Vietnam, Protest, and Counterculture 451of military and Can Lao thugs to arrest, try, convict, and execute anyone sus-
pected of disloyalty. Such oppression worked in one important respect, how-
ever; the Viet Minh in the South was on the ropes, its membership in hiding,
in prison, or dead. American support of Diem seemed to be paying off, so
much so that the Communists had to develop a new strategy and increase
their role in the conflict.
The Viet Minh and other anti-Diem groups in the south had been asking
Ho Chi Minh and the communist leadership in Hanoi for help for some time
because of the beating they were taking in southern Vietnam. But they
remained cautious and did not want to take a larger role in the South for
fear of provoking the Americans to do more, or even intervene; by this time
the U.S. was sending over a billion dollars yearly to “South Vietnam” and had
FIGuRE 9-2 Vice President Lyndon Johnson during his Far East Trip, 1961.
Front to back: Ngo Dinh Diem, Lady Bird Johnson, Madame Nhu,
Nguyen Ngoc Tho, Jean Kennedy Smith, Stephen Smith, Ngo Dinh Nhu