Ngo Dinh Diem (1901-1963)

Vietnamese politician, president of South Vietnam 1955-63. He depended largely on US aid, but was able to suppress internal opposition until 1960-61, when the Communist-led National Liberation Front (Vietcong) began a guerrilla campaign against his government; this forced him to call for increased US support and led directly to the Vietnam War. After causing unrest by embarking on a campaign against militant Buddhists, he was murdered by dissident army officers.

Ngo Dinh Diem was born in Quang Binh province, north Vietnam, into a Catholic mandarin family. He became a government official, and in 1933 served briefly as minister of the interior in the reformed government of Bao Dai (1913-1997), then emperor of Annam. He was captured by the communist forces of Ho Chi Minh in 1945, but refused to support his Vietminh government in the north and went into exile. In 1954, at Bao Dai's request and with US support, he was made prime minister of the State of Vietnam, shortly before the country was partitioned by the Geneva Accord. In 1955, after resisting several attempts to remove him, he held a referendum that created a Republic of Vietnam in the south with himself as president, overthrowing Bao Dai. Diem refused to carry out free elections for a national government, set for 1956 under the Geneva Accord, but instead established an unpopular autocracy. His pro-Catholic stance angered the south's Buddhist majority, and his failure to introduce land reform encouraged the influence of Communism. Although almost wholly dependent on US support for South Vietnam's economic survival, and with hostilities with the north mounting, Diem refused to be counselled by the USA on his handling of the war. In 1963, after he had suppressed a Buddhist revolt at Hué and Saigon, the USA feared that his unpopularity would impede their attempt to defeat the Communists and withdrew their support. He was assassinated shortly afterwards.