Ngô Đình Diệm (Vietnamese: Ngô Đình Diệm, pronounced [ŋo ɗîɲ zjə̂ˀm], Saigon: [ɗîn jə̃ˀm] (listen)), (January 3, 1901 – November 2, 1963) was the first President of South Vietnam (1955–1963). In the wake of the French withdrawal from Indochina as a result of the 1954 Geneva Accords, Diệm led the effort to create the Republic of Vietnam. Accruing considerable U.S. support due to his staunch anti-Communism, he achieved victory in a 1955 plebiscite that was widely considered fraudulent. Proclaiming himself the Republic's first President, he demonstrated considerable political skill in the consolidation of his power, and his rule proved authoritarian, elitist, nepotistic, and corrupt. A Roman Catholic, Diệm pursued policies that rankled and oppressed the Republic's Montagnard natives and its Buddhist majority. Amid religious protests that garnered worldwide attention, Diệm lost the backing of his U.S. patrons and was assassinated by Nguyễn Văn Nhung, the aide of ARVN General Dương Văn Minh on November 2, 1963, during a coup d'état that deposed his government.
Ngô Đình Diệm was born in Huế, the original capital of the Nguyễn Dynasty of Vietnam. Diệm came from the village of Phu Cam in central Vietnam. Portuguese missionaries had converted his family to Roman Catholicism in the 17th century so Diệm was also given a saint's name, following the custom of the Catholic Church. Diệm's full name thus became Jean Baptiste Ngô Đình Diệm. Diệm would often claim that he had descended from a blue-blooded family of mandarins who were so revered that people believed that it was a great honour and good luck to be buried alongside his ancestors. Most historians dismiss this as false and believe that his family were of low rank until his father passed the imperial examinations. His father, Ngô Đình Khả, scrapped plans to become a Roman Catholic priest and became a mandarin and counselor to Emperor Thành Thái during the French colonisation. He rose to become the minister of the rites and chamberlain, and keeper of the eunuchs. Khả had six sons and three daughters by his second wife, whom he married after his first died childless. Devoutly Roman Catholic, Khả took his entire family to Mass every morning. The third of six sons, Diệm was christened Jean-Baptiste in the cathedral in Huế. In 1907, the French deposed the emperor on the pretext of insanity because of his complaints about the colonisation. Khả retired in protest and became a farmer. Diệm laboured in the family’s rice fields while studying at a French Catholic school, and later entered a private school started by his father. Aged fifteen, he followed his elder brother, Ngô Đình Thục, later to become Vietnam’s highest ranking Catholic bishop, into a monastery. After a few months, he left, finding monastic life too rigorous. At the end of his secondary schooling, his examination results at the French lycée in Huế saw him offered a scholarship to Paris but declined to contemplate becoming a priest. He dropped the idea, believing it to be too rigorous. He moved to Hanoi to study at the School of Public Administration and Law, a French school that trained Vietnamese bureaucrats. It was there that he had the only romantic relationship of his life when he fell in love with one of his teacher’s daughters. After she jilted him for a convent, he remained celibate.[1][2]
Early career
After graduating at the top of his class in 1921, Diệm followed in the footsteps of his eldest brother, Ngô Ðình Khôi, joining the civil service. Starting from the lowest rank of mandarin, Diệm steadily rose. He first served at the royal library in Huế, and within one year was the district chief, presiding over seventy villages. Diệm was promoted to be a provincial chief at the age of 25, overseeing 300 villages. Diệm's rise was helped by Khôi's marriage to the daughter of Nguyễn Hữu Bài, the Catholic head of the Council of Ministers. Bài was highly regarded among the French and Diệm's religious and family ties impressed him. The French were impressed by his work ethic but were irritated by his frequent calls to grant more autonomy to Vietnamese. Diệm said that he contemplated resigning but encouragement from the populace convinced him to persist. He first encountered communists distributing propaganda while riding horseback through the region near Quảng Trị. Diệm involved himself in anti-communist activities for the first time, printing his own pamphlets. In 1929, he helped to round up communist agitators in his administrative area. He was rewarded with the promotion to the governorship of Phan Thiết Province, and in 1930 and 1931 suppressed the first peasant revolts organised by the communists, in collaboration with French forces. During the violent events, many villagers were raped and murdered.[3] In 1933, with the return of Bảo Đại to ascend the throne, Diệm was appointed by the French to be his interior minister following lobbying by Bài. After calling for the French to introduce a Vietnamese legislature, he resigned after three months in office when this was rejected. He was stripped of his decorations and titles and threatened with arrest.[1][4]
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