No South Vietnamese Leader Mobilised the Population

The argument

The American government propped up a series of authoritarian, tyrannical dictators. The men were not popular among their compatriots. Diem employed oppressive policies against the local Buddhist population, so much so that many local Buddhist monks burnt themselves alive in public in protest of his oppression. General Thieu was not much better. He jailed journalists and closed down the free press. His administration was accused of rampant corruption and inefficiency. His Presidency was racked by regular protests calling on him to resign.

Context

After President Ngo Dinh Diem, Nguyen Van Thieu took over the South Vietnamese leadership. He also proved unpopular and an ineffective leader.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The Vietnamese had little control over their own government. If the Vietnamese government was ineffective, it was because the US government had chosen poorly. CIA agent, Colonel Edward Lansdale, helped orchestrate Diem’s election victory. The election ballots appealed to the Vietnamese sense of good luck, placing Diem’s name in red on the ballot, a colour which signifies good fortune in Vietnam. His opponent’s name, Bao Dai, was printed in green, a colour of misfortune. Eisenhower would later admit that had the elections been free and fair in 1956, Diem would never have won. In the case of Thieu, Washington wanted a strongman to preserve order, not a charismatic leader who would charm the Vietnamese population. That was what they got. An autocrat who alienated his own population. Nixon provided Thieu with significant financial and political aid to ensure he won reelection in 1971. Nixon even delayed American troop withdrawals so that Thieu could show the Vietnamese population they were safe on election day. Nixon had the opportunity to replace Thieu in 1971 and put somebody in charge more in-line with Vietnamese thinking. But he didn’t. Blame for the failings of the South Vietnamese leadership falls squarely on American shoulders. There is also considerable debate surrounding the efficiency of Thieu as a war-leader. TUnder Thieu, the South Vietnamese government, with the help of US troops, had wiped out the Vietcong insurgency by 1971.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Everything described is a failure of the leaders, not of the population, so the premise does not support the position it is filed under. Self-immolation by monks and sustained public protest are evidence of a highly mobilised population — mobilised against the government the argument is defending. [Rejecting P2] Repression, censorship and corruption under Thieu tell the same story, and the counter supplies what the premise leaves out: those leaders were selected, sustained and re-elected with American money and involvement, which makes their unpopularity a consequence of the policy rather than an independent cause of its failure. The argument also never connects leadership to the military outcome it is meant to explain.