Reddit reviews The Lost Mandate of Heaven: The American Betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam

I acknowledge some of your points but the resentment in your tone leaves little room for meaningful discussion. The "south is incompetent" is a song sung to death by American historians to cover for U.S.'s poor decisions. And who's going to protest against it?
Certainly not a regime that no longer exists.

I will speak to Ngo Dinh Diem's efforts but after his assassination South Vietnam no longer had any real agency. Diem's reputation has been mostly tarnished by U.S. historians to make America seem less villainous and idiotic for assassinating Vietnam's most competent leader in the middle of the war. When he first rose to power, French colonists wanted to remove him from power because he would operate against French interests. They were more or less unsuccessful. Not long after that he forced pro-French Vietnamese generals to resign and flee to Paris. He established the National Bank of Vietnam which produced its own currency, replacing the French-backed currency. By the time he took control from the French, Vietnam was pretty much at its peak. I've talked to many of my relatives, Catholics and Buddhists alike, who lived through that era and they had not a bad thing to say about Ngo Dinh Diem. If anything the communists were excellent at propaganda. Diem's governing is heavy handed, no doubt about it, but no more than any other leader in times of war. He wanted limited assistance from the U.S. without troop support and most certainly did not "invite a foreign power to devastate their country." When the U.S. assassinated Diem, Ho Chi Minh reportedly said "I can scarcely believe the Americans would be so stupid."

Or the extended edition:

"The consequences of the 1 November coup d'état will be contrary to the calculations of the US imperialists ... Diệm was one of the strongest individuals resisting the people and Communism. Everything that could be done in an attempt to crush the revolution was carried out by Diệm. Diệm was one of the most competent lackeys of the US imperialists ... Among the anti-Communists in South Vietnam or exiled in other countries, no one has sufficient political assets and abilities to cause others to obey. Therefore, the lackey administration cannot be stabilized. The coup d'état on 1 November 1963 will not be the last."

The effort against communism died with Diem. Here's a different account of the subject matter:
The Lost Mandate of Heaven: The American Betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam

I've seen this mistake in American version of history too many time, it needs to be corrected.

 

The burning of the Buddhist monk during the Viet Nam war had nothing to do with religious persecution despite what the popularized version being told in Western history books and media. It was an isolated event exploited by both North Viet Nam and used by the U.S to gain their support to get deeply involved in the war.

 

The accusation that South Viet persecutes buddhists is completely made up by a minority of political Buddhists (led by Thich Tri Quang) that had ties to the communist regime. After the burning of Thich Quang Duc (famously depicted in video and images), the U.N sent a commission to study of religious persecution of the South Viet Nam government and found no justification for this accusation. This is talked about in Higgins' book, Our Vietnam Nightmare, p.62-63. Further more, the President Diem is portrayed as a religious bigot because he happened to be a Catholic, but this is also completely a made up accusation. Diem has deep respect for culture and a also learned man. He understood the implication of his Catholicism could be used against him so at the beginning of his presidency, he had staffed his cabinet equally of people from different religious faiths.

As for Thich Quang Duc, he was part of a small and extreme sect of Buddhism that practice suicide pact ritual. There were incidents of self-immolation from these Buddhist monks across China and North Vietnam after the war. But these incidents were never reported after the war because the Americans had already left. Duc's immolation was used as a political pawn by Quang and was eaten up by American media at the time. The rest is history.

 

More of this is well documented in two different books:

The Lost Mandate of Heaven: The American Betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam by Geoffrey Shaw https://amzn.com/1586179357

Our Vietnam Nightmare by Marguerite Higgins https://amzn.com/0060118903

 

I've uploaded a chapter from Geoffrey Shaw's book particularly related to the Bhuddist crisis here for reference: http://imgur.com/a/bfVsm