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| The '''] presidential visit to Australia''' from |
The '''] presidential visit to Australia''' from 2 to 9 September, 1957 was an official visit by the first President of the ].<ref name="h57">Ham, p. 57.</ref> It was part of a year of travelling for Diem, who made official visits to the United States and other anti-communist countries.<ref name=j>Jacobs, pp. 100–104.</ref> Like his American trip, Diem was warmly and lavishly received during the height of the ], garnering bipartisan praise from both the ] of ] ] and the opposition ]. | ||
| Diem addressed the ] and was made an honorary ], one of the highest imperial honours that can be bestowed on a non-British subject. Diem did not engage in substantive political discussions with the Australian leaders and he spent most of his time at public functions. He was universally extolled by the media, which praised him for what they perceived to be a successful, charismatic, democratic and righteous rule in South Vietnam, overlooking his authoritarianism, election fraud and corruption. The Australian Catholic leadership and media were particularly glowing towards the South Vietnamese head of state. A member of Vietnam's Catholic minority and the brother of Vietnam’s leading archbishop, Diem pursued policies favoring his co-religionists. He exempted the Catholic Church from land redistribution, gave them more aid and job promotions, and allowed Catholic paramilitaries to attack Buddhists, who formed the religious majority. | Diem addressed the ] and was made an honorary ], one of the highest imperial honours that can be bestowed on a non-British subject. Diem did not engage in substantive political discussions with the Australian leaders and he spent most of his time at public functions. He was universally extolled by the media, which praised him for what they perceived to be a successful, charismatic, democratic and righteous rule in South Vietnam, overlooking his authoritarianism, election fraud and corruption. The Australian Catholic leadership and media were particularly glowing towards the South Vietnamese head of state. A member of Vietnam's Catholic minority and the brother of Vietnam’s leading archbishop, Diem pursued policies favoring his co-religionists. He exempted the Catholic Church from land redistribution, gave them more aid and job promotions, and allowed Catholic paramilitaries to attack Buddhists, who formed the religious majority. | ||
| == Background == | == Background == | ||
| In 1933, the devoutly Catholic Diem was appointed Interior Minister of Vietnam, serving under Emperor ]. However, he resigned after a few months because the French colonialists would not give Vietnam any meaningful autonomy, and became a private citizen.<ref>Jacobs, pp. |
In 1933, the devoutly Catholic Diem was appointed Interior Minister of Vietnam, serving under Emperor ]. However, he resigned after a few months because the French colonialists would not give Vietnam any meaningful autonomy, and became a private citizen.<ref>Jacobs, pp. 20–21.</ref><ref>Karnow, p. 231.</ref> During ], ] attacked ] and wrested control from France, but when they were defeated by ] in 1945, a power vacuum emerged.<ref>Jacobs, p. 22.</ref> The communist-dominated ] of ] fought for Vietnamese independence, while the French attempted to regain control of their colony, and created the ] under Bao Dai, which was allied to the ]. A staunch anti-communist nationalist, Diem opposed both and attempted to create his own movement, with little success.<Ref>Jacobs, p. 23.</ref> With both the French and the communists hostile to him, Diem felt unsafe and went into self-imposed exile in 1950.<ref>Jacobs, p. 25.</ref> He spent the next for years in the ] and ] enlisting support, particularly among Vatican officials and fellow Catholic politicians in America. This was helped by the fact that his elder brother ] was the leading Catholic cleric in Vietnam and had studied with high-ranking Vatican officials in Rome a few decades earlier.<ref>Jacobs, pp. 26–33.</ref><Ref>Karnow, p. 233.</ref> | ||
| In 1954, the French lost the ] and the ] was held to determine the future of French Indochina.<ref>Jacobs, p. 37.</ref> The Vietminh were given control of ], while the State of Vietnam controlled the territory south of the 17th parallel. The Geneva agreements, which the State of Vietnam did not sign, called for reunification elections to be held in 1956.<ref>Jacobs, pp. |
