3. Ngo Dinh Diem and his family

Diem was born at the outset of the 20th century, in 1901 in Hué, Central Vietnam. His aristocratic family had a well known past, serving at the royal court as far back as the 17th century. The Ngos was one of the earliest Vietnamese Christians baptized by the French during their first religious mission in the Indochina peninsula. And many members of Diem ancestors were martyrs for their faith.

His father Ngo Dinh Kha was a member of emperor Thanh Thai court (who reigned from 1889 to 1907), as Grand Chamberlain and Minister of Rites, the equivalent of Chief of staff and Secretary of State. The Ngo family became somewhat disturbed by the French when they conspired to depose Thanh Thai in 1907 citing that he was becoming insane (i.e anti-French). And Ngo Dinh Kha just kept hammering to his children about the French betrayal. The family's deep seated suspicion and prejudice towards the French might already be explained then.

Of the nine children, Thuc, Diem and Khoi were the most prominent and successful. Thuc was also born in Hue, in 1897. Unlike most of his brothers who pursued politics, Thuc pursued priesthood and later became the archbishop of Hue in 1960. By a twist of coincidence, his role during the war will be paramount as religion became an instrument of the state with tragic consequence. He also created quite a stir in the Catholic church during the last years of his life by becoming involved with the traditionalist movement of the Church and joined Mgr Lefebvre to ordain his own bishops in spite of the Vatican displeasure. He was even excommunicated by Rome in 1976 but obtained absolution from Paul VI with his repenting. He died in Carthage, Missouri in 1984.

Ngo Dinh Khoi, the eldest had a shorter life than most of his brothers when he was buried alive along with his son by the communists during the purge of the nationalists in the 1940's. He was also a mandarin and provincial official when he was caught by the Viet Minh who thought he was going to get them first! With all the tragedies he had witnessed, Diem got more personal experiences than he had hoped for and it explained the man behind the mask. He was undoubtedly the main character of the family (along with Nhu his youngest brother).

We cannot escape talking about the man, his personality and his thoughts to fully comprehend that period of Vietnam's history. One of the incongruous and revealing face of Vietnam pertains to Diem's strengths and weaknesses. Oddly, the very qualities he possessed were anathema in his own country and his defects just mirrored the kind of society he ruled. In a sense he reflected all the shortcomings of his own lot without commanding much respect from his compatriots. Diem's virtues of morality and honesty along with his religious devotion and physical chastity never inspired the masses.

He was called chi si Ngo which could mean many things...but succinctly it meant for his sympathizers as Ngo the man of spirit. If he had to stick a name to make his own description, that would be it. And as a very cultured person, he chose his words carefully. Chi si could be translated also as the man of morality. The ambiguity and nuance suited him perfectly well because he's not unaware of his countrymen indulgence and condoning for less than moral social behavior. In fact he should be dubbed ''moralissimo Diem''.

Diem was the perfect product of the mandarin system perpetuated by the French, enabling Vietnam with the new elite to rule the country. The French knew that sooner or later, Vietnam had to be governed by Vietnamese. They constituted the Learning Academies (Quoc Hoc) for the ''best and brightest'' where Diem went to study before being promoted as a provincial governor in 1929 in Cochin China. He was a brilliant student, a hard working and very competent civil servant with a meteoric rise. In 1932, at 31 he became Minister of Interior under the Bao Dai cabinet. The young emperor also raised much hope, being the first modern Vietnamese monarch to study and nurtured in France with enlightened ideas and fresh demeanor. And he relied heavily on new prospects like Diem to thrust Vietnam into modernity and pressing the pace toward national independence.

Diem found right from the beginning that working under French rule was impossible for a true nationalist. In his humorless way he told Bao Dai that he's fed up wit all the masquerade and resigned only a few months after being sworn in. He had to put up with too much sniping and resistance from the more traditionalists and pro-French elements who felt threatened by the intended reforms set out by Bao Dai's government. In a pace of less than one year, Bao Dai's hope of national revival became a bitter disappointment for the nationalists and for Diem. Disenchanted he left public life and isolated himself from the struggle that ensued between Ho Chi Minh's communists and the other nationalists.

Unlike many politicians, Diem was rather shy and a loner. Although not exactly an introvert like his younger brother Nhu who's more of a philosophical thinker, Diem had a mystical belief in himself and thought to possess a messianic mission to save his country. '' The time will come when the nation needs me'', he said to himself. And he was very prescient in his analysis of the political situation. But he kept things under wrap for himself during those lean years (''traversée du désert''). When the events occurred as he had predicted, namely the purge of the nationalists by Ho chi Minh and his communist cadres, and the crumbling of the colonial regime, he became more and more convinced of his indispensable position vis-a-vis Bao Dai, the French and the Americans.

