No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
‘A Day in the Life’: Nation-building the Republic of Ngô Đình Diệm, 26 October 1956, symbolically
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2018
Abstract
Most studies of Vietnam under the Diệm regime conceive it as a stepping stone of American nation-building efforts, citing Diệm's political approach as being influenced by modern, Western, and specifically American democratic concepts and by his associations with American advisers. Such studies assumed that the regime existed within this bubble, isolated from the past and from the society that it aimed to rule and shape. By contrast, this study contends that the regime was more deeply rooted in the enduring Vietnamese pre- and colonial history and in the post-1954 socio-political milieus, the defining components of which were intrinsically woven into the fabric of the Ngô nation. In its early years, the Republic of Vietnam (1955–63), led by the Ngô family and supporters, attempted to define itself as a nation incontestably heir to its pre-colonial past, while being increasingly conditioned by anti-communist and pro-Catholic patrimonialism. The 1956 commemoration of its 26 October National Day, the focus of the present analysis, provides insights into the values that essentially defined the Ngô’s nation—an entity far different from what its American godfathers had envisioned.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018
Footnotes
The author wishes to thank the anonymous MAS reviewers for their constructive remarks as well as Dr Mark W. McLeod of University of Delaware for his careful readings and illuminating contributions. She is grateful to the Vietnamese Sub-Institute of Culture and Arts Studies in Hu
, its director Dr Trȁn Đình Hằng, and its members for many enriching conversations on Việt Nam in general and on the cultural landscape of Hu, Central Việt Nam.
References
1 Nolting, Frederick, From Trust to Tragedy: The Political Memoirs of Frederick Nolting, Kennedy's Ambassador to Diem's Vietnam (New York: Praeger, 1988), p. 31Google Scholar.
2 See Berger, M. T. and Reese, J. Y., ‘From Nation-states in Conflict to Conflict in Nation-states: The United States of America and Nation Building from South Vietnam to Afghanistan’, International Politics 47.5 (2010), pp. 451–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fisher, Christopher T., ‘Nation Building and the Vietnam War: A Historiography’, Pacific Historical Review 74.3 (2005), pp. 441–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gilbert, Marc Jason, ‘Fatal Amnesia: American Nation-building in Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq’, Journal of Third World Studies 21.2 (2004), pp. 13–43Google Scholar.
3 Bouscaren, Anthony T., The Last of the Mandarins: Diem of Vietnam (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1965)Google Scholar; Fall, Bernard B., The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis (New York: Praeger, 1968)Google Scholar; Scigliano, Robert, South Vietnam: Nation under Stress (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964)Google Scholar; Shaplen, Robert, The Lost Revolution: The United States in Vietnam, 1946–1966 (London: Deutsch, 1966)Google Scholar.
4 Jacobs, Seth, America's Miracle Man in Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, Religion, Race, and U. S. Intervention in Southeast Asia, 1950–1957 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), pp. 229–35Google Scholar; Fisher, James T., ‘“A World Made Safe for Diversity”: The Vietnam Lobby and the Politics of Pluralism, 1945–1963’, in Appy, Christian G. (ed.), Cold War Constructions: The Political Culture of United States Imperialism, 1945–1966 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000), pp. 217–37Google Scholar; Bằng, Vũ, Bốn Mươi Năm Nói Láo [Forty Years of Lies] (Hà Nội: Văn hóa thông tin, 2001)Google Scholar.
5 See interview by Diane Johnstone of Nguyễn Văn Châu, former director of the Central Psychological War Service (1956–62) of the Republic of Vietnam. He spoke of the 1956 psychological campaign, which resorted to ‘forged documents’ and fake broadcastings by ‘Radio Liberation’ to convince the public about the veracity of ‘the bloodbath in North Vietnam’. St Louis Post-Dispatch, 24 September 1972, 2 A.
6 Miller, Edward and Vu, Tuong, ‘The Vietnam War as a Vietnamese War: Agency and Society in the Study of the Second Indochina War’, Journal of Vietnamese Studies 4.3 (2009), p. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 Catton, Philip E., Diem's Final Failure: Prelude to America's War in Vietnam (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002), p. 35Google Scholar.
8 Chapman, Jessica, ‘Staging Democracy: South Vietnam's 1955 Referendum to Depose Bao Dai’, Diplomatic History 30.4 (2006), pp. 680–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 Miller, Edward Garvey, Misalliance: Ngo Dinh Diem, the United States, and the Fate of South Vietnam (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013), p. 16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 Braudel, Fernand, On History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 32Google Scholar. See also Ernst, John, Forging a Fateful Alliance: Michigan State University and the Vietnam War (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Carter, James M., Inventing Vietnam: The United States and State Building, 1954–1968 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 Papers of John F. Kennedy, Presidential Papers, President's Office Files, Special Events Through the Years, ‘America's Stake in Vietnam’ speech, 1 June 1956.
12 Armitage, David, ‘What's the Big Idea? Intellectual History and the Longue Durée’, History of European Ideas 38:4 (2012), 498CrossRefGoogle Scholar, https://doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2012.714635 (accessed 8 November 2018); ‘Les historiens ont-ils les idées courtes? Entretien avec David Armitage’, http://www.laviedesidees.fr/Les-historiens-ont-ils-les-idees.html (accessed 8 November 2018).