In 1954, the French lost the ] and the ] was held to determine the future of French Indochina.<ref>Jacobs, p. 37.</ref> The Vietminh were given control of ], while the State of Vietnam controlled the territory south of the 17th parallel. The Geneva agreements, which the State of Vietnam did not sign, called for reunification elections to be held in 1956.<ref>Jacobs, pp. 40–42.</ref><ref>Karnow, p. 235.</ref> Bao Dai appointed Diem as his Prime Minister, hoping that he would be able to attract American aid as the French withdrew from ].<ref>Jacobs, pp. 38–39.</ref><ref>Karnow, p. 234.</ref> Diem then ] and declared himself president of the newly-proclaimed ].<ref>Jacobs, p. 85.</ref><Ref name=k239>Karnow, p. 239.</ref> Diem received support from the US and other anti-communist countries in the midst of the ]. He refused to hold the national elections and asserted that Ho would rig the ballots in the north, although he had done so himself in deposing Bao Dai.<Ref>Jacobs, pp. 98–99.</ref><Ref name=k239/> | ||
| ==Meetings and ceremonies== | ==Meetings and ceremonies== | ||
| Diem arrived in the capital ] on 2 September; his visit was the first by a foreign incumbent head of state to Australia.<ref>Edwards (1997), p. 24.</ref> He had visited the US in May as well as other anti-communist countries in the ] region such as ] and ] during the year.<ref name=j/> The magnitude of the ceremonial welcome accorded to Diem was unseen since the visit in 1954 by Queen ].<ref name=tp210>Torney-Parlicki, p. 210.</ref> According to Peter Edwards, a military historian at the ] specialising in the ],<ref name=h57/> "Everywhere he was feted as a man of courage, faith and vision",<ref name=h57/> and he noted that Diem was received with "more ceremony and pageantry" than the visit of ] in 1954.<Ref name="h57"/> |
Diem arrived in the capital ] on 2 September; his visit was the first by a foreign incumbent head of state to Australia.<ref>Edwards (1997), p. 24.</ref> He had visited the US in May as well as other anti-communist countries in the ] region such as ] and ] during the year.<ref name=j/> The magnitude of the ceremonial welcome accorded to Diem was unseen since the visit in 1954 by Queen ].<ref name=tp210>Torney-Parlicki, p. 210.</ref> According to Peter Edwards, a military historian at the ] specialising in the ],<ref name=h57/> "Everywhere he was feted as a man of courage, faith and vision",<ref name=h57/> and he noted that Diem was received with "more ceremony and pageantry" than the visit of ] in 1954.<Ref name="h57"/> | ||
| Upon disembarking from his plane, Diem was photographed for '']'' and described as a "small but striking figure in a royal blue silk frock coat, long white trousers and black ] hat".<Ref name=tp210/> He was greeted by the ] Sir ] and the ] ]. He was given a ] and a ] by the ], whose fighter jets flew overhead.<Ref name=tp210/> Diem visited the ] in Canberra, where he watched and addressed a parade of Australian cadets, who were training to become officers. Diem told the students that they were "comrades of the ]" and that they would help to defend like-minded countries.<Ref name="h57"/><ref name=e194>Edwards (1992), p. 194.</ref> | Upon disembarking from his plane, Diem was photographed for '']'' and described as a "small but striking figure in a royal blue silk frock coat, long white trousers and black ] hat".<Ref name=tp210/> He was greeted by the ] Sir ] and the ] ]. He was given a ] and a ] by the ], whose fighter jets flew overhead.<Ref name=tp210/> Diem visited the ] in Canberra, where he watched and addressed a parade of Australian cadets, who were training to become officers. Diem told the students that they were "comrades of the ]" and that they would help to defend like-minded countries.<Ref name="h57"/><ref name=e194>Edwards (1992), p. 194.</ref> | ||
| Line 23: | Line 23: | ||
| ==Media reception and support== | ==Media reception and support== | ||
| The Australian media wrote uniformly glowing reports that heaped praise on Diem, and generally presented him as a courageous, selfless and wise leader.<Ref name=e195/> The '']'' described Diem as "One of the most remarkable men in the new Asia...authoritarian in approach but liberal in principle".<Ref name="h57"/><ref name=e195/> |
