7 Vietnam Is the Place
;~.* ''Ii, 0
An. American adviser, Lieutenant Colonel William Dickerson, supervises the
abandonment oj an untenable outpost in the jungle. American helicopters flown by
American pilots helped evacuate the South Vietnamese troops.
President Kennedy and two of his principal advisers on Vietnam-Secretary of Defense
McNamara (left) and Secretary of State Rusk. Rusk's experience in Asian affairs
dated back to his military service during World War II.
Vice-President Johnson chatting with Ngo Dinh Diem in Saigon in May 1961.
Johnson, whom Kennedy had sent on an ambassadorial world tour, exuberantly praised
Diem as the "Wil1sto/'/ Churchill of Asia," which reassured Diem of American
mpport.
Captain Gerald Kilburn
(left), an American
adviser, leads South
Vietnamese troops into
action in the Mekong delta
in 1963. American
advisers then in Vietnam
were supposed to avoid
combat, but many
participated in battle
nevertheless.
Frederick Nolting (left),
American ambassador to
South Vietnam, chats
with General Paul
Harkins, commander of
the U. S. military advisory
mission. Nolting's
previous diplomatic
experience had been in
Europe. Harkins had once
played minor roles in the
movies.
In February 1962, two in-
surgent South Vietnamese
air force pilots bombed
Diem's palace. Diem and
his family miraculously es-
caped injury, but Madame
Nhu was slightly hurt.
Here, sometime later, Ma-
dame Nhu inspects the
bombed palace.
Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu,
President Diem's beautifUl
and impetuous sister-in-
law, who considered
herself South Vietnam's
First Lady. She was an
active feminist who
organized her own corps
of women warriors, to
whom she here gives a
lesson in target practice.
Diem's younger brother,
Ngo Dinh Nhu. An
t'l"ratic figure with
scholarly pretensions, Nhu
fllolved an arcane doctrine
cal/ed Personalism'- which
rejected both capitalism
(/lid socialism. It was
IIl1derstood by very few
Vietrlllmese.
A South Vietnamese
peasant helps a Vietcong
guerrilla make traps to be
used against Saigon
government troops. These
devices, made oj barbed
nails capable ojpenetrat-
ing the sole oj a boot,
were concealed in flooded
rice fields or on jungle
trails.
Beginning in the late
1950s, North Vietnam
sent supplies to Vietcong
insurgents in the south.
Porters carried the
equipment along the Ho
Chi Minh Trail, which
threaded through the
mountains and jungles oj
adjacent Laos.
'., An American adviser
trains a South Vietnamese
..~";. ~. soldier in the use of a
bayonet. Despite training
", \ and equipment, the South
Vietnamese troops were
" -1, \\~ .frequently no match for the
highly organized and
., .; motivated Vietcong
guerrillas.
;! ,..
r.
i
u. S, advisers also tried to
teach the benefits of
American civilization to
local youths. The effort
was known as "nation-
building"; it made only a
superficial dent in
Vietnamese culture.
To isolate peasants from
the Vietcong guerrillas,
the South Vietnamese
government built fortified
enclosures called <{strategic
hamlets." But this
alienated many peasants,
who resented being moved
from their native villages.
Both the South Vietnam-
ese army and the Vietcong
guerrillas frequerltly tor-
tured peasants, either to
extract information or in
retaliation for sympathiz-
ing with one side or the
other.