American and British intelligence on South Vietnam, 1963

These two documents were produced at a pivotal moment of American involvement in the Vietnam War. By this time the stability of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem’s regime was in serious doubt and, as both of these documents recognise, without immediate action, the entire political, social and economic fabric of the country was threatened. Diem had been the leader of the Republic of Vietnam since partition following the Geneva Agreement of 1954. In the opinion of both the British and American governments, the years that followed had seen some considerable successes in his country. Up until just a few months before these documents were written, Diem appeared to be dealing with the dual challenges of building up the South Vietnamese state while fighting the communist insurgency, which had bee reinvigorated from 1960. His methods were often questionable and even brutal, but the US overlooked these because he seemed to be maintaining stability. Indeed, when John F. Kennedy became the US President in January 1961, the main focus of US attention in South-east Asia was the developing crisis in Laos between the communist Pathet Lao and the Royal Laotian Army.