The Australian media wrote uniformly glowing reports that heaped praise on Diem, and generally presented him as a courageous, selfless and wise leader.<Ref name=e195/> The '']'' described Diem as "One of the most remarkable men in the new Asia...authoritarian in approach but liberal in principle".<Ref name="h57"/><ref name=e195/> The ''The Age'' compared Diem favourably to ] and ], the Presidents of the ] and South Korea respectively. The trio were the respective leaders of the anti-communist halves of the three countries in Asia that had been divided along communist and anti-communist lines. ''The Age'' opined that Diem was not "morally equivocal" but "incorruptible and intensely patriotic" compared to his anti-communist counterparts,<Ref name="h57"/> and "the type of Asian leader whose straight talk and courageous manner should be valued".<ref name=tp211>Torney-Parlicki, p. 211.</ref> The '']'' noted that Diem's visit coincided with that of Foreign Minister ] to ] for that country's independence celebrations. Australia had supported Malaya's successful fight against communism and the newspaper compared the two countries, predicting that they would succeed because "the leaders owe their authority to popular support".<ref name=pic>Edwards (1992), pp. 195–197.</ref> Like the politicians, the press overlooked the negative aspects and reality of Diem's rule, such as his authoritarianism.<ref name=e197/> Although Diem was depicted as being extremely popular and democratic,<ref name=e197/> he had made himself president when ] that allowed him to depose Bao Dai; Diem was subsequently credited with 133% of the votes in ].<Ref>Jacobs, p. 95.</ref> Diem's family regime routinely engaged in corruption, ballot stuffing and arbitrary arrests of all opposition.<ref>Tucker, pp. 288–293.</ref> The newspapers also failed to mention that the South Vietnamese economy was largely being propped up by the ] run by the United States and that ] had failed.<Ref>Edwards (1992), pp. 197–198.</ref> | ||
| The media depicted Diem as a friendly and charismatic leader who related well to the populace.<Ref name=e195/> The '']'' showed photographs of the president eating cheese, and inspecting the foliage at the Botanic Gardens.<ref name=h57/> Diem was depicted making friends with a young boy from a ] public housing estate and having tea with Vietnamese students studying abroad at the ], with the females wearing the traditional '']''.<ref name=pic/> In contrast, Diem was generally regarded as aloof and distant from the population, rarely heading outside the presidential palace to mingle with his people,<Ref>Halberstam, p. 19.</ref> and holding military processions in honour of his ascension to power in front of empty grandstands.<ref>Halberstam, pp. |
The media depicted Diem as a friendly and charismatic leader who related well to the populace.<Ref name=e195/> The '']'' showed photographs of the president eating cheese, and inspecting the foliage at the Botanic Gardens.<ref name=h57/> Diem was depicted making friends with a young boy from a ] public housing estate and having tea with Vietnamese students studying abroad at the ], with the females wearing the traditional '']''.<ref name=pic/> In contrast, Diem was generally regarded as aloof and distant from the population, rarely heading outside the presidential palace to mingle with his people,<Ref>Halberstam, p. 19.</ref> and holding military processions in honour of his ascension to power in front of empty grandstands.<ref>Halberstam, pp. 20–21.</ref> | ||
| ] | ] | ||
| The strongest support for Diem came from the Australian Catholic media.<Ref name="h57"/> Diem was a Catholic in a majority Buddhist country, and he had close religious links with the Vatican, who had helped him rise to power. He had stayed in a seminary run by Cardinal ] in the United States in the early 1950s before his elevation to power. Diem's elder brother Archbishop ] was the leading Catholic figure in Vietnam and a classmate of Spellman when the pair studied in Rome. Spellman was widely regarded as the most powerful Catholic figure in the United States and he helped to organise support for Diem among American politicians, particularly Catholics.<Ref>Jacobs, pp. |
The strongest support for Diem came from the Australian Catholic media.<Ref name="h57"/> Diem was a Catholic in a majority Buddhist country, and he had close religious links with the Vatican, who had helped him rise to power. He had stayed in a seminary run by Cardinal ] in the United States in the early 1950s before his elevation to power. Diem's elder brother Archbishop ] was the leading Catholic figure in Vietnam and a classmate of Spellman when the pair studied in Rome. Spellman was widely regarded as the most powerful Catholic figure in the United States and he helped to organise support for Diem among American politicians, particularly Catholics.<Ref>Jacobs, pp. 27–32.