326 ChaPter^6
As part of the original agreement, Diem was only to be in power until elec-
tions were held in 1956 to choose a single leader to head the entire country,
but the U.S. got Diem to cancel those elections and thus invented a country
south of the 17th parallel, one that it would eventually defend with billions
of dollars and millions of soldiers.
The U.S. claimed to put Diem in power to bring “democracy” to Vietnam,
as opposed to Ho’s Communism. But Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu
[Ngo was the family name, and Diem and Nhu the first names of the broth-
ers] were despotic and cruel. They even created a political party based on
loyalty to their family [the Can Lao, or “Personalist” Party].By the later 1950s,
they had jailed or killed well over a hundred thousand “enemies” of the state
for offenses as absurd as “acting like a communist.” Despite their human rights
abuses, the U.S. kept sending money into southern Vietnam [billions in the
1950s alone] to keep their friends in power and keep Ho from gaining control
of the whole country, even though everyone who studied Vietnam in the
U.S.–the CIA, the army, the NSC, President Eisenhower, other experts–all
acknowledged that Ho would easily win any fair election for president.The Cold War, from Europe to the Whole World
What began in 1945 as a conflict over Eastern Europe had, in less than ten
years, become a global struggle for power that brought actual “hot” wars to
China, Korea, Guatemala, and Vietnam, to name a few places. If we went into
detail on all the events of the early Cold War, we would be flooded with
information, but the examples used show us clearly how the Americans
planned for and built an empire based on military and, more importantly,
economic strength. The use of the Atomic Bomb, the establishment of the
Bretton Woods System, the Marshall Plan, the Berlin airlift, the war in Korea,
NSC-68, and interventions in Iran, Guatemala, and Vietnam all demonstrated
the intensity and breadth of American interests throughout the world. By the
end of this first period in the Cold War, the U.S. had overwhelming domi-
nance and the Soviet Union, while undoubtedly a rival, was, despite the fear-
mongering of U.S. leaders, far behind. Still, the militarization, interventions,
military budgets and anti-communism would remain vital to not just American
foreign policy, but policies at home as well.