Diem believed in 1954 that he had been '' mandated by Heaven'' to save South Vietnam from communism and colonialism. As a man of moral principles and deep [religious] conviction, he believed he has the answer to the nation's problems. And the number one priority was to fight the spread of communism. If Vietnamese from all classes and political orientations were united against colonialism, if they didn't waver and stood firm like he did, there would be no need to accommodate the communists. He was very critical of the various political factions that competed against each other. They were for him politicians of the worst kind, petty, vain and easy to be bought. They were the cause of Vietnam misery and the proliferation of communism by their incessant bickering and they lost sight of their common enemies led by Ho chi Minh.

On a personal level, Diem character was even more complex and intriguing. Those who had the opportunity to deal with him couldn't believe how he managed to run the affairs of the state with so many idiotic habits. He could talk non stop for hours and meetings dragged on and on with no end in sight. Meetings with [foreign] officials were in reality monologues. He spoke and people just had to listen. So much for personal openness... And he had so many things to say that by the time the guest is gone, he ended up talking to himself! One of the American official who dealt with him even said that Diem had a psychiatric problem with his compulsive mouth.

Diem's anomaly may have a better explanation. He felt genuinely that he was not understood by people. He had many things interesting to tell and nobody seemed to care. Diem was a lonely man indeed as we could imagine from the expression of his ever sad smile. Moreover he had a justifiably good reason for his religious fervor. When you cannot trust and relate to people down on earth, you better rely in God to make some sense out of your own existence. To me Diem was a truly pathetic figure, difficult to love but impossible to hate.

His idiosyncratic manners wouldn't prove fatal had he not possessed other traits that made his destiny worth of a character from Kafka's or Dostoevsky's. Diem was a vulnerable man while he depended entirely on his family, especially on Ngo Dinh Nhu his younger brother, who was dubbed in some circles as his 'other half''. It's difficult to dislike and blame Diem for he genuinely cared about people and showed such tolerance and loyalty toward his siblings namely Nhu. Having no children of his own (he had taken a vow of chastity), he was very indulgent to his family and to his sister-in-law, the famous Mme Nhu or Tran Le Xuan.

Mme Nhu detained a power that was incommensurate with her position while Diem turned a blind eye to her eccentric behavior due in part to the fact that she bore two sons to the Ngo family. They were the only surviving male descendants, the other nephew being murdered by the Viet Minh along with his father Khoi. According to Vietnamese traditions, a family without male inheritors is a big sin towards the ancestors. Consequently he endured her as well as Mgr Thuc extravagant outbursts because Thuc was the elder brother, Khoi the eldest being liquidated by the Communists. So much for family values and politics, Vietnam style!

Diem drawbacks typically reflect the power of family bonds which still exist in Vietnam, particularly in the central region whereas family members have first and foremost to preserve the family name and interests. It is the first virtue to adhere, phúc nghĩa or loyalty and sacrifice. Diem and his closest family members just depended on one and another for counsel and decision he had to make. Autocracy by family rule was the form of administration. His motto must be: '' in our family we trust, in everybody else we check''.

Diem was very neurotic of potential contenders who vied to compete against him. He was suspicious about everybody outside of his family. And his isolation just got deeper until the day fatality struck. The regime that he personified had planted its own seeds of destruction right from the beginning. He should have known it better for he was an astute and incisive observer of other people's fallibility. One of his tragic mistakes was his blindness of confusing his family interest with the national interest. Although to be fair, such an idiotic behavior is still prevalent in nations where there is a critical shortage of competent manpower to fill the key government positions.

Diem and his cohorts otherwise had some more bizarre inclinations. For the Americans it must have been nerve-wracking to deal with the Asians and their moral intricacies even if they found them as a fascinating cultural challenge. Like most Vietnamese, Diem tried to avoid direct confrontation and personal conflict. When he had to deal with his American officials he seldom said no. And he said yes when he really didn't mean it! Bob McNamara the quantitative expert might have found him and Nhu inscrutable and problematic to decode. As a French China expert put it, '' the Orientals don't like the straight line ''

Diem also lived in a self-delusive world where no news are better than bad news. By far the most interesting cultural riddle in the East pertains to the search for truth. Orientals as I said before detest bad news and are more than willing to resort to censorship to placate things, as if nothing bad happened. Diem I am convinced never heard the whole story about his regime while in power. His acolytes wouldn't allow him to hear any news which didn't suit him or his entourage. By any definition, Diem didn't possess the slightest idea about the deteriorating situation in South Vietnam and how the masses thought about his government. If he knew, he hid it well or he practiced the worst form of self-denial. And when the bad news sipped through, it was too late.