</ref> In 1957, Diem dedicated his country to the ] and ruled on the basis of a Catholic doctrine known as ]. His younger brother ] ran the secret and autocratic Catholic ] (Personalist Labor Party), which provided a clandestine network of support and police-state mechanisms to protect Diem's rule. It counted many leading public servants and military officers among its members.<ref>Jacobs, pp. 86–88.</ref> Diem also maintained land policies that were preferential to the Roman Catholic Church, the largest property owner in the country. Their holdings were exempt from redistribution under land reform schemes, while the construction of Buddhist temples was restricted; military and civil service promotions were given preferentially to Catholics.<ref>Jacobs, pp. 91–96.</ref> Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies and in some areas, forced conversions, looting, shelling and demolition of pagodas occurred.<ref>Warner, p. 210.</ref><ref>Fall, p. 199.</ref> | ||
| The '']'' described Diem as "his nation's saviour from Red onslaught...an ardent patriot of great courage and moral integrity and an able intellectual".<Ref name="h57"/> The paper also praised Diem's Catholic links, pointing out that Thuc was a former classmate of the current ] ] when they studied at the Vatican.<Ref name="h57"/> | The '']'' described Diem as "his nation's saviour from Red onslaught...an ardent patriot of great courage and moral integrity and an able intellectual".<Ref name="h57"/> The paper also praised Diem's Catholic links, pointing out that Thuc was a former classmate of the current ] ] when they studied at the Vatican.<Ref name="h57"/> | ||
| Line 41: | Line 41: | ||
| ==Notes== | ==Notes== | ||
| {{reflist}} | {{reflist|2}} | ||
| == References == | == References == | ||
| *{{cite book| title=Crusade Or Conspiracy: Catholics and the Anti-Communist Struggle in Australia |
*{{cite book| title=Crusade Or Conspiracy: Catholics and the Anti-Communist Struggle in Australia|first=Bruce|last=Duncan|publisher=UNSW Press|year=2001|isbn=0868407313}} | ||
| *{{cite book| title=Crises and Commitments: the politics and diplomacy of Australia's involvement in Southeast Asian conflicts |
*{{cite book| title=Crises and Commitments: the politics and diplomacy of Australia's involvement in Southeast Asian conflicts 1948–1965|first=P. G.|last=Edwards|publisher=Allen & Unwin|year=1992|isbn=1-86373-184-9}} | ||
| *{{cite book| title=A Nation at War: Australian Politics, Society and Diplomacy During the Vietnam War |
*{{cite book| title=A Nation at War: Australian Politics, Society and Diplomacy During the Vietnam War 1965–1975|first=P. G.|last=Edwards|publisher=Allen & Unwin|year=1997|isbn=1864482826}} | ||
| *{{cite book| title=The Two Viet-Nams| first=Bernard B. |
*{{cite book| title=The Two Viet-Nams| first=Bernard B.|last=Fall|authorlink=Bernard B. Fall|year=1963|publisher=]}} | ||
| *{{cite book| first=David |
*{{cite book| first=David|last=Halberstam|authorlink=David Halberstam| title=The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam during the Kennedy Era|year=2008|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|coauthor=Singal, Daniel J.|isbn=0-7425-6007-4}} | ||
| *{{cite book| first=Paul |
*{{cite book| first=Paul|last=Ham|authorlink=Paul Ham|title=]|year=2007|publisher=]|isbn=978-0-7322-8237-0}} | ||
| * {{cite book| first=Seth |
* {{cite book| first=Seth|last=Jacobs| year=2006| title=Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America's War in Vietnam, 1950–1963| publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers| isbn=0-7425-4447-8}} | ||
| *{{cite book| title=Vietnam: A history| first=Stanley |
*{{cite book| title=Vietnam: A history| first=Stanley|last=Karnow|authorlink=Stanley Karnow|year=1997|publisher=]| isbn=0-670-84218-4}} | ||
| *{{cite book|title=Somewhere in Asia: War, Journalism and Australia's Neighbours |
*{{cite book|title=Somewhere in Asia: War, Journalism and Australia's Neighbours 1941–75 | ||
| |first=Prue|last=Torney-Parlicki|publisher=]|year=2000|isbn=0868405302}} | |||
| *{{cite book| title=The Last Confucian| first=Denis |
*{{cite book| title=The Last Confucian| first=Denis|last=Warner| year=1963|publisher=]}} | ||
| ] | ] | ||
Revision as of 03:57, 14 May 2009
The Ngo Dinh Diem presidential visit to Australia from 2 to 9 September, 1957 was an official visit by the first President of the Republic of Vietnam. It was part of a year of travelling for Diem, who made official visits to the United States and other anti-communist countries. Like his American trip, Diem was warmly and lavishly received during the height of the Cold War, garnering bipartisan praise from both the Liberal Party of Australia of Prime Minister Robert Menzies and the opposition Australian Labor Party.
