Free Republic

On this date in 1963, Ngo Dinh Diem, the first president of South Vietnam, was executed in the back of an armored personnel carrier along with his younger brother and secret police chief, Ngo Dinh Nhu, the day after their government had been overthrown in a military coup. Born into the Buddhist country’s Catholic elite, Diem was brought up as a French colonial administrator but fled Vietnam in 1950 under a death sentence from Ho Chi Minh’s nascent Vietminh. Over several years living and lecturing in the United States, he established his anti-communist bona fides with influential conservatives and was...

The jungles of Viet Nam were the reality for over 54,000 deaths of America’s soldiers, but the Nam war also may be the epitome of stupidity for politicians who turned a US victory into an agonizing defeat! An important book appearing on bookshelves of an American legion post details just what went wrong and it was written by the son of John H. Richardson, Sr., the senior CIA station chief in Saigon. Much maligned after news stories popped up in homeland newspapers, written by real fly-by reporters, the Saigon headquarters of the CIA chief became the boiling point for palace...

Geoffrey ShawÂ’s account is a page-turning, sorrowful account of how the United States betrayed a man of remarkable character and political genius. On 2 November, groups of Vietnamese men, women, and children will gather for memorial services across the world to honor the death of a man largely forgotten in American historical memory. Once this man was a household name, frequently featured on the front pages of our nationÂ’s newspapers and spoken from the mouths of reporters on the nightly news. That man is Ngo Dinh Diem, president of the Republic of Vietnam (better known as South Vietnam) from 1955...

Ngo Dinh Diem, the first president of the Republic of Vietnam, possessed the Confucian "Mandate of Heaven," a moral and political authority that was widely recognized by all Vietnamese. What is not commonly known is that Diem was a devout Roman Catholic - in fact, he was a third-order Benedictine and daily communicant. Diem was taken down by a military coup sponsored by the U.S. government and ultimately betrayed by the administration of the first Catholic President, John F. Kennedy, which resulted in Diem's brutal murder on Nov. 2, 1963. In his new book, THE LOST MANDATE OF HEAVEN: The...

CHET HUNTLEY: In respect to our difficulties in South Vietnam. could it be that our government tends occasionally to get locked into a policy or attitude and then finds it difficult to alter or shift that policy? PRESIDENT KENNEDY: Yes, that's true. I think in the case of South Vietnam, we've been dealing with a government which is in control, has been in control for ten years. In addition, we have felt for the last two years that the struggle against the Communists was going better however since June however the difficulties with the Bhuddists, we've been concerned about a...

WASHINGTON —The increasing static between Kabul and the White House brings to mind other dicey episodes in American diplomacy. Even dealing with allies can be tricky. Recall de Gaulle. He was heartburn for five American presidents. Even Churchill could be difficult, and he was half-American. Yet for Roosevelt and Truman he could be a trial, particularly when the question of the British Empire was on the table and the future of its colonies. President Barack Obama’s rows with President Hamid Karzai may not put you in mind of de Gaulle or the passing of the British Empire, but there is...

Triumph Forsaken The Vietnam War, 1954-1965 by Mark Moyar Cambridge, 542 pp., $32 In the late summer of 1963, President John Kennedy dispatched two observers to South Vietnam. Their mission was to provide the president an assessment of the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, the president of the Republic of Vietnam. The first, Major General Victor Krulak, USMC, the special assistant for counterinsurgency for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited some ten locations in all four Corps areas of Vietnam. Based on extensive interviews with U.S. advisers to the South Vietnamese army, Krulak concluded that the war was going well....

<p>Nine months before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, three emergency-preparedness officials from Louisiana were indicted, accused of obstruction and lying in connection with the mishandling of $30.4 million in disaster-relief money. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has tried unsuccessfully to recover the money following an investigation of a program to buy out homeowners in flood-prone areas.</p>

Last Saturday night brought His Imperial Highness Prince Nguyen Phuc Buu Chanh of Vietnam, Regent of the Imperial Dynasty and President of the Vietnamese Constitutional Monarchist League, to Cornell. The Prince, a member of the Vietnamese imperial family gave a lecture, entitled "Revival of Vietnamese Culture: The Nguyen Dynasty," before a crowd of about 50 people. Maria Nguyen '05, vice president of the Cornell Vietnamese Association sang the American national anthem and then played the national anthem of South Vietnam. Aided by PowerPoint slides, Prince Buu Chanh then began his lecture speaking from a podium draped with the American flag...

The Imperial Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam is politically pressuring the government of Vietnam to protect the liberty, religious rights of the Vietnamese people as well as the culture, traditions, languages of the Montagnards and Khmer Krom in Vietnam. (PRWEB) October 23, 2004 -- Today, Vietnam is experiencing a minor period of outward growth. Even the most dedicated Communists are abandoning old communist economic policies, which have proven to be ineffective and sometimes harmful. Capitalism is being introduced, with the Communist Party maintained only as a vehicle to exercise absolute control of the elite Party leaders over the common people. The...

Aurora,IL (PRWEB) September 8, 2004 -- OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS - From the Office of the Leadership of the The Imperial Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam & Vietnamese Constitutional Monarchist League: His Imperial Highness Prince Nguyen Phuc Buu Chanh of Vietnam, Regent of the Imperial Nguyen Dynasty and President of The Vietnamese Constitutional Monarchist League denounces the Communist Government on the return of United States Servicemen MIA or possible POWs’ and Human Rights Record. It has been stated by American Marines and Army Soldiers who are in Vietnam searching for MIA's, that there is corruption within the government of Vietnam. They stated that...

The Zapruder film proves itself to be authentic. There is no possibility that any frames could have been cut out of the film or altered. Why/how? Every time a frame was exposed, part of the background scene was exposed onto both the next frame and the previous frame in the sprocket hole areas. This is because the sproket holes are between frames, as shown below: The head shot, frame-by-frame: Frame 312 Frame 313 Frame 313 enlarged: Frame 314 Frame 315 Frame 316 Frame 317 Frame 318 Frame 319 Frame 320 The head wound: The large flap of skull, skin and...