Grand Designs: The Making and Unmaking of America's Alliance With Ngo Dinh Diem, 1954-1963

FAIN: FT-54570-06

Edward Garvey Miller
Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH 03755-1808)

This project re-interprets the origins of the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War by offering a new assessment of America's alliance with Ngo Dinh Diem, leader of South Vietnam. In it, I explore the interactions and conflicts among US and Vietnamese approaches to “nation building” during 1954-1963. I argue that the US-Diem alliance was defined by ideas about development and modernization, and by the differences between the visions espoused by American and South Vietnamese nation builders. I also analyze disputes among South Vietnamese over the means and ends of nation building, and I show how these internal disputes led to the unraveling of the US- Diem alliance and the destruction of the Diem government in 1963.

Associated Products

Misalliance: Ngo Dinh Diem, the United States, and the Fate of South Vietnam (Book)
Title: Misalliance: Ngo Dinh Diem, the United States, and the Fate of South Vietnam
Author: Edward Miller
Abstract: In the annals of Vietnam War history, no figure has been more controversial than Ngo Dinh Diem. During the 1950s, U.S. leaders hailed Diem as “the miracle man of Southeast Asia” and funneled huge amounts of aid to his South Vietnamese government. But in 1963, Diem was ousted and assassinated in a coup endorsed by President John F. Kennedy. Diem’s alliance with Washington has long been seen as a Cold War relationship gone bad, undone either by American arrogance or by Diem’s stubbornness. In MISALLIANCE, Edward Miller provides a convincing new explanation for Diem’s downfall and the larger tragedy of South Vietnam. For Diem and U.S. leaders, Miller argues, the alliance was more than just a joint effort to contain communism. It was also a means for each side to pursue its plans for nation building in South Vietnam. Miller’s definitive portrait of Diem—based on extensive research in Vietnamese, French and American archives—shows that the South Vietnamese leader was neither Washington’s pawn nor a tradition-bound mandarin. Rather, he was a shrewd and ruthless operator with his own vision for Vietnam’s modernization. In 1963, allied clashes over development and reform, combined with rising internal resistance to Diem’s nation building programs, fractured the alliance and changed the course of the Vietnam War. By revealing the true story of the rise and fall of the U.S.-Diem partnership, Misalliance shows how America’s fate in Vietnam was written not only on the battlefield but also in Washington’s dealings with its Vietnamese allies.
Year: 2013
Primary URL: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674072985
Primary URL Description: Misalliance by Edward Miller
Secondary URL: http://www.amazon.com/Misalliance-United-States-South-Vietnam/dp/0674072987
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 0674072987
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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