Diem addressed the Parliament of Australia and was made an honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George, one of the highest imperial honours that can be bestowed on a non-British subject. Diem did not engage in substantive political discussions with the Australian leaders and he spent most of his time at public functions. He was universally extolled by the media, which praised him for what they perceived to be a successful, charismatic, democratic and righteous rule in South Vietnam, overlooking his authoritarianism, election fraud and corruption. The Australian Catholic leadership and media were particularly glowing towards the South Vietnamese head of state. A member of Vietnam's Catholic minority and the brother of Vietnam’s leading archbishop, Diem pursued policies favoring his co-religionists. He exempted the Catholic Church from land redistribution, gave them more aid and job promotions, and allowed Catholic paramilitaries to attack Buddhists, who formed the religious majority.
Background
In 1933, the devoutly Catholic Diem was appointed Interior Minister of Vietnam, serving under Emperor Bao Dai. However, he resigned after a few months because the French colonialists would not give Vietnam any meaningful autonomy, and became a private citizen. During World War II, Imperial Japan attacked Indochina and wrested control from France, but when they were defeated by the Allies in 1945, a power vacuum emerged. The communist-dominated Vietminh of Ho Chi Minh fought for Vietnamese independence, while the French attempted to regain control of their colony, and created the State of Vietnam under Bao Dai, which was allied to the French Union. A staunch anti-communist nationalist, Diem opposed both and attempted to create his own movement, with little success. With both the French and the communists hostile to him, Diem felt unsafe and went into self-imposed exile in 1950. He spent the next for years in the United States and Europe enlisting support, particularly among Vatican officials and fellow Catholic politicians in America. This was helped by the fact that his elder brother Ngo Dinh Thuc was the leading Catholic cleric in Vietnam and had studied with high-ranking Vatican officials in Rome a few decades earlier.
In 1954, the French lost the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Conference was held to determine the future of French Indochina. The Vietminh were given control of North Vietnam, while the State of Vietnam controlled the territory south of the 17th parallel. The Geneva agreements, which the State of Vietnam did not sign, called for reunification elections to be held in 1956. Bao Dai appointed Diem as his Prime Minister, hoping that he would be able to attract American aid as the French withdrew from Southeast Asia. Diem then deposed Bao Dai in a fraudulent referendum and declared himself president of the newly-proclaimed Republic of Vietnam. Diem received support from the US and other anti-communist countries in the midst of the Cold War. He refused to hold the national elections and asserted that Ho would rig the ballots in the north, although he had done so himself in deposing Bao Dai.
Meetings and ceremonies
Diem arrived in the capital Canberra on 2 September; his visit was the first by a foreign incumbent head of state to Australia. He had visited the US in May as well as other anti-communist countries in the Asia Pacific region such as Thailand and South Korea during the year. The magnitude of the ceremonial welcome accorded to Diem was unseen since the visit in 1954 by Queen Elizabeth II. According to Peter Edwards, a military historian at the Australian War Memorial specialising in the Vietnam War, "Everywhere he was feted as a man of courage, faith and vision", and he noted that Diem was received with "more ceremony and pageantry" than the visit of Queen Elizabeth II in 1954.
Upon disembarking from his plane, Diem was photographed for The Age and described as a "small but striking figure in a royal blue silk frock coat, long white trousers and black mandarin hat". He was greeted by the Governor-General of Australia Sir William Slim and the Prime Minister of Australia Robert Menzies. He was given a 21-gun salute and a guard of honour by the Royal Australian Air Force, whose fighter jets flew overhead. Diem visited the Royal Military College Duntroon in Canberra, where he watched and addressed a parade of Australian cadets, who were training to become officers. Diem told the students that they were "comrades of the Free World" and that they would help to defend like-minded countries.
The centrepiece of Diem's visit was a speech to a joint sitting of the Parliament of Australia, with both the House of Representatives and the Senate in attendance. After the speech, Menzies called for three cheers for Diem at an official parliamentary luncheon. Doc Evatt, the leader of the opposition Australian Labor Party chimed in, proclaiming that peace, stability and democracy had been achieved in South Vietnam.
