Vietnam War Collection: books plus

[tequila]

Now you are bordering on comedy. Did you even read the book? Please provide a page number in which Moyar derives that conclusion.

The tic-tac-toe passage is from pg. 160 and relates to the truly remarkable effects of the Social Purification Law, propounded by Madam Nhu. According to Moyar, Diem's RVN was not only defeating Communism but also prostitution.

This sort of ad-hom attack is not helpful in critiqueing Moyar's work, but it is helpful in understanding your true motivations for posting here.

Yes, I want to destroy Mark Moyar. And perhaps America, as well.

No, I simply find many of his conclusions incredible and unhelpful. I am also slightly bitter at having spent much time reading transcripts of Diem declaiming on various subjects, presented as examples of Diem's clear-eyed leadership, as well as Moyar's justifications for the butchery in Indonesia --- when something similar happened in Rwanda in 1997, it was called genocide.

Moyar is far too credulous in taking the assessments of certain officials as genuine reality rather than as points of view, while discrediting others as inherently compromised. For instance, Pham Xuan An, the Communist military intel agent and Reuters stringer, is automatically presented as providing a distorting view and propaganda stories to the Western press. The view of Merle Pribbenow, former CIA officer and Moyar's translator of Vietnamese documents, is that Pham's main value was as conduit of intelligence to VCI given his many links to South Vietnam's CIO and the CIA, as well as analyst of South Vietnamese and American intentions and motivations. Pribbenow's view that Pham would not have been wasted by presenting VCI propaganda to Western newspaper reporters, and indeed that Pham acted "more Catholic than the Pope" to avoid suspicion, is much more plausible than Moyar's take. Yet Moyar does not even pause to consider this in his rush to assault the Western press in Saigon.

Moyar also does not convince when attempting to persuade us that the Chinese would have abandoned North Vietnam to its fate upon an American invasion, that Tri Quang was a Communist agent, or that Indonesia would have been doomed to Communism in 1965 if not for American intervention in Vietnam. Perhaps most misleading is his picture of the Vietnamese peasantry as an unpoliticized, undifferentiated lumpen mass which responded only to strength - David Elliott's Social Change in the Mekong Delta 1930-1975 illustrates just how wrong this theory is.

[stanleywinthrop]

The tic-tac-toe passage is from pg. 160 and relates to the truly remarkable effects of the Social Purification Law, propounded by Madam Nhu. According to Moyar, Diem's RVN was not only defeating Communism but also prostitution.

Yet your claim that this 'tic-tac-toe' phenomena is the reason Moyar believes western press decided to dislike Diem is fallicious. My reading of Moyar leads me to the conclusion that Moyar believed the western press disliked Diem because most of the prominant journalists spent entirely too much time with and placed entirly too much weight on the opinions thereof with one small portion of the Vietnam poplulation--the social and acedemic elites of Saigon, not because "the troops had to play tic tac toe". I do not have my copy of the book available but when I do I will post pages for your reference.

No, I simply find many of his conclusions incredible and unhelpful. I am also slightly bitter at having spent much time reading transcripts of Diem declaiming on various subjects, presented as examples of Diem's clear-eyed leadership, as well as Moyar's justifications for the butchery in Indonesia ---

I am not familiar with this event and Moyar's analysis of it, but I shall study.

Moyar is far too credulous in taking the assessments of certain officials as genuine reality rather than as points of view, while discrediting others as inherently compromised. For instance, Pham Xuan An, the Communist military intel agent and Reuters stringer, is automatically presented as providing a distorting view and propaganda stories to the Western press.

I'm confused here (that happens often ) are you saying that Pham was reliable source or not?

The view of Merle Pribbenow, former CIA officer and Moyar's translator of Vietnamese documents, is that Pham's main value was as conduit of intelligence to VCI given his many links to South Vietnam's CIO and the CIA, as well as analyst of South Vietnamese and American intentions and motivations. Pribbenow's view that Pham would not have been wasted by presenting VCI propaganda to Western newspaper reporters, and indeed that Pham acted "more Catholic than the Pope" to avoid suspicion, is much more plausible than Moyar's take. Yet Moyar does not even pause to consider this in his rush to assault the Western press in Saigon.

Again your line of reasoning is confusing to me. Are you saying that while Pham was a communist agent he acted "more Catholic than the Pope" to avoid suspicion, and this necessarily included not spreading communist propaganda and disinformation to the press? What was his purpose as a communist agent, to back up Diem's claims that he was winning the war?

Perhaps most misleading is his picture of the Vietnamese peasantry as an unpoliticized, undifferentiated lumpen mass which responded only to strength - David Elliott's Social Change in the Mekong Delta 1930-1975 illustrates just how wrong this theory is.

It's interesting that you choose to use an anthropolgy of the Mekong delta as evidence of the social leanings of the Vietnamese people--preciscly the place where Diem's COIN effort was least successful--even in Moyar's account.

[tequila]

Yet your claim that this 'tic-tac-toe' phenomena is the reason Moyar believes western press decided to dislike Diem is fallicious. My reading of Moyar leads me to the conclusion that Moyar believed the western press disliked Diem because most of the prominant journalists spent entirely too much time with and placed entirly too much weight on the opinions thereof with one small portion of the Vietnam poplulation--the social and acedemic elites of Saigon, not because "the troops had to play tic tac toe". I do not have my copy of the book available but when I do I will post pages for your reference.

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.

I'm confused here (that happens often ) are you saying that Pham was reliable source or not?

Again your line of reasoning is confusing to me. Are you saying that while Pham was a communist agent he acted "more Catholic than the Pope" to avoid suspicion, and this necessarily included not spreading communist propaganda and disinformation to the press? What was his purpose as a communist agent, to support the Diem regime?

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. For instance, Pham deduced late in 1964 that the U.S. would escalate its troop presence drastically in 1965-66 essentially through analysis work, from his contacts in American and RVN intel offices (he maintained excellent contacts with CIO, which sought to use him as an agent, as well as with Lou Conein and Ed Lansdale besides Western journalists). He also provided much of the planning data for the VCI's Saigon offensive during Tet in 1968, assisting greatly in the remarkable infiltration of VCI troops into the city. Those missions would have been impossible if RVN intelligence believed he was a Communist agent provocateur. See Larry Berman's Perfect Spy for the best rundown on Pham's career, as well as a more detailed rebuttal of the idea of Pham as propagandist to the Western press.

It's interesting that you choose to use an anthropolgy of the Mekong delta as evidence of the social leanings of the Vietnamese people--preciscly the place where Diem's COIN effort was least successful--even in Moyar's account.

The Mekong was critical to RVN in terms of strategic access to Saigon, as well as forming a rather large part of the agricultural productivity and population of the country. If Diem wasn't going to win in the Mekong, it wouldn't have been much of a victory. More importantly, Elliott's account helps undercut Moyar's characterization of South Vietnamese village politics as essentially authoritarian, as responsive only to terror or propaganda, and the villagers themselves as incapable of forming political opinions or possessing social aspirations.

[stanleywinthrop]

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?

[tequila]

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.

Apologies if my snarky tone led you to interpret it in that fashion. My main intent was to mock Moyