I hate to agree with Ted on this one,
but the Idea of Corrollating the installation
of a Military Junta as a form of Democracy is
beyond even my wildest version of
Say it in HaigSpeak!
As was noted, of the reasons for being in vietnam,
from the american governmental position, only 10%
of it had to do with 'making south vietnam safer
and freeer' - and as such, the effort to PREVENT
Diem from actualizing his threat to 'go neutral'
establishes that the JFK regime was fully aware
of the need to Keep the War Winning, at least
through his Watch. This Methodology would be maintained
right on through the Nixon Administration, since none
of these presidents would wish to be the first to lose
a war. So rather than all of the HubBub about how
JFK was out of the Loop, and that Westmoreland hid
the Real Facts from LBJ, what we find with the successful
coup against diem is a continuing search for a WIN in vietnam,
a process that would get a chance to test a very WIDE range
of options and methods.
I would disagree with Ted's assertion that the USA
was NOT interested in Democracy in South Vietnam, as
the above noted 10% suggests. To this very day we have
YET to come up with a valid 'war winning' method for
addressing 'low intensity warfare' as we see in the
wide variety of LIW still underway around the world.
And the efforts in vietnam didn't help the study of
how to do it right. As we have, though, seen, with
some luck, and the fading away of the hard line cold
war mentalities on both sides, many of the Juntae
have fallen to the Evil Onslaught of Democracy. There
are vietnamese dissidents who are running Samizdat's
and who knows, they may be able to move the SRV beyond
Stalinist, Maoist, Infantilist Deviationalism.
What also remains interesting is that so little is
discussed in terms of the less popular 1960 coup
against diem, or why diem was even installed in power
to begin with. Any good references to the Games between
1954 and 1963 would be appreciated.
ciao
drieux