The guard of honour and a 21-gun salute was repeated in Sydney and Melbourne, where large crowds cheered the Diem’s arrival at the airport and the passing of his motorcade. The South Vietnamese leader was taken outside the capital cities for two days so that he could see the Snowy Mountains Scheme, a large hydroelectricity project in highland Victoria.
Diem spent little time on detailed defence and policy discussions with Australian officials during the trip, due to his extensive meetings with Catholic leaders. Although Diem had signalled his intentions to discuss defence relations during the visit, these did not materialise. At the end of the visit, Diem and Menzies released a bilateral statement, announcing that they would increase the magnitude of the Colombo Plan, a program that saw Asian students sent abroad to study in Western nations. However, there was little detail in the announcements relating to anti-communism, with only general expressions of Australian support. Diem had previously stated that if North Vietnam attacked the south, he would send the Army of the Republic of Vietnam to land in the Red River Delta in the north and retaliate. This was contrary to the air attack plans of the South East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO), which had vowed to defend the south under the provisions of the Manila Treaty. Despite the public statements of support, the Australian government never shared the details of the SEATO plans with Diem.
At the end of the visit, Menzies bestowed on Diem an honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George, one of the highest imperial honours that had been bestowed on someone who was not a British subject. Edwards said of the trip: "Australia had now associated Diem's survival with its national interest, publicly and without restraint", something that eventually extended to military support against the Vietnamese communists.
Media reception and support
The Australian media wrote uniformly glowing reports that heaped praise on Diem, and generally presented him as a courageous, selfless and wise leader. The Sydney Morning Herald described Diem as "One of the most remarkable men in the new Asia...authoritarian in approach but liberal in principle". The The Age compared Diem favourably to Chiang Kai-shek and Syngman Rhee, the Presidents of the Republic of China and South Korea respectively. The trio were the respective leaders of the anti-communist halves of the three countries in Asia that had been divided along communist and anti-communist lines. The Age opined that Diem was not "morally equivocal" but "incorruptible and intensely patriotic" compared to his anti-communist counterparts, and "the type of Asian leader whose straight talk and courageous manner should be valued". The Canberra Times noted that Diem's visit coincided with that of Foreign Minister Richard Casey to Malaya for that country's independence celebrations. Australia had supported Malaya's successful fight against communism and the newspaper compared the two countries, predicting that they would succeed because "the leaders owe their authority to popular support". Like the politicians, the press overlooked the negative aspects and reality of Diem's rule, such as his authoritarianism. Although Diem was depicted as being extremely popular and democratic, he had made himself president when his brother rigged a 1955 referendum that allowed him to depose Bao Dai; Diem was subsequently credited with 133% of the votes in Saigon. Diem's family regime routinely engaged in corruption, ballot stuffing and arbitrary arrests of all opposition. The newspapers also failed to mention that the South Vietnamese economy was largely being propped up by the Commercial Import Program run by the United States and that land reform had failed.
The media depicted Diem as a friendly and charismatic leader who related well to the populace. The Herald showed photographs of the president eating cheese, and inspecting the foliage at the Botanic Gardens. Diem was depicted making friends with a young boy from a Collingwood public housing estate and having tea with Vietnamese students studying abroad at the University of Melbourne, with the females wearing the traditional ao dai. In contrast, Diem was generally regarded as aloof and distant from the population, rarely heading outside the presidential palace to mingle with his people, and holding military processions in honour of his ascension to power in front of empty grandstands.
The strongest support for Diem came from the Australian Catholic media. Diem was a Catholic in a majority Buddhist country, and he had close religious links with the Vatican, who had helped him rise to power. He had stayed in a seminary run by Cardinal Francis Spellman in the United States in the early 1950s before his elevation to power. Diem's elder brother Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc was the leading Catholic figure in Vietnam and a classmate of Spellman when the pair studied in Rome. Spellman was widely regarded as the most powerful Catholic figure in the United States and he helped to organise support for Diem among American politicians, particularly Catholics. In 1957, Diem dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary and ruled on the basis of a Catholic doctrine known as personalism. His younger brother Ngo Dinh Nhu ran the secret and autocratic Catholic Can Lao Party (Personalist Labor Party), which provided a clandestine network of support and police-state mechanisms to protect Diem's rule. It counted many leading public servants and military officers among its members. Diem also maintained land policies that were preferential to the Roman Catholic Church, the largest property owner in the country. Their holdings were exempt from redistribution under land reform schemes, while the construction of Buddhist temples was restricted; military and civil service promotions were given preferentially to Catholics. Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies and in some areas, forced conversions, looting, shelling and demolition of pagodas occurred.