13 This bastion centred on Ngô Đình Diệm, radiating power out through Diệm's brothers, particularly Thục and Cẩn, Nhu, and his wife, each with his/her own power centre rooted either regionally (for example, Central Vietnam in the case of Thục and Cẩn), politically (for example, the Cần Lao Party for Nhu) or religiously (the Vietnamese Catholic Church for Thục).
14 For a more nuanced understanding away from an all-encompassing ‘Confucian Vietnam’ under the Nguyễn dynasty, see Reid, Anthony, The Last Stand of Asian Autonomies: Responses to Modernity in the Diverse States of Southeast Asia and Korea, 1750–1900 (New York: St Martin's Press, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15 Eugenius, Gabriella, Symbols of Nations and Nationalism: Celebrating Nationhood (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), p. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
16 According to Agulhon, ‘folklore of a regime’ includes all ‘the rituals, customs, and ceremonies to which it gives rise, ranging from . . . grandiose national funeral rites and from inaugural ceremonies for memorial monuments’. Agulhon, Maurice, Marianne into Battle: Republican Imagery and Symbolism in France: 1789–1880 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 4–5Google Scholar.
17 The Democratic Republic of Vietnam also reformulated its past, stressing its millennial roots through historiographical rewriting and building Hồ Chí Minh into a ‘new hero’. See Pelley, Patricia M., Postcolonial Vietnam: New Histories of the National Past (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hemery, Daniel, ‘Hồ Chí Minh: Vie singulière et nationalisation des esprits’, in Goscha, Christopher E. and Tréglodé, Benoît de (eds.), Naissance d'un Etat-parti: le Viêt Nam depuis 1945/The Birth of a Party-state: Vietnam since 1945 (Paris: Les Indes Savantes, 2004), pp. 135–57Google Scholar.
18 Wilentz, Sean, ‘Introduction Teufelsdröckh's Dilemma: On Symbolism, Politics, and History’, in Wilentz, Sean (ed.), Rites of Power: Symbolism, Ritual, and Politics since the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), p. 2Google Scholar.
19 Bell, Catherine M., Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 194Google Scholar; McMullen, David, ‘Bureaucrats and Cosmology: The Ritual Code of T'ang China’, in Cannadine, David and Price, S. R. F. (eds.), Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 181–236Google Scholar. See also Stewart, Pamela J. and Strathern, Andrew, Asian Ritual Systems: Syncretisms and Ruptures (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2007)Google Scholar.
20 Fujitani, Takashi, Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 20–1Google Scholar.
21 Elgenius, Gabriella, ‘Successful Nation-building and Ceremonial Triumph: Constitution Day in Norway’, in McCrone, David and McPherson, Gayle (eds.), National Days: Constructing and Mobilizing National Identity (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), p. 106Google Scholar.
22 David McCrone and Gayle McPherson, ‘Marking Time: The Significance of National Days’, in McCrone and McPherson (eds.), National Days, p. 219.
23 See Sanson, Rosemonde, Les 14 juillet (1789–1975): Fête et Conscience Nationale (Paris: Flammarion, 1976)Google Scholar; Corbin, Alain, Gerome, Noëlle, and Tartakowsky, Danielle, Les Usages Politiques des Fêtes aux XIXe–XXe siècles (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1994)Google Scholar.
24 Hobsbawm, Eric J. et al., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 271Google Scholar.
25 Điểu, Nguyễn Thị, ‘Ritual, Power, and Pageantry: French Ritual Politics in Monarchical Vietnam’, French Historical Studies 39.4 (2016), pp. 719–20Google Scholar.
26 See Văn Ký, Nguyễn, La Société Vietnamienne face à la Modernité (Paris: L’ Harmattan, 1995), pp. 36–50Google Scholar; Nguyễn Văn Ký, ‘L'Evolution des cultes villageois au Vietnam dans leurs rapports avec le pouvoir central’, Colloque EUROVIET III, Amsterdam, 2–4 July 1997, http://danco.org/comcol/cultes1.html (accessed 8 November 2018).
27 de Tréglodé, Benoit and Duiker, Claire, Heroes and Revolution in Vietnam (Singapore: NUS Press in association with IRASEC, 2012), pp. 18–20Google Scholar.
28 Phương, Phạm Quỳnh, Hero and Deity: Tran Hung Dao and the Resurgence of Popular Religion in Vietnam (Chiang Mai: Mekong Press, 2009), pp. 22–32Google Scholar. See also Kelley, Liam C., ‘From Moral Exemplar to National Hero: The Transformations of Trần Hưng Đạo and the Emergence of Vietnamese Nationalism’, Modern Asian Studies 49.06 (2015), pp. 1963–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
29 Hazareesingh, Sudhir, ‘“A Common Sentiment of National Glory”: Civic Festivities and French Collective Sentiment under the Second Empire’, Journal of Modern History 76.2 (2004), p. 280CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
30 Nguyễn Thị Điểu, ‘Ritual, Power, and Pageantry’, pp. 725–6.
31 Regarding the relationship between colonial authorities and the monarchy, see Morlat, Patrice, Indochine Années Vingt: Le Rendez-vous Manqué (1918–1928) (Paris: Les Indes Savantes, 2006), pp. 278, 288, 318–20Google Scholar; Chiêu, Vũ Ngự, Các Vua Cuối Nhà Nguyễn, 1883–1945, vol. 3 (Houston, TX: 2000), pp. 667–703Google Scholar.
