The Best and the Brightest: Kennedy-Johnson Administrations (Modern Library)

by David Halberstam

Like water turning into ice, the illusion crystallized and became a reality, not because that which existed in South Vietnam was real, but because it became real in powerful men’s minds. Thus, what had never truly existed and was so terribly frail became firm, hard. A real country with a real constitution. An army dressed in fine, tight-fitting uniforms, and officers with lots of medals. A supreme court. A courageous President. Articles were written. “The Tough Miracle Man of Vietnam,” Life called him. “The bright spot in Asia,” the Saturday Evening Post said (“Two years ago at Geneva,” read the blurb for the latter, “South Vietnam was virtually sold down the river to the Communists. Today the spunky little Asian country is back on its feet thanks to a 'mandarin in a sharkskin suit who’s upsetting the Red timetable’ ”). A lobby for Diem began to emerge. Speeches were made in his honor. In 1956, in the modest words of Walter Robertson, Dulles’ Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs: “Among the factors that explain the remarkable rise of Free Vietnam from the shambles created by eight years of murderous civil and international war, the division of the country at Geneva, and the continuing menace of predatory Communism, there is in the first place the dedication, courage and resourcefulness of President Diem himself.” In all this there is a subtle change; the client state does not really come to life but the illusion does; as such, the proprietor state begins to...