These were noble aspirations, and Eisenhower believed in them firmly. Yet they were consistently betrayed in their implementation. Instead of building freedom and democracy, the Eisenhower administration militarized “free” Indochina. It propped up Diem’s dictatorial government and provided enormous sums of money that allowed Diem to strengthen his hold on power even as he was driving his people into the arms of the communist insurgency. By the start of 1960, while Ike looked forward to his meeting with Khrushchev in hopes of resolving many cold war tensions, his administration was fanning the
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