On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the August Revolution and National Day September 2, the Truth National Political Publishing House released the book "The Development and Collapse of the Ngo Dinh Diem Regime - Drowning in the Swamp", a meticulous work by David Halberstam - an American journalist who won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize and directly reported from the Vietnam battlefield in the early 1960s.
As a war correspondent for Time Magazine, David Halberstam spent more than a year living and working in South Vietnam during the pivotal period (from October 1963 to December 1964).
Based on direct observations and contacts with many high-ranking political figures in the Saigon government as well as from US diplomatic and military delegations, he sketched a panoramic picture of the formation, operation and inevitable collapse of the Ngo Dinh Diem regime - a family-run, dictatorial and reactionary government.
The value of the book lies in its honesty in tone and approach. David Halberstam does not sugarcoat or avoid, but frankly points out the systematic strategic mistakes of the US in South Vietnam: the misunderstanding of the nature of the war, the blind dependence on the Ngo Dinh Diem government and the decisions of military intervention that are getting deeper and deeper without stopping.
Halberstam witnessed the operation of the Saigon regime under Ngo Dinh Diem: from the deceitful propaganda campaigns, the policy of suppressing the Buddhist movement, to the expulsion of many foreign journalists who reported truthfully, causing harm to Ngo Dinh Diem personally or his family dictatorship.
Halberstam argues that the survival of the Ngo Dinh Diem regime was solely dependent on massive aid from the United States, along with the political manipulation of a group of Ngo family members. “During their ten years in Indochina, they delayed making a final commitment... The situation had become untenable, even with substantial American aid,” he writes.
The work is not only an indictment of the Ngo Dinh Diem regime or of the US foreign policy at that time, but also a strong affirmation of the vitality, justice and belief in the inevitable victory of the Vietnamese revolution.
Halberstam once stated clearly in the book that: "Even with modern weapons, America cannot defeat the fighting spirit of the Vietnamese revolutionary forces in particular and the Vietnamese people in general." That did not come from a pre-existing political stance, but was the result of witnessing the sweeps of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, to the stories imbued with pain in the lives of ordinary people.
The fact that the Truth National Political Publishing House chose to publish this book is not only an act of recreating history from many perspectives, but also affirms the role of counter-evidence in protecting historical truth.
In the current context, when the fight against distorted arguments is increasingly emphasized, the presence of this book is of special significance. Not all works written by Americans about the Vietnam War are correct, but when an American journalist admits defeat and speaks out against his own government, it is a testament to the righteousness of the Vietnamese revolution and people.
Source: https://nhandan.vn/ngap-giua-vung-lay-goc-nhin-bao-chi-my-ve-su-sup-do-cua-che-do-ngo-dinh-diem-post897719.html
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