Ngo Dinh Diem, the president of South Vietnam, and Diem’s brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, who served as his chief advisor. Diem, a devout Roman Catholic, had been instructed by the pope to cooperate with the strategies of the U S government to thwart the gains of Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese.20 The cooperation was deemed so important by the Vatican that Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York formed a pro-Diem lobby in Washington. Through speeches and pamphlets, Spellman presented the people of Vietnam as a terrified throng cowering before the cruel and bloodthirsty Viet Minh—the Vietnamese
...more
