U.S History 1877-Present 12.1c: The Cold War Revisited

paranoid. He persecuted his political enemies expelling imprisoning or [People behind bars looking unhappy]

executing those who opposed his regime. He probably even tried to get sunshine and

rainbows banned. Wait a sec, as leaders of the free world weren't we supposed to

stop this kind of behavior? Well you bet, and the irony of this wasn't lost on the [American flag holding a stop sign next to Diem]

newly elected president John F Kennedy well JFK had major issues with the U.S.

basically supporting a mean dictator.. Well the US had helped to create Diem,

Kennedy and his colleagues admitted that may have been a mistake, in the same

way that raising a lion in your apartment maybe a mistake. For one by

violating the Geneva Accords and allowing Diem to cancel national elections

the US had become accountable for the growing unpopularity of the regime. This

also helped to feed the rising tide of resistance in South Vietnam. At first [Anti Diem protest signs pop up in South Vietnam]

JFK and his closest advisers underestimated the will of the North

Vietnamese and knew diddly-squat about the growing anti Diem insurgency in the

south. So Kennedy figured that maintaining an independent South Vietnam

would require political maneuvering and the aid of military advisers, but

hopefully no boots on the ground because if there was one thing JFK hated more

than anything it was muddy tracks on his clean floor. Okay, so maybe that's not [Man in boots leaves muddy footprints behind]

entirely true, JFK and his pals were less concerned with boot prints and more

worried about Castro shenanigans in Cuba. Well there communist leader Fidel

Castro cooperated with the Soviet Union in establishing Russian missile bases on

the island.The tense showdown that followed ended in negotiations that

favored the United States, so it seemed that the lesson to be learned from Cuba

was that the U.S. only needed to resist communist aggression and perhaps Soviet [American flags hits USSR flag away from Cuba]

aggression in Vietnam. If Kennedy could succeed against the North Vietnamese the

way he had against the communist alliance in Cuba, well then disaster

would be averted. What could possibly go wrong? [Question mark pulsating]

Ya know besides everything... Vietnam was not Cuba and the Soviet Union had nothing to do

with the growing unrest in South Vietnam by May 1963 amidst a series of

tumultuous demonstrations in Saigon, it had become clear to Kennedy's

administration that Ngo Dinh Diem had to go. Sorry Ngo but you're kinda a jerk. On 2 November

1963 the South Vietnamese military with the encouragement of the US government [Diem is led away with a black plastic bag over his head]

executed Diem and seized control of the government, and no nobody in Washington

had said shoot Diem as a member of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff remarked you

don't do an assassination that way. The way people are assassinated is by taking

away the power that had been created to keep them there. Well three

weeks later in Dallas, Texas president Kennedy died from an assassin's bullet. [JFK smiling in the back of a car]

At which point the Joint Chiefs of Staff member probably said something like

"Um, I take back what I said." [Staff member with ten gallon hat]