Quote Originally Posted by tequila View Post
Stanley, pg. 160 is not my main beef with Moyar - just a laughable example of his valorization of the Diem regime and its, shall we say, unironic estimation of its effectiveness. I just pulled it out because I have Moyar's book on my desk - randomly flipped and found that hilarious passage. Moyar also hints that the Social Purification Law hurt Diem with journalists because their entertainment was curtailed, with no evidence cited - par for the course for Moyar.
My main beef is that you initally played this passage as Moyar's main belief about why western media did not like Diem. He clearly states in other places (which I will reference when I get my book back,if you desire) the reasons he thinks they disliked Diem (which I explained above), which have nothing to do with the Social Purification Law.



His cover was as a journalist, but his mission was not to be a propaganda officer, it was to gain intelligence and provide analysis on Western and South Vietnamese intentions and motivation, as noted before...Those missions would have been impossible if RVN intelligence believed he was a Communist agent provocateur.
Because his main mission was not as a propoganda officer, you think Moyar should take his communications at face value? Where does Moyar say that Pham behaved stupidly enough that SVN intelligence should have suspected him?