"Peoples Quite Apart": Americans, South Vietnamese, and the War in Vietnam

Abstract

The interaction between Americans and South Vietnamese is one of the least developed areas in the burgeoning literature of the Vietnam War. In much of the writing on the war, the South Vietnamese are conspicuous by their absence, and virtually nothing has been done on their dealings with the United States. Yet analysis of the relations between these two allies“peoples quite apart,” former Ambassador to the United States Bui Diem once perceptively labeled them-an tell us much about why the war took the course it did.’ It can also tell us Americans a great deal about the way we relate to other peoples and about the impact of our intervention on other nations. The dilemmas and frustrations that would confront the United States and South Vietnam in their dealings with each other were painfully apparent in the hopelessly tangled and ultimately tragic relationship between the John F. Kennedy administration and Ngo Dinh Diem, president of the Republic of Vietnam from 1955 to 1963. In one sense, at least, Diem met the American criterion for leadership of South Vietnam: he was intensely nationalistic, certainly the most nationalistic of any South Vietnamese leader. Far more than his successors, he was wary of American influence and extremely sensitive to the dangers of a large-scale American presence in South Vietnam. He perceived that too great an American influence in his government would taint him in the eyes of his countrymen. He staunchly refused to accept conditions in return for U.S. assistance. He firmly resisted