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...