32 Anh, Nguyên Thê, Monarchie et Fait Colonial: Le Crépuscule d'un Ordre Traditionnel (Paris: Editions l'Harmattan, 1992), p. 250Google Scholar; Lockhart, Bruce McFarland, The End of the Vietnamese Monarchy (New Haven: Yale Center for International and Area Studies, 1993), p. 23Google Scholar.
33 Nguyễn, Quốc Sử Quán Triều, Đại Nam Thực Lục Tập Một [Veritable Records of Dai Nam, vol. 1] (Hà Nội: Giáo Dục, 2007), pp. 491–2, 663Google Scholar. Nine was the imperial number, just below the heavenly ten, and symbolized the imperial figure.
34 Ironically, in socialist Vietnam, this enthronement ritual—along with other imperial rituals—has been not only revived, but also celebrated in great pomp, and is attended by an increasingly larger and more fervent public in Hu
. Marouda, Marina, ‘Potent Rituals and the Royal Dead: Historical Transformations in Vietnamese Ritual Practice’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 45.3 (2014), pp. 355–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
35 Jennings, Eric Thomas, ‘Conservative Confluences, “Nativist” Synergy: Reinscribing Vichy's National Revolution in Indochina, 1940–1945’, French Historical Studies 27.3 (2004), pp. 601–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dalisson, Rémi, ‘La propagande festive de Vichy: Mythes fondateurs, relecture nationaliste et contestation en France de 1940 à 1944’, Guerres Mondiales et Conflits Contemporains 207.3 (2002), pp. 5–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
36 See Lamant, Pierre L., ‘La révolution nationale dans l'Indochine de l'Amiral Decoux’, Revue d'Histoire de La Deuxième Guerre Mondiale et des Conflits Contemporains 35.138 (1985), pp. 21–41Google Scholar; Verney, Sébastien, L'Indochine sous Vichy: entre Révolution Nationale, Collaboration et Identités Nationales, 1940–1945 (Paris: Riveneuve éditions, 2012)Google Scholar.
37 Jennings, Eric Thomas, Vichy in the Tropics: Pétain's National Revolution in Madagascar, Guadeloupe, and Indochina, 1940–1944 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), pp. 154, 190–8Google Scholar.
38 Chieu, Vu Ngu, ‘The Other Side of the 1945 Vietnamese Revolution: The Empire of Viet-Nam (March–August 1945)’, The Journal of Asian Studies 45.2 (1986), pp. 83–5, 304, 309CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anh, Nguyễn Thế, ‘The Formulation of the National Discourse in 1940–1945 Vietnam’, Journal of International and Area Studies 9.1 (2002), pp. 66–7Google Scholar.
39 For more recent interpretations regarding this period, see Logevall, Fredrik, Embers of War: The Fall of An Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam (New York: Random House, 2012)Google Scholar; Goscha, Christopher E. and Laplante, Karine, L'échec de la Paix en Indochine, 1954–1962/The Failure of Peace in Indochina, 1954–1962 (Paris: Les Indes Savantes, 2010)Google Scholar; Statler, Kathryn C., Replacing France: The Origins of American Intervention in Vietnam (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
40 Gouvernement provisoire du Sud-Vietnam, Ministère de l'Intérieur, 27/05/1949. B6/145.Thủ Hiển Nam Việt (THNV) [Prime Ministership, Nam Viet]. Trung Tâm Lưu Trữ Quốc Gia II [National Archives Center II], Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (hereafter THNV NAII).
41 Gouvernement Provisoire du Sud Viet Nam, Province de Longxuyên, Objet: Couleurs et hymne nationaux, 14/05/1949. B6/281. THNV NAII. See also Gibbs, Jason, ‘The Music of the State: Vietnam's Quest for a National Anthem’, Journal of Vietnamese Studies 2.2 (2007), pp. 137–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
42 Đoàn Thêm, Hai Mươi Năm Qua: Việc Từng Ngày (1945–1964) [The Past Twenty Years: Daily Events] (n.l., 1986), p. 106.
43 Dr Trần Kim Tuyến headed the ‘Service des Etudes Politiques et Sociales’ (SEPES), ‘the national intelligence and counterespionage service which can, at Nhu's direction, conduct clandestine political and propaganda activities for the Can Lao Party’. Despatch from the Ambassador in Vietnam (Durbrow) to the Department of State, Saigon, 2 March 1959, Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter FRUS), 1958–1960, Volume I, Vietnam (Washington, DC: Department of State), https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v01/d56 (accessed 8 November 2018). Đỗ Mậu, issued from a Confucian family, met Diệm in 1942 in Huế, was appointed head of Military Intelligence in the Republic—a post that he retained until the 1963 coup, in which he participated. Mậu, Đỗ, Việt-Nam Máu Lửa Quê Hương Tôi [Vietnam, My Homeland through Fire and Blood] (Westminster, CA, Văn Nghệ: 1993), p. 35Google Scholar.
44 Huỳnh Văn Lang returned from the United States of America in August 1954 to serve as Diệm's secretary, and financial and political factotum in the Cần Lao Party. See Huỳnh Văn Lang, Ký Ức Huỳnh Văn Lang. Tập II [Huynh Van Lang's Memoirs, vol. II] (2012).
