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Our Vietnam Nightmare
Our Vietnam The story of U.S. involvement in the Vietnamese tragedy, with thoughts on a future policy.
- GenresJournalismHistory
314 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1965
3 people are currently reading
99 people want to read
About the author
Marguerite Higgins
9 books9 followersMarguerite Higgins was born in Hong Kong. Her father, Lawrence Higgins, an American working at a shipping company, moved the family back to the United States in 1923.
Higgins was educated at the University of California. In her first year she worked on the student newspaper, The Daily Californian. After Higgins graduated in 1941, she moved to Columbia University where she completed a masters degree in journalism.
In 1942 Higgins was hired by the New York Tribune. Higgins wanted to report the war in Europe, but it was not until 1944 that her editor agreed to send her to London. The following year she moved to mainland Europe, first reporting the war from France and later in Germany. This included accompanying Allied troops when they entered the Nazi extermination camps of Dachau and Buchenwald.
After the war and covered the Nuremberg War Trials and the growing tension between west and eastern Europe for the New York Tribune. In 1947 Higgins was promoted to bureau chief in Berlin.
In 1950 Higgins was assigned to Japan where she became the newspaper's Far East bureau chief. On the outbreak of the Korean War, Higgins moved to South Korea where she reported the the fall of the capital, Seoul, to North Korean forces.
The New York Tribune sent their top war reporter, Homer Bigart, to South Korea and ordered Higgins to return to Tokyo. Higgins refused to go and continued to compete with Bigart to get the best stories. This became more difficult when all women reporters were banned from the front-line. Higgins was furious but was eventually able to persuade General Douglas MacArthur to allow her to resume her front-line reporting.
Higgins, who was with the Marines when they landed in Inchon, 200 miles behind the North Korean lines, on 15th September, 1950, soon established herself as an outstanding war journalist. Her more personal style of reporting the war was popular with the American public. In October, 1950, Higgins was the subject of an article in Life Magazine.
In 1951, her book, War in Korea, became a best-seller. That year she won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting and was voted Woman of the Year by the Associated Press news organization.
Higgins was sent to Vietnam in 1953 where she reported the defeat of the French Army at Dien Bein Phu. During the fighting she narrowly escaped injury when while walking alongside the photographer, Robert Capra, who was killed when he stepped on a land mine.
In 1955 she travelled extensively in the Soviet Union and afterwards published her book Red Plush and Black Bread (1955). This was followed by another book on journalism, News is a Singular Thing (1955). Higgins also covered the civil war in the Congo.
Higgins made many visits to Vietnam and her book Our Vietnam Nightmare (1965), documented her concerns about United States military involvement in the region. While in Vietnam in 1965 she went down with leishmaniasis, a tropical disease. Marguerite Higgins was brought back to the United States but died on 3rd January, 1966. In recognition of her outstanding war reporting she was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Higgins was educated at the University of California. In her first year she worked on the student newspaper, The Daily Californian. After Higgins graduated in 1941, she moved to Columbia University where she completed a masters degree in journalism.
In 1942 Higgins was hired by the New York Tribune. Higgins wanted to report the war in Europe, but it was not until 1944 that her editor agreed to send her to London. The following year she moved to mainland Europe, first reporting the war from France and later in Germany. This included accompanying Allied troops when they entered the Nazi extermination camps of Dachau and Buchenwald.
After the war and covered the Nuremberg War Trials and the growing tension between west and eastern Europe for the New York Tribune. In 1947 Higgins was promoted to bureau chief in Berlin.
In 1950 Higgins was assigned to Japan where she became the newspaper's Far East bureau chief. On the outbreak of the Korean War, Higgins moved to South Korea where she reported the the fall of the capital, Seoul, to North Korean forces.
The New York Tribune sent their top war reporter, Homer Bigart, to South Korea and ordered Higgins to return to Tokyo. Higgins refused to go and continued to compete with Bigart to get the best stories. This became more difficult when all women reporters were banned from the front-line. Higgins was furious but was eventually able to persuade General Douglas MacArthur to allow her to resume her front-line reporting.
Higgins, who was with the Marines when they landed in Inchon, 200 miles behind the North Korean lines, on 15th September, 1950, soon established herself as an outstanding war journalist. Her more personal style of reporting the war was popular with the American public. In October, 1950, Higgins was the subject of an article in Life Magazine.
