Skip to content
You are not logged in |Login  
     
Limit search to available items
Book Cover
book
BookBook
Author Shaw, Geoffrey D. T., author.

Title The lost mandate of heaven : the American betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam / Geoffrey D.T. Shaw ; with a foreword by James V. Schall, S.J

Publication Info. San Francisco : Ignatius Press, [2015]
©2015

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Middletown, Russell Library - Adult Nonfiction  959.7043 SHA    Check Shelf
Description 314 pages ; 24 cm
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 275-297) and index
Contents Diplomacy in South Vietnam from the late 1950s to 1960 -- U.S. Ambassador Elbridge Durbrow -- Enter Ambassador Frederick Nolting -- The continuing Laotian question -- The counterinsurgency plan -- Policemen versus soldiers -- The abrogation of Nolting's rapprochement -- Nolting's rearguard action -- The decline of the Nolting influence -- The Buddhist crisis of 1963 -- Washington isolates Diem -- Nolting's farewell -- Washington moves for a coup
Summary "Ngo Dinh Diem, the first president of the Republic of Vietnam, possessed the Confucian "Mandate of Heaven", a moral and political authority that was widely recognized by all Vietnamese. This devout Roman Catholic leader never lost this mandate in the eyes of his people; rather, he was taken down by a military coup sponsored by the U.S. government, which resulted in his brutal murder. The commonly held view runs contrary to the above assertion by military historian Geoffrey Shaw. According to many American historians, President Diem was a corrupt leader whose tyrannical actions lost him the loyalty of his people and the possibility of a military victory over the North Vietnamese. The Kennedy Administration, they argue, had to withdraw its support of Diem. Based on his research of original sources, including declassified documents of the U.S. government, Shaw chronicles the Kennedy administration's betrayal of this ally, which proved to be not only a moral failure but also a political disaster that led America into a protracted and costly war. Along the way, Shaw reveals a President Diem very different from the despot portrayed by the press during its coverage of Vietnam. From eyewitness accounts of military, intelligence, and diplomatic sources, Shaw draws the portrait of a man with rare integrity, a patriot who strove to free his country from Western colonialism while protecting it from Communism."--Book jacket
Subject Ngô, Đình Dîẹm, 1901-1963 -- Assassination.
Vietnam War, 1961-1975.
Vietnam -- Foreign relations -- United States.
United States -- Foreign relations -- Vietnam.
Added Author Schall, James V., writer of foreword.
ISBN 1586179357
9781586179359
-->
Add a Review