The struggle for reform: the United States and Diem’s internal security forces, 1956–8

In 1956, Ngo Dinh Diem launched a series of ferocious anti-communist operations across South Vietnam. Diem’s army and internal security forces jailed thousands of people the regime had identified as its internal enemies. These campaigns, according to an official Vietnamese communist party history, convinced the southern communists that Diem was ‘dangerously crafty and different from the previous puppets’.1 Fearing that Diem’s success would prompt the communists to re-double their efforts against the Saigon government, the United States increased its support to South Vietnam’s police and paramilitary forces.