In May 1959 he forced through a new decree that gave the government extraordinary emergency powers to arrest, try, and execute suspected communist guerrillas. In an appalling act of barbarism, the government sent guillotines to all the provinces. Those people found guilty of subversion met their death strapped to a horizontal plank beneath a slashing blade. Predictably such policies stimulated massive hostility throughout the South. A CIA analysis in May 1959 candidly admitted that Diem’s regime was on the brink of disaster, yet in Washington Eisenhower called for no change in policy.