In 1951, her book, War in Korea, became a best-seller. That year she won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting and was voted Woman of the Year by the Associated Press news organization.
Higgins was sent to Vietnam in 1953 where she reported the defeat of the French Army at Dien Bein Phu. During the fighting she narrowly escaped injury when while walking alongside the photographer, Robert Capra, who was killed when he stepped on a land mine.
In 1955 she travelled extensively in the Soviet Union and afterwards published her book Red Plush and Black Bread (1955). This was followed by another book on journalism, News is a Singular Thing (1955). Higgins also covered the civil war in the Congo.
Higgins made many visits to Vietnam and her book Our Vietnam Nightmare (1965), documented her concerns about United States military involvement in the region. While in Vietnam in 1965 she went down with leishmaniasis, a tropical disease. Marguerite Higgins was brought back to the United States but died on 3rd January, 1966. In recognition of her outstanding war reporting she was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 20, 2021
When the Herald Tribune dispatched Marguerite Higgins to Vietnam in mid-July 1963, the main thing on its editors' mind was the whys and hows of the Buddhist religious crisis. It was Higgins seventh visit to Vietnam, a country she was enchanted with, and "religious strife" seemed to her to be completely unrelated to what she knew about Vietnam. Religious tension had not arisen there during the twentieth century. Officials of the Kennedy administration were of no help in answering her questions.
The State Department was predominantly angry and exasperated with Ngo Dinh Diem. It accused him of rigidity and poor public relations in handling religious discontent provoked by a riot in Hué, which broke out because of a dispute over the flying of Buddhist flags on Buddha's birthday, May 8. The death toll was eight, and government troops were believed to be responsible for those deaths. According to the State Department, Diem should stop repressing demonstrations so that the Buddhists would have nothing to complain about and calm down. It considered the majority of Vietnamese people Buddhists and believed that being on good terms with the Buddhists was essential to having the Vietnamese on Diem's side. In the summer of 1963, almost all news dispatches out of Saigon stated that seventy-ninety percent of the Vietnamese population were Buddhists.
If that were true, however, it would also mean that about ninety percent of the Vietnamese army were Buddhists and potentially influenced by the Buddhist hierarchy to turn against their own government – a risky situation. That, argues Higgins, was simply not the case, though.
She discovered that through a phone call to Robert Kennedy, who in addition to being Attorney General was a key figure in the committee on counterinsurgency established by President John F. Kennedy and therefore familiar with the situation in Vietnam. Bobby Kennedy advised her to leave for Vietnam only after she had talked with General Krulak, who had been to Vietnam and had the best perspective on what was going on there of anyone the Attorney General had heard.
General Victor H. Krulak, of the Marine Corps, told Higgins that the Buddhist unrest was political, not religious. Furthermore, the Buddhists were a majority neither of the population nor of the army, and their city riots were not affecting the war in the countryside, which had begun going somewhat better in the spring and summer of 1963 than at any time since American advisers were sent to Vietnam in February 1962. Higgins also found out that General Krulak's views were in accord with those at the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the CIA, but differed from the predominant State Department opinions. "This was a hint of the struggle of furiously conflicting judgements and furiously conflicting advice that was soon to unfold under both President Kennedy and President Johnson," writes she.
Overall, it was a recipe for disaster with impressively nuanced ingredients. On one hand, there were the politico-religious dramas in Saigon and Hué, the old imperial capital, and Communist penetration in Vietnam. On the other hand, there was the situation in which President John F. Kennedy was persuaded to do things that led to the overthrow and murder of Diem, although his own Vice President avidly opposed the removal of Diem, believing it would lead to political chaos and weakening of the war effort. To cap the climax, only three weeks after Diem's and Nhu's assassinations, President John F. Kennedy was murdered, and Lyndon Johnson was left to deal with the mess caused by a policy towards Vietnam, which he, according to Higgins, had vainly opposed. (I disagree with her on that one, however, for I do not think President Johnson committed troops to Vietnam because of his pledge to continue his predecessor's policies only. In fact, John Kennedy had made it clear to his whole administration that he did not intend to send ground forces to Vietnam. Yet, with the notable exception of Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, his advisers, Lyndon Johnson among them, preferred to disregard that fact.)
The main ingredient was the cause and consequence of the fateful, and rather controversial, American decision to approve the overthrow of its ally in the middle of a war against a common enemy. "We had let allies go down the drain," the author comments. "But we hadn't pushed them."
Marguerite Higgins had called on Diem as early as 1954, but had considered it a journalistic waste of time because at the time no one in the United States believed South Vietnam would survive for long. When Diem took over, South Vietnam had been in chaos. Binh Xuyen gangsters controlled the police. The Chief of Staff of the Vietnamese army was a French puppet who openly boasted of the day he would overthrow Diem. The Hoa Hao and Cao Dai religious sects were governed by warlords that had created states within a state. Vietminh agents were everywhere, and because of the war and the exploitative French colonialism the country's economy was in disarray. Despite all of this, Diem's rule survived. Between 1954 and 1963 he had rescued and settled more than a million refugees from North Vietnam, rescued the messy bureaucracy, and re-built, modernized, and brought under civilian control the army. Even those who detracted him for having used force to compel the Hoa Hao and Cao Dai to obey central authority could not deny that his regime had achieved a lot. By 1959, South Vietnam had the highest per-capita income in Southeast Asia.
Naturally, for Ho Chi Minh, the thriving of the pro-Capitalist South was anathema. In 1959, Hanoi radio for the first time openly proclaimed that the "destruction of the Diem regime" was its target. In December 1960, the so-called National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, a creation of the North Communist Party, was established as the political arm of the Viet Cong. The number of assassinations of village chiefs, school teachers, and health workers who resisted Communist pressures increased tragically. In 1960, through assassinations, harassment, and sabotage, the Viet Cong managed to close two hundred primary schools in South Vietnam, depriving twenty-five thousand students of education. The Vietnamese army also began losing a growing number of officers and men through deadly Communist guerrilla ambushes.
In desperation, Diem turned to the American government for aid. In 1958, he had travelled to Washington to argue, vainly, that the rural population had to be prepared to defend itself from guerrilla attacks and to obtain the type of weapons that could be useful for counterinsurgency. He feared, with good reason, that once defeated politically, Ho Chi Minh would resort to force. Initially, America turned him down, but in 1961, President John F. Kennedy sent a team headed by General Maxwell Taylor to inspect the situation in Vietnam. It was that mission that committed the American government to helping South Vietnam protect itself from the northern Communists, and it was that mission that would later involve the United States into the war.
Then, in the summer of 1963, the competence of the American government, the war against the Communists, the reputation of Diem as an able leader – all was suddenly thrown into doubt by the shocking Buddhist self-immolations in Saigon. Had Diem lost his senses out of the blue and turned into a monster?
As Higgins argues, Diem and his brother and closest adviser, Nhu, were, in fact, neither irrational nor uncomprehending of the criticism levied against them by a world stunned by the shocking photos of Buddhist monks on fire. Their decision to use force against the Buddhists stemmed from their overly optimistic assessment of their current fortunes and from their belief that their nation- building policies were reasonable and successful.
Their decision also came from their experience in their past dealings with the United States. Nhu explained that he saw similarities between the conflict with the Buddhists and the brothers' earlier struggles against the Binh Xuyen nine years earlier. In the earlier crisis, the advice from American officials “was exactly the same advice given by United States representatives now,” Nhu complained. “They urged conciliation with the sects.”
In 1955, Diem and Nhu had disregarded American advice and attacked their opponents with military force, only to watch with satisfaction as the official American position shifted to one of strong support for their regime. In August 1963, the brothers ordered the Buddhist pagoda raids with those earlier triumphs in mind. They knew that the crackdown would provoke the indignation of Washington and around the world.
However, they planned to emerge from the crisis stronger, just as they had done nine years ago. Their strategy, Higgins states, was born not from madness or desperation, but from excessive optimism and firm belief, based on former experience, that they would emerge victorious in the end.
But the cruel crackdown on the Vietnamese Buddhists sealed Diem's regime's faith. It aggravated the anger and fear, which had been piling up in many part of South Vietnam's society. A State Department officer who visited Saigon, Hue, and Danang during early September described them as “cities of hate" where both outrage and dread were unleashed. Furthermore, the Ngos' atrocities affected Saigon's relations with America negatively and ignited a wave of indignation that further undermined the American-Vietnamese alliance. The American public's opinion was now strongly against Diem, and some American officials began advocating his overthrow. It became obvious that the fall of his government was imminent.
