The 1954 Geneva Accords had called for a temporary partition of Vietnam at the 17th Parallel—creating a Communist state in the North and a French-backed non-Communist state in the South. The agreement called for an election to reunify the two zones in 1956.
Eisenhower believed “losing” South Vietnam to communism would be a strategic, economic, and humanitarian disaster. So he pledged support to an emerging leader—Ngo Dinh Diem—a devout Catholic and fervent anti-French, anti-Communist nationalist.
In this letter, President Eisenhower offered South Vietnamese President Diem financial support and encouraged him to make “needed reforms” to broaden his government and make it more representative. But President Diem’s ideas about nation building differed from those held by the U.S. His early successes against his enemies only reinforced his authoritarian tendencies and his conviction that he knew better than the Americans how to govern South Vietnam.
