The Growth of American Power Through Cold and Hot Wars 325In the North, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam [DRVN], Ho and the Viet
Minh would be in charge. But below the 17th parallel, the U.S. had to find a
leader, would in fact have to create a country. That would be difficult since
anyone who had the respect of the Vietnamese people belonged to the Viet
Minh, so the U.S. had to find someone who would be its client, or, more
derisively, its “puppet,” in southern Vietnam, or the Republic of Vietnam [RVN].
It settled on a man named Ngo Dinh Diem [pronounced like “Ziem”] who had
spent many years outside of Vietnam, in exile in Paris and then the U.S. In
America he had made important friends like Francis Cardinal Spellman, since
Diem was a Catholic even though the vast majority of Vietnam was Buddhist,
and like Senator John F. Kennedy. Diem, in effect, was the only option the
U.S. had, so they put him in power; they really had no other choice. Even the
CIA admitted that “with the decision to support Ngo Dinh Diem the United
States was undertaking not only to establish a leader but to create a country...”
FIGuRE 6-8 Map of Vietnam divided at the 17th Parallel