The Catholic Weekly described Diem as "his nation's saviour from Red onslaught...an ardent patriot of great courage and moral integrity and an able intellectual". The paper also praised Diem's Catholic links, pointing out that Thuc was a former classmate of the current Archbishop of Sydney Norman Thomas Gilroy when they studied at the Vatican.
Diem's achievements and support for Catholics were particularly praised by Bob Santamaria, the unofficial leader and guiding influence of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP). The DLP had broken away from the Australian Labor Party (ALP), the nation’s main centre-left social democratic party. This occurred in the 1950s during the McCarthyism scares, with the Catholic factions breaking away to form the DLP on the basis that the ALP was too lenient towards communists. One of the reasons that Menzies strongly backed Diem was to gain further favour with the DLP and accentuate the divisions among his left wing opponents.
Diem's visit prompted increased interest in Vietnam by Australian Catholics, particularly supporters of the DLP. Australian Catholics came to see South Vietnam as an anti-communist and Vatican stronghold in Asia and as a result, became strong supporters of the Vietnam War. Harold Lalor, a Jesuit priest and leading confidant of Santamaria, had studied with Thuc in Rome. During the trip, Diem met with Gilroy, the first Australian cardinal, as well as Santamaria and Archbishop of Melbourne Daniel Mannix, both of whom praised him strongly. Mannix was one of the most powerful men in Australia during the era, and had great political influence.
See also
Notes
- ^ Ham, p. 57.
- ^ Jacobs, pp. 100–104.
- Jacobs, pp. 20–21.
- Karnow, p. 231.
- Jacobs, p. 22.
- Jacobs, p. 23.
- Jacobs, p. 25.
- Jacobs, pp. 26–33.
- Karnow, p. 233.
- Jacobs, p. 37.
- Jacobs, pp. 40–42.
- Karnow, p. 235.
- Jacobs, pp. 38–39.
- Karnow, p. 234.
- Jacobs, p. 85.
- ^ Karnow, p. 239.
- Jacobs, pp. 98–99.
- Edwards (1997), p. 24.
- ^ Torney-Parlicki, p. 210.
- ^ Edwards (1992), p. 194.
- ^ Edwards (1992), p. 195.
- ^ Duncan, p. 341.
- ^ Edwards (1992), p. 197.
- Torney-Parlicki, p. 211.
- ^ Edwards (1992), pp. 195–197.
- Jacobs, p. 95.
- Tucker, pp. 288–293.
- Edwards (1992), pp. 197–198.
- Halberstam, p. 19.
- Halberstam, pp. 20–21.
- Jacobs, pp. 27–32.
- Jacobs, pp. 86–88.
- Jacobs, pp. 91–96.
- Warner, p. 210.
- Fall, p. 199.
- Edwards (1997), p. 45.
- Duncan, pp. 125, 170.
References
- Duncan, Bruce (2001). Crusade Or Conspiracy: Catholics and the Anti-Communist Struggle in Australia. UNSW Press. ISBN 0868407313.
- Edwards, P. G. (1992). Crises and Commitments: the politics and diplomacy of Australia's involvement in Southeast Asian conflicts 1948–1965. Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1-86373-184-9.
- Edwards, P. G. (1997). A Nation at War: Australian Politics, Society and Diplomacy During the Vietnam War 1965–1975. Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1864482826.
- Fall, Bernard B. (1963). The Two Viet-Nams. Praeger publishers.
- Halberstam, David (2008). The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam during the Kennedy Era. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-7425-6007-4.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthor=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - Ham, Paul (2007). Vietnam: the Australian War. Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-7322-8237-0.
- Jacobs, Seth (2006). Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America's War in Vietnam, 1950–1963. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 0-7425-4447-8.
- Karnow, Stanley (1997). Vietnam: A history. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-670-84218-4.
- Torney-Parlicki, Prue (2000). Somewhere in Asia: War, Journalism and Australia's Neighbours 1941–75. UNSW Press. ISBN 0868405302.
- Warner, Denis (1963). The Last Confucian. Macmillan.