 pact as stren thenhi it iti
Asia's senior Communist. To. V tactics, hoped Eisenhower and Dulles, .4 The SEATO treaty was a disappoin
.? might defeat the communist 'led Viet-
South Vietnam and stamp out' Diem premier, (fight years before, in portant assistance In Vietnam,
the threat of Communist take- 1946, Mainly because Diem believed the '
over by Ho Chi Minh. Diem 7 Vietminh were responsible for his broth-
failed. Diem's eight- year rule er's death, Diem turned clown the offer,
3 Unsuccessfully then Diem tried to de- In Vietnam, under the terms of the
ended with his murder in the velop a Vietnamese, anti-French force Geneva Armistice agreement, He Chi
himself to rival Ho Chi Minh. By 1950 , Minh now withdrew 100,000 of his milf-
weeks tary forces from the South, The Saigon
s of Saigon, just three he trhose exile and: spent most or the
weeks' before President Kern-' ?,) years 1950-54 at the Nfaryknoll Seminary government' of Premier Diem, on paper
nedy's assassination. in Lakewood; New Jersey. Diem, who at least, spread its administrative con-
trol north to the 17th parallel into areas
Telegram editorial page edi- had once studied to become a Roman previously wholly controlled by the Viet-
tor and columnist Bill Cald- Catholic priest, used this churchly abode , minh
to lobby against U.S. aid to the French,
well, who is writing this series, who were. fighting hard to . subjugate T6 Diem in Saigon, the United States
worked' in Vietnam for the Vietnam once again to their colonial now began to pour aid directly '-at
rule, Simultaneously Diem tried to rally
'Stdee Department on three dif-. the rate of a million dollars a day to
the U.S. against communist Ho Chi Minh
ferent missions help 'him gain control and popularity,
during the i in North Vietnam who was leading the
Diem 'regime which this' in- fight against the French and who fi- Diem's first major domestic opposition
nally defeated them, at Dienbienphu in was from the powerful gangster - tyre
stallment covers. the spring of 1954. sects headquartered in Saigon. T h e s e
During these four years in exile in were the Cao Dai, the Hoa Hoa and the
In the early Washington summer Of' the U.S. Diem, through Cardinal Spell ? ' Binh Xuyen. Bribes were the temporary
4]954 CIA' expert ' Edward Lanham fin man and the religious, political and answer. During March and April 19 5 5
+,hed`r"iis briefing to a high level con-: academic leaders who formed the Ameri- some $12 million U.S. were used by Diem
^rence of U.S. specialists on S.E. Asia,; can Friends of Vietnam, established sup- to bribe these Cao Dai and Hoa Hoa
elided over,by Secretary of State John: port for Dienn within the United States, from outright opposition.
Later, when Diem's military strength
aster Dulles. He left the room with, which helped him to become President
.
w orders,, Thus, after the defeat of France and was built up, he was able to use force
Lanham's orders were for Saigon. IIls the signing of the Geneva Agreements, instead of money alone.
?'itssion was to select a pnpular leader which granted independence to Vietnam Strongly supported now by Washington,
i South Vietnam, a man evho could but also promised to Ho Chi Minh that Diem, who technically held office uncer
e[eat Ho Chi Minh's threatened take-1 lie could hold free nation-wide elections, the auspices of Emperor Boa Dai, the
vet by the communists; and then to J Washington chose Diem to stem the Vietnamescse Chief. of State living on the
brow the full support of the CIA be-i ..