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Chicago Tribune
June 1, 1997"A Fatal Mistake:
Looking anew at Ngo Dinh Diem's 1963 ouster as president of South Vietnam"..."Diem was, as much as Ho Chi Minh, a devoted Vietnamese nationalist with impeccable credentials as an anti-French defender of Vietnamese independence. The North Vietnamese feared him as the one South Vietnamese leader capable of claiming the Confucian 'mandate of heaven.' Moreover, Diem's chief drawback from the perspective of the American mission in Saigon was his aversion to excessive dependence on American advisers. While the coup against him was being plotted, Diem was negotiating a political compromise with Ho, who was just as troubled by his dependence on Chinese support in the North as Diem was by the growing American presence in the South. In retrospect, the elimination of Diem destroyed the only realistic prospect for a negotiated settlement and the honorable withdrawal of the U.S. from the conflict.
"If this were a film, the plot line would be part Greek tragedy, part John le Carre spy novel and part Marx Brothers comedy. The chief villain would be Henry Cabot Lodge, the American ambassador in Saigon, whose combination of duplicity, stupidity and self-importance sealed Diem's fate.
..."If Winters is right about Kennedy's motives, and the evidence here is inherently more elusive than his authoritative treatment of the Diem debacle, those whose names appear on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial might not have died in vain. They may present a costly but plausible diversion that helped reduce the likelihood of a much more costly war in Central Europe. This is a rather novel way to think about the most misbegotten war in American history, a way that my own mind finds difficult to digest. But like so much else in 'The Year of the Hare,' it makes you think about old questions in new ways. More heavily promoted books about the Vietnam War have appeared in recent years, but none packs this kind of intellectual wallop."
Foreign Affairs
Vol. 76, No. 6"An enthralling and sardonic study of the events and personalities surrounding the ouster and assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem. Winters, who teaches ethics and international affairs at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, writes persuasively of the folly and high-minded intolerance that lay behind 'the Kennedy campaign to superimpose on Saigon the image of Washington.' This undertaking at once augured the subsequent Americanization of the war and eliminated the one South Vietnamese leader with solid nationalist credentials (a point not lost on the North Vietnamese, dumbfounded and delighted by the American-sponsored coup). Among those pressing for Diem's removal, ironically, were Undersecretary of State George Ball and New York Times correspondent David Halberstam, both of whom later became trenchant critics of the war but who receive here pointed criticism for their role in 1963."
The Journal of American History
September 1998"Francis X. Winters has written an interesting and thought-provoking account of the assassination of South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem and its impact on the Vietnam War."
..."Diem's assassination in November 1963 had a dramatic impact on the war, according to Winters, because it 'severed the nerve of government in Saigon.' Winters questions the logic and ethics of overthrowing a democratic government in South Vietnam and argues, like William Colby of the Central Intelligence Agency, that Diem was the only viable candidate who could 'lead Vietnam through this dirty war.'"
..."Winters has written a provocative book, and it will surely have its critics. His biographical sketches of Rusk and Diem make the book a worthwhile read, however, for any student interested in the Cold War and American liberalism."
Library Journal
July 1997"Winters (ethics and international affairs, Georgetown Univ.) explores the Kennedy administration's 1963 deliberations leading to the overthrow of the South Vietnamese government of Ngo Dinh Diem. Opposed schools of thought eventually converged to produce a consensus supporting a coup. Kennedy ultimately consented to the coup plus assassination. Diem's downfall, contends Winters, was the beginning of the end for the United States in Vietnam, since a staunch nationalist like Diem would surely have rejected subsequent Americanization of the war effort. Based on in-depth interviews with leading members of the Kennedy administration and recently opened State Department records, this work illuminates the uneasy blend of idealism and hardheaded realism underpinning U.S. political culture. An insightful look at the process of crafting foreign policy in a democracy, recommended for academic libraries."