Journalist Marguerite Higgins has written a compelling, insightful analysis of the causes of South Vietnam's President Diem's rise and fall. Drawing upon her interviews and conversations with insiders from the American government and military, she defends her views persuasively. OUR VIETNAM NIGHTMARE is not a book to be missed by Vietnam buffs.
The State Department was predominantly angry and exasperated with Ngo Dinh Diem. It accused him of rigidity and poor public relations in handling religious discontent provoked by a riot in Hué, which broke out because of a dispute over the flying of Buddhist flags on Buddha's birthday, May 8. The death toll was eight, and government troops were believed to be responsible for those deaths. According to the State Department, Diem should stop repressing demonstrations so that the Buddhists would have nothing to complain about and calm down. It considered the majority of Vietnamese people Buddhists and believed that being on good terms with the Buddhists was essential to having the Vietnamese on Diem's side. In the summer of 1963, almost all news dispatches out of Saigon stated that seventy-ninety percent of the Vietnamese population were Buddhists.
If that were true, however, it would also mean that about ninety percent of the Vietnamese army were Buddhists and potentially influenced by the Buddhist hierarchy to turn against their own government – a risky situation. That, argues Higgins, was simply not the case, though.
She discovered that through a phone call to Robert Kennedy, who in addition to being Attorney General was a key figure in the committee on counterinsurgency established by President John F. Kennedy and therefore familiar with the situation in Vietnam. Bobby Kennedy advised her to leave for Vietnam only after she had talked with General Krulak, who had been to Vietnam and had the best perspective on what was going on there of anyone the Attorney General had heard.
General Victor H. Krulak, of the Marine Corps, told Higgins that the Buddhist unrest was political, not religious. Furthermore, the Buddhists were a majority neither of the population nor of the army, and their city riots were not affecting the war in the countryside, which had begun going somewhat better in the spring and summer of 1963 than at any time since American advisers were sent to Vietnam in February 1962. Higgins also found out that General Krulak's views were in accord with those at the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the CIA, but differed from the predominant State Department opinions. "This was a hint of the struggle of furiously conflicting judgements and furiously conflicting advice that was soon to unfold under both President Kennedy and President Johnson," writes she.
Overall, it was a recipe for disaster with impressively nuanced ingredients. On one hand, there were the politico-religious dramas in Saigon and Hué, the old imperial capital, and Communist penetration in Vietnam. On the other hand, there was the situation in which President John F. Kennedy was persuaded to do things that led to the overthrow and murder of Diem, although his own Vice President avidly opposed the removal of Diem, believing it would lead to political chaos and weakening of the war effort. To cap the climax, only three weeks after Diem's and Nhu's assassinations, President John F. Kennedy was murdered, and Lyndon Johnson was left to deal with the mess caused by a policy towards Vietnam, which he, according to Higgins, had vainly opposed. (I disagree with her on that one, however, for I do not think President Johnson committed troops to Vietnam because of his pledge to continue his predecessor's policies only. In fact, John Kennedy had made it clear to his whole administration that he did not intend to send ground forces to Vietnam. Yet, with the notable exception of Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, his advisers, Lyndon Johnson among them, preferred to disregard that fact.)
The main ingredient was the cause and consequence of the fateful, and rather controversial, American decision to approve the overthrow of its ally in the middle of a war against a common enemy. "We had let allies go down the drain," the author comments. "But we hadn't pushed them."
Marguerite Higgins had called on Diem as early as 1954, but had considered it a journalistic waste of time because at the time no one in the United States believed South Vietnam would survive for long. When Diem took over, South Vietnam had been in chaos. Binh Xuyen gangsters controlled the police. The Chief of Staff of the Vietnamese army was a French puppet who openly boasted of the day he would overthrow Diem. The Hoa Hao and Cao Dai religious sects were governed by warlords that had created states within a state. Vietminh agents were everywhere, and because of the war and the exploitative French colonialism the country's economy was in disarray. Despite all of this, Diem's rule survived. Between 1954 and 1963 he had rescued and settled more than a million refugees from North Vietnam, rescued the messy bureaucracy, and re-built, modernized, and brought under civilian control the army. Even those who detracted him for having used force to compel the Hoa Hao and Cao Dai to obey central authority could not deny that his regime had achieved a lot. By 1959, South Vietnam had the highest per-capita income in Southeast Asia.