45 The Catholic Ngô Đình line had reportedly migrated from the North to Quảng Bình province, Central Vietnam, in the late nineteenth century. Ngô Đình Khả (1857–1925), the pater familias, had nine children: six sons (Khôi, Thục, Diệm, Nhu, Cẩn, and Luyện) and three daughters. Jacobs, America's Miracle Man in Vietnam, p. 28; Miller, Misalliance, pp. 22–3; Quỳnh, Ngô-Đình, Lệ Quyên, Ngô-Đình (+2012), Willemetz, Jacqueline, La République du Việt-Nam et les Ngô-Đình (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2013), pp. 11–14Google Scholar; An, Võ Hương, Từ Điển Nhà Nguyễn (Irvine: Nam Việt, 2012), pp. 404–5Google Scholar.
46 Chiêu, Vũ Ngự, Các Vua Cuối Nhà Nguyễn 1883–1945, vol. 2, p. 531Google Scholar; Fourniau, Charles, Vietnam: Domination Coloniale et Résistance Nationale, 1858–1914 (Paris: Les Indes Savantes, 2002), p. 463Google Scholar; Nguyên Thê Anh, Monarchie et Fait Colonial au Việt-Nam, p. 208, fn. 146.
47 Thien, Phuc, President Ngo-Dinh-Diem's Political Philosophy (Saigon, Review Horizons: 1956), p. 15Google Scholar. Hà Ngại, a Confucian-trained Hậu Bổ graduate and colonial mandarin, criticized Diệm's lack of mastery of classical Chinese, disdainfully noting that the latter had gone to a French-curricula Catholic school, Ecole Pellerin, and obtained only a Diplôme complémentaire. Ngại, Hà, Khúc Tiêu Đồng: Hồi ký của một vị quan triều Nguyễn [Memoir of a Nguyen Court Mandarin] (Ho Chi Minh City: Trẻ, 2014), pp. 164–5Google Scholar.
48 The reformed 1911 École d'Administration des Hậu Bổ in Huế trained a new generation of French-fluent mandarins to serve the colonial administration in Indochina. Poisson, Emmanuel, ‘Administrative Practices: An Essential Aspect in Mandarinal Training (Nineteenth-Early Twentieth Century)’, in Bousquet, Gisèle L. and Brocheux, Pierre (eds.), Viêt-Nam Exposé: French Scholarship on Twentieth-Century Vietnamese Society (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), pp. 108–39Google Scholar.
49 For a hagiographic recreation of the Ngô family's early years, see Van Chau, Andre Nguyen, Ngo Dinh Thi Hiep, or, a Lifetime in the Eye of the Storm (Salt Lake City: American Book Classics, 2000)Google Scholar. Some of the Ngô sons’ French administrative postings can be tracked via Annuaire Administratif de l'Indochine, the Bulletin administratif de l'Annam, and the Bulletin officiel de l'Indochine française, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb32731793g/date (accessed 8 November 2018).
50 It seems that, as early as 1917, when posted to the Tân Thư Viện in Huế, Diệm had already manifested his fascination for all things related to the Nguyễn emperors. He made a presentation to the ‘Société des Amis du Vieux Hué’ on 5 June 1917, about a remarkable inkwell owned by Emperor Tự Đức. Ngò-Đình-Diệm, , ‘L'Encrier de S.M. Tu-Duc, Traduction des Inscriptions’, Bulletin des Amis du Vieux Hue 3 (1917), pp. 209–12Google Scholar.
51 Vũ Ngự Chiêu, Các Vua Cuối Nhà Nguyễn, vol. 3, pp. 854–5. Regarding Diệm's whereabouts and political networking during the 1940s period, see Smith, Ralph B., ‘The Japanese Period in Indochina and the Coup of 9 March 1945’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 9.2 (1978), p. 274CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nitz, Kiyoko Kurusu, ‘Independence without Nationalists? The Japanese and Vietnamese Nationalism during the Japanese Period, 1940–1945’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 15.1 (1984), p. 117CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lockhart, The End of the Vietnamese Monarchy, pp. 127–33. See also Namba, Chizuru, Français et Japonais en Indochine, 1940–1945: Colonisation, Propagande et Rivalité Culturelle (Paris: Karthala, 2012)Google Scholar.
52 Miller, Edward, ‘Vision, Power and Agency: The Ascent of Ngô Đình Diệm, 1945–54’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 35.3 (2004), pp. 438–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
53 Ibid., p. 441. See also My-Van, Tran, A Vietnamese Royal Exile in Japan: Prince Cuong De (1882–1951) (London: Routledge, 2005)Google Scholar.
54 Morgan, Joseph G., ‘A Meeting in Tokyo: Komatsu Kiyoshi, Wesley Fishel, and America's Intervention in Vietnam’, Journal of American-East Asian Relations 20.1 (2013), pp. 29–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Ngô Đình Thục (1897–1984) was ordained bishop in 1938 in Phủ Cam, Central Vietnam. He had a decisive political and religious influence on Diệm and Nhu, and contributed to their rise to power through his national and international Catholic networks. Thục oversaw a ‘Personalist Training Center’ in his diocese of Vĩnh Long province, meant to instruct cadres in the doctrine formulated by Nhu. As he became archbishop in Huế in 1960, Thục and his brother Cẩn were to transform Central Vietnam into a quasi-fief that attracted ambitious local politicos and eager-to-please military officers. A polarizing figure, Thục played no small role in igniting the Buddhist crisis of 1963, which culminated in the regime's overthrow. Keith, Charles, Catholic Vietnam: A Church from Empire to Nation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), pp. 169–71, 176CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
55 Chronique de l'Ecole des chartes et des archivistes-paléographes 99.1 (1938), p. 195; Laroche, Carlo, ‘Les archives d'outre-mer et l'histoire coloniale française’, Revue Historique 206 (1951), p. 252, fn.1Google Scholar.
56 For a detailed analysis of the party, see Despatch from the Ambassador in Vietnam (Durbrow) to the Department of State, Saigon, 2 March 1959, FRUS, 1958–1960, Volume I, Vietnam, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v01/d56 (accessed 8 November 2018); Scigliano, Robert G., ‘Political Parties in South Vietnam Under the Republic’, Pacific Affairs 33.4 (1960), pp. 327–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an insider's view of the Cần Lao, see Đính, Tôn Thất, 20 Năm Binh Nghiệp: Hồi Ký Của Tôn Thất Đính [A 20-Year Military Career: Memoirs of Ton That Dinh] (San Jose: Phụ nữ Cali, 2013), pp. 85–101Google Scholar; Đỗ Mậu, Việt-Nam, pp. 225–56.
57 Chiêu, Các Vua Cuối Nhà Nguyễn, vol. 3, p. 856. See also a letter by Ngô Đình Thục, bishop of Vĩnh Long province, to Admiral Decoux, dated 21 August 1944, in which he asserted his brothers’ loyalty to France, stressing that Ngô Đình Khả, their father, had loyally served the French by putting down the Cần Vương resistance movement in the 1890s. Vu Chieu Ngu, ‘Political and Social Change in Viet-Nam between 1940–1946’ (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 1984), p. 288, fn. 13.
58 Dommen, Arthur J., The Indochinese Experience of the French and the Americans: Nationalism and Communism in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), p. 135Google Scholar; Marr, Vietnam, p. 439; Miller, ‘Vision, Power, and Agency’, p. 448; Miller, Misalliance, pp. 43–6.
59 Donnell, John C., ‘Personalism in Vietnam’, in Fishel, Wesley R., Mansfield, Mike, and Buttinger, Joseph (eds.), Problems of Freedom: South Vietnam Since Independence (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1961), pp. 29–67Google Scholar; Miller, Misalliance, pp. 46–8, 133–6; Ngô Đình et al., La République du Việt-Nam, pp. 30–4.
60 Despatch from the Ambassador in Vietnam (Durbrow) to the Department of State, Saigon, 2 March 1959, FRUS, 1958–1960, Volume I, Vietnam, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v01/d56 (accessed 8 November 2018).
61 Thơ acted as ‘political adviser’ to then-Colonel Dương Văn Minh, also a Southerner and a Buddhist, in campaigns against competing politico-religious organizations in 1955–56, cementing a lifelong bond between the two men. Scigliano, South Vietnam, p. 21; Lansdale, Edward Geary, In the Midst of Wars: An American's Mission to Southeast Asia (New York: Fordham University Press, 1991), pp. 321–2Google Scholar; Dommen, The Indochinese Experience, pp. 56, 264.
62 Field Administration Record of a Meeting with President Ngo Dinh Diem, Tuesday 25 August 1956, Wesley Fishel Papers, 6-20-112-116-UA17-95-000289, Michigan State University (hereafter MSU), http://vietnamproject.archives.msu.edu/fullrecord.php?kid=6-20-112 (accessed 8 November 2018).
63 Vu Ngu Chieu, ‘The Other Side of the 1945 Vietnamese Revolution’, p. 302; Biographical Sketch of Tran Van Chuong, Ambassador of Vietnam to the United States, April 1959, Folder 05, Box 06, Douglas Pike Collection: Other Manuscripts—American Friends of Vietnam, The Vietnam Center and Archive, Texas Tech University (hereafter TTU VA), http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/virtualarchive/items.php?item=1780605004 (accessed 8 November 2018).
64 Party Accompanying His Excellency Ngo Dhin [sic] Diem, May 1957, Folder 07, Box 15, Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 06—Democratic Republic of Vietnam, TTU VA, http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/virtualarchive/items.php?item=2321507014 (accessed 8 November 2018).
65 The Anti-Communist Denunciation Campaign (hereafter ACDC) was never referred to by name in any official Vietnamese governmental documents that the author has found. It was alluded to publicly only in staged street demonstrations by police forces, civil servants, and so on.
66 Memorandum for the Record, Subject: Conversation with the President, 1 August 1957, Wesley Fishel Papers, 6-20-1C8-116-UA17-95-000481, MSU, Archives and Historical Collections, East Lansing, Michigan, http://vietnamproject.archives.msu.edu/fullrecord.php?kid=6-20-1C8 (accessed 8 November 2018).
67 Henderson, William and Fishel, Wesley R., ‘The Foreign Policy of Ngo Dinh Diem’, in Fishel, Wesley R. (ed.), Vietnam: Anatomy of a Conflict (Itasca: Peacock, 1968), p. 194, fn. 1Google Scholar; Scigliano, South Vietnam, pp. 58, 64.
68 Ozouf, Mona, Festivals and the French Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. xiGoogle Scholar.
69 Chapman, Jessica M., ‘The Sect Crisis of 1955 and the American Commitment to Ngô Đình Diệm’, Journal of Vietnamese Studies 5.1 (Winter 2010), pp. 37–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Hòa Hảo movement (named after the village whence it issued in 1939), founded by the ‘Buddha Master’, Huỳnh Phú Sổ, is part of the popular messianic phenomenon derived from Buddhism which emerged in the western Mekong Delta in the 1920s. It evolved into a significant political and military force, as did the rival religious-political organization of the Cao Đài (Elevated Altar). The latter, founded in the 1920s in Tây Ninh province, was inspired by Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, as well as by French figures such as Victor Hugo and Joan of Arc. Its temples are distinguished by a Masonic-inspired symbol of a triangulated left eye. Bình Xuyên forces, also named for the region of their origin, issued in the 1920s from armed groups of outlaws in the Mekong Delta, derived their resources from highway robberies, piracy, gambling, and so on. Members were not, for all that, devoid of national sentiment, and some factions joined the Việt Minh in the anti-French struggle; others were integrated into the French-backed Vietnamese National Army (VNA). See Blagov, Serguei A., Caodaism: Vietnamese Traditionalism and Its Leap into Modernity (Huntington: Nova Science Publishers, 2001)Google Scholar; Tai, Hue-Tam Ho, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nam, Nguyễn Long Thành and Blagov, Serguei A., Hoa Hao Buddhism in the Course of Vietnam's History (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2003)Google Scholar; Bourdeaux, Pascal and Jammes, Jérémy, Religions du Vietnam (XVIII–XXIe siècles): Ésotérisme Traditionnel et Nouvel Occultisme (Paris: Scripta, impr., 2010)Google Scholar.
70 Chronology of International Events 11.21 (1955), p. 731.
71 President Ngo Dinh Diem on Democracy: Addresses Relative to the Constitution, February 1958, 11, Folder 03, Box 08, Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 11—Monographs, TTU VA, http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/virtualarchive/items.php?item=2390803002 (accessed 8 November 2018). Chapman, Jessica M., Cauldron of Resistance: Ngo Dinh Diem, the United States, and 1950s Southern Vietnam (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013), pp. 144–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
72 National Days of Viet Nam, Saigon, 1 March 1955, The President: Ngo Dinh Diem. Wesley Fishel Papers, 6-20-19C-116-UA17-95-000441, MSU, http://vietnamproject.archives.msu.edu/fullrecord.php?kid=6-20-19C (accessed 8 November 2018).
73 Tổng Trưởng Đại-Diện Thủ-Tướng Phủ [Ministers Representing the Prime Minister's Office], 29/10/1955. Phủ Tổng Thống Đệ Nhất Cộng Hòa [Presidency's Office, First Republic], Trung Tâm Lưu Trữ Quốc Gia II [National Archives Center II], Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (hereafter PTTĐICH NAII).
74 Lễ Tưởng Niệm Liệt Thánh. Sở Nghi Lễ [All Souls’ Day. Office of Ceremonies], 28/10/1955. Folder 15980. PTTĐICH NAII.
75 Tổ-chức liên-hoan mừng Chính-thể Cộng-Hòa trong các tầng lớp dân-chúng. Bộ Thông Tin và Chiến Tranh Tâm Lý [Organizing Celebrations of the Republic among Different Social Classes. Ministry of Information and Psychological Warfare], 19/11/1955. Folder 15987. PTTĐICH NAII.
76 Ibid.
77 Chapman, Cauldron of Resistance, pp. 183–4.
78 Ordinance 48 ‘made Vietnamese citizens of all Chinese born in Vietnam’ and Ordinance 53 ‘barred all foreign nationals from eleven professions known to be largely in Chinese hands’. Joseph Buttinger, ‘The Ethnic Minorities in the Republic of Vietnam’, in Wesley R. Fishel et al., Problems of Freedom, p. 110.
79 Định ngày 26 tháng 10 dương-lịch, kỷ-niệm ngày tuyên bố Chánh-Thể Cộng-hòa, là ngày Quốc Khánh, Dụ Số 3 [October 26, Following the Solar Calendar, the Anniversary of the Proclamation of the Republic Is to Be the National Day, Decree 3], 09/01/1956. Folder 16037. PTTĐICH NAII.
80 Ấn-định các ngày khánh-tiết hàng năm. Dụ Số 4 [Regulations Regarding the Yearly Calendar of Holidays. Decree 4], 09/01/1956. Folder 16037. PTTĐICH NAII.
81 Vietnam Thong Tan Xa [Vietnam Press Agency], 16/03/1956. Folder 16043. PTTĐICH NAII; Công tác sửa sang Công-trường Mê-Linh [Repair Works for the Mê Linh Square], 04/01/1962. Folder 1753. PTTĐICH NAII. The statues, reportedly in the likenesses of Madame Nhu and her daughter, Lệ Thủy, were pulled down by the populace, and the heads paraded in rickshaws throughout the streets in the aftermath of the 1963 November coup. Demery, Finding the Dragon Lady, pp. 123,126; Văn Đôn, Trần, Our Endless War: Inside Vietnam (San Rafael: Presidio Press, 1978), p. 55Google Scholar.
82 Huấn thị của Ngô Tổng Thống trong Ngày Lễ Hai Bà Trưng [Injunction by President Ngô on the Two Trưng Ladies Commemoration Day], 17/03/1956. Folder 16043. PTTĐICH NAII.
83 Blagov, Caodaism, pp. 80, 107.
84 Diễn văn của Tổng Thống đọc tại Tây Ninh ngày 18-3-1956 [Presidential Speech Read in Tay Ninh]. Folder 16043. PTTĐICH NAII.
85 Bộ Trưởng Tại Phủ Tổng Thống [Secretary to the Presidency], 10/04/1956. Folder 16036. PTTĐICH NAII.
86 Ibid., emphasis in original.
87 Scigliano, South Vietnam, p. 63; Gibbs, ‘The Music of the State’, pp. 139, 149. Along with the national anthem, the government disseminated another song, Suy Tôn Ngô Tổng Thống [Praise to President Ngô]. This ode to Diệm, ‘with the entire Vietnamese people standing behind President Ngô’, was regularly performed in public places such as schools, theatres, and so on. This author remembers that moviegoers, under cover of darkness, delighted in twisting one of the lines, Ngô Tổng Thống muôn năm into Tô Hủ Tiếu Muôn Năm: ‘Long Live President Ngô’ became ‘Long Live the Bowl of Noodle Soup!’.
88 Phạm Quỳnh Phương, Hero and Deity, p. 171.
89 de Tréglodé and Duiker, Heroes and Revolution in Vietnam, pp. 13–14.
90 Quyết nghị của phiên họp Hội Đồng Nội Các [Resolutions at the Meeting of the Cabinet], 20/08/1956. Folder 16057. PTTĐICH NAII.
91 Cường Để had expressed the wish to have his ashes deposited at the Holy See in Tây Ninh, as the Cao Đài were among his ‘most loyal supporters’. The urn, flown back from Japan, was greeted with full military honours on 12 October 1954. However, to deny the Cao Đài added prestige, the ashes were removed to Huế in 1957. Tran My-Van, A Vietnamese Royal Exile in Japan, pp. 221–3, 229.
92 Quyết nghị của phiên họp Hội Đồng Nội Các [Resolutions at the Meeting of the Cabinet], 20/08/1956. Folder 16057. PTTĐICH NAII.
93 ‘Lễ Cộng Hòa. Nhắc lại thành-tích các anh-hùng liệt-sĩ đã có công chống xâm lăng, 24/10/1956’ [The Republic's Day. Recalling Accomplishments by Heroes and Martyrs Who Fought Invaders]. Folder 16057. PTTĐICH NAII.
94 The Tam Vô or ‘Three Nos’ was a putative policy that Vietnamese anti-communists attributed to their communist rivals: No Family (Vô Gia Đình); No Nation (Vô Tổ Quốc); No Religion (Vô Tôn Giáo).
95 Danh Sách và Tiểu Sử các Vị Anh-hùng Liệt-nữ tiêu-biểu tinh-thần bất-khuất của Dân-Tộc Việt-Nam [Names and Biographies of Heroes and Female Martyrs Symbolizing the Vietnamese People's Irrepressible Spirit]. Folder 16057. PTTĐICH NAII.
96 Đỗ Mậu, Việt Nam, pp. 198–9; Phụng, Trần Gia, ‘Trường Hợp Phạm Quỳnh’ [‘Pham Quynh's Case’], in Quỳnh, Phạm, and Châu, Lương Ngọc (eds.), Giải Oan Lập Một Đàn Tràng: Tuyển Tập [Redress for Phạm Quỳnh: A Collection] (Silver Springs: Tâm Nguyện, 2001), pp. 337–8, fn. 38Google Scholar.
97 Vũ Ngự Chiêu, Các Vua Cuối Nhà Nguyễn, vol. 3, pp. 855–6.
98 Đại Biểu Chánh Phủ gởi các Tỉnh-Trưởng Nam-Việt [Government Representative to Provincial Governors of Nam Viet], 20/10/1956. Folder 16054. PTTĐICH NAII.
99 Ibid.
100 Đại Biểu Chánh Phủ Kính gởi các Đức Giám-Mục Địa-Phận Vĩnh-Long, Cần-Thơ, Saigon [Government Representative to Bishops of Vinh Long, Can Tho, Saigon], 20/10/1956. Folder 16054. PTTĐICH NAII.
101 Bộ Nội Vụ Văn Phòng [Office of the Department of Interior], 01/10/1956. Folder 16057. PTTĐICH NAII.
102 Đổng Lý Văn Phòng Phủ Tổng Thống [Chief of Cabinet of the Presidential Office], 20/10/1956. Folder 16057. PTTĐICH NAII.
103 Đổng Lý Văn Phòng Phủ Tổng Thống [Chief of Cabinet of the Presidential Office], 18/10/1956. Folder 16057. PTTĐICH NAII. One can have an aperçu of how the imperial Ministry of Rites used to enforce a strict regulation concerning the matter of dress for all imperially related persons and officials from the following sources: Chú, Phan Huy, Lịch Triều Hiến Chương Loại Chí [Classified Survey of the Institutions of Successive Courts] (Ho Chí Minh City: Trẻ, 2014)Google Scholar; Nguyễn, Nội Các Triều, Khâm Định Đại Nam Hội Điển Sự Lệ: tập VIII (Bộ Lễ) [Imperial Repertory of Institutions and Rules of Dai Nam, vol. VIII, Ministry of Rites], Học, Viện Sử (ed. and trans.) (Huế: Thuận Hóa, 1993)Google Scholar. The following illustrated work provides a rich visual understanding of past ceremonial attire: Sơn, Trần Đình, Đại lễ phục Việt Nam thời Nguyễn 1802–1945 [Vietnamese Grand Court Dresses under the Nguyễn Dynasty] (Hà Nội: Hồng-Đức, 2013)Google Scholar.
104 Đổng Lý Văn Phòng Phủ Tổng Thống Kính gởi Ông Chủ Tịch Quốc Hội Việt-Nam [Chief of Cabinet of the Presidential Office to Head of National Assembly], 1/10/1956. Folder 16054. PTTĐICH NAII.
105 Bài văn truy niệm các vị anh hùng liệt nữ đã hi sinh cho tổ quốc Việt Nam nhân ngày quốc khánh tuyên bố hiến pháp Cọng [sic] hòa [Oration for the Heroes and Heroines Who Sacrificed Themselves for the Fatherland, Vietnam, on the National Day of the Proclamation of the Constitution], 25/10/1956. Folder 16057. PTTĐICH NAII.
106 Nhật Lệnh Của Tổng Thống Việt-Nam Cộng Hòa [Daily Directive of the President of the Republic of Vietnam], 29/10/1956. Folder 16054. PTTĐICH NAII.
107 The Phước Hòa Pagoda in Saigon's third district was the initial seat of the Association for Buddhist Studies for Southern Vietnam. Its abbot was Thích Quảng Đức, who was to be the first monk to immolate himself on 11 June 1963. http://giacngo.vn/PrintView.aspx?Language=vi&ID=134201 (accessed 8 November 2018).
108 Kính đệ Ngài Tổng Thống Việt Nam Cộng Hòa [Respectfully Submitted to His Excellency the President of the Republic], 27/10/1956. Folder 16057. PTTĐICH NAII.
109 ‘Vietnam President Makes Progress Toward Recovery’, The Times Record, 25 October 1956, p. 20.
110 Chủ Tịch Quốc Hội Việt Nam Kính gởi Tổng-Thống Việt-Nam Cộng-Hòa [National Assembly Chairman to the President of the Republic of Vietnam], 31/10/1956. Folder 16054. PTTĐICH NAII.
111 Đôn, Trần Văn, Việt Nam Nhân Chứng: Hồi Ký Chánh Trị [Vietnam Witness: A Political Memoir] (Los Alamitos: Xuan Thu Publishing, 1989), pp. 147–8Google Scholar.
112 Jacobs, America's Miracle Man in Vietnam, pp. 254–6.
113 Catton, Diem's Final Failure, pp. 40–1; Matthew B. Masur, ‘Hearts and Minds: Cultural Nation Building in South Vietnam, 1954–1963’ (PhD diss., Ohio State University, 2004), p. 92.
114 Donnell, ‘Personalism in Vietnam’, pp. 33–4. See also Jason Lim, ‘Confucianism as a Symbol of Solidarity: Cultural Relations between the Republic of China and the Republic of Vietnam, 1955–1963’, Issues and Studies 50.4 (2014), pp. 119–56.
115 Keith, Catholic Vietnam, pp. 162–5.
116 George A. Carver, Jr, ‘The Real Revolution in South Viet Nam’, in Fishel (ed.), Vietnam: Anatomy of a Conflict, p. 272; Demery, Finding the Dragon Lady, pp. 154-55.
117 Telegram from the Ambassador in Vietnam (Lodge) to the Department of State, Saigon, 31 October 1963. FRUS, 1961–1963, Volume IV, Vietnam, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v04/d250 (accessed 8 November 2018).
118 Scigliano, South Vietnam, p. 67; Henderson and Fishel, ‘The Foreign Policy of Ngo Dinh Diem’, p. 196; Miller, Misalliance, pp. 133–5; Ngô-Đình et al., La République du Viêt-Nam, pp. 164–5.
119 Telegram from the Ambassador in Vietnam (Durbrow) to the Department of State, 25 February 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, Volume I, Vietnam, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v01/d5 (accessed 8 November 2018); Despatch from the Ambassador in France (Houghton) to the Department of State, 31 December 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, Volume I, Vietnam, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v01/d46 (accessed 8 November 2018).
120 Catton, Diem's Final Failure, pp. 14–15.
121 Letter from Wesley R. Fishel to President John Hannah, President, 17 February, 1962. Wesley Fishel Papers, 6-20-70-116-UA17-95-000111.192, MSU, http://vietnamproject.archives.msu.edu/fullrecord.php?kid=6-20-53 (accessed 8 November 2018).
122 Đỗ Mậu, Việt Nam, pp. 202–3, 407; Đoàn Thêm, Hai Mươi Năm Qua, pp. 286, 304.
123 Catton, Diem's Final Failure, p. 37; Miller, Misalliance, p. 16.
124 Statler, Replacing France, pp. 249, 258–60.
125 Latham, Michael E., ‘Redirecting the Revolution? The USA and the Failure of Nation-building in South Vietnam’, Third World Quarterly 27.1 (2006), p. 28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
126 Taylor, Philip, Goddess on the Rise: Pilgrimage and Popular Religion in Vietnam (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2004), p. 35Google Scholar.
127 von Hippel, Karin, ‘Democracy by Force: A Renewed Commitment to Nation Building’, The Washington Quarterly 23.1 (2000), pp. 95–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
128 United States of America, Department of Defense, The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of the United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam: The Senator Gravel Edition (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), 1: p. 253.