Naturally, for Ho Chi Minh, the thriving of the pro-Capitalist South was anathema. In 1959, Hanoi radio for the first time openly proclaimed that the "destruction of the Diem regime" was its target. In December 1960, the so-called National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, a creation of the North Communist Party, was established as the political arm of the Viet Cong. The number of assassinations of village chiefs, school teachers, and health workers who resisted Communist pressures increased tragically. In 1960, through assassinations, harassment, and sabotage, the Viet Cong managed to close two hundred primary schools in South Vietnam, depriving twenty-five thousand students of education. The Vietnamese army also began losing a growing number of officers and men through deadly Communist guerrilla ambushes.
In desperation, Diem turned to the American government for aid. In 1958, he had travelled to Washington to argue, vainly, that the rural population had to be prepared to defend itself from guerrilla attacks and to obtain the type of weapons that could be useful for counterinsurgency. He feared, with good reason, that once defeated politically, Ho Chi Minh would resort to force. Initially, America turned him down, but in 1961, President John F. Kennedy sent a team headed by General Maxwell Taylor to inspect the situation in Vietnam. It was that mission that committed the American government to helping South Vietnam protect itself from the northern Communists, and it was that mission that would later involve the United States into the war.
Then, in the summer of 1963, the competence of the American government, the war against the Communists, the reputation of Diem as an able leader – all was suddenly thrown into doubt by the shocking Buddhist self-immolations in Saigon. Had Diem lost his senses out of the blue and turned into a monster?
As Higgins argues, Diem and his brother and closest adviser, Nhu, were, in fact, neither irrational nor uncomprehending of the criticism levied against them by a world stunned by the shocking photos of Buddhist monks on fire. Their decision to use force against the Buddhists stemmed from their overly optimistic assessment of their current fortunes and from their belief that their nation- building policies were reasonable and successful.
Their decision also came from their experience in their past dealings with the United States. Nhu explained that he saw similarities between the conflict with the Buddhists and the brothers' earlier struggles against the Binh Xuyen nine years earlier. In the earlier crisis, the advice from American officials “was exactly the same advice given by United States representatives now,” Nhu complained. “They urged conciliation with the sects.”
In 1955, Diem and Nhu had disregarded American advice and attacked their opponents with military force, only to watch with satisfaction as the official American position shifted to one of strong support for their regime. In August 1963, the brothers ordered the Buddhist pagoda raids with those earlier triumphs in mind. They knew that the crackdown would provoke the indignation of Washington and around the world.
However, they planned to emerge from the crisis stronger, just as they had done nine years ago. Their strategy, Higgins states, was born not from madness or desperation, but from excessive optimism and firm belief, based on former experience, that they would emerge victorious in the end.
But the cruel crackdown on the Vietnamese Buddhists sealed Diem's regime's faith. It aggravated the anger and fear, which had been piling up in many part of South Vietnam's society. A State Department officer who visited Saigon, Hue, and Danang during early September described them as “cities of hate" where both outrage and dread were unleashed. Furthermore, the Ngos' atrocities affected Saigon's relations with America negatively and ignited a wave of indignation that further undermined the American-Vietnamese alliance. The American public's opinion was now strongly against Diem, and some American officials began advocating his overthrow. It became obvious that the fall of his government was imminent.
Journalist Marguerite Higgins has written a compelling, insightful analysis of the causes of South Vietnam's President Diem's rise and fall. Drawing upon her interviews and conversations with insiders from the American government and military, she defends her views persuasively. OUR VIETNAM NIGHTMARE is not a book to be missed by Vietnam buffs.
January 17, 2022
Amazing book that showed how the government was pretty messed up in Vietnam. I read it while still in high school.
May 4, 2010
I would rate this as an execellent book written by a seasoned war corrspondant with extensive experience in Vietnam and Asia in general. I lived through this period in American history and j look back in shame on the way we treated our ally and then the way our government stabbed both Vietnam and the American soldiers in the back. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the true reasons why America's commitment of both manpower and finances rose due to errors in judgement made in "Camelot."
August 18, 2024
I do not understand why Higgins' reporting on Vietnam has been completely bypassed. None of her observations or perspectives are reflected in the current narrative of that war. Perhaps had she not tragically passed away in early 1966, she might have had an influence on the conduct and direction of the proceeding years.
April 7, 2023
Much of the material was covered in a biography I read of Higgins. However, reading her own words brought it home. She also downplayed how significant her role as a few are correspondent wad. To her, trudging through rough terrain or getting an interview with a General was all in a day's work.
July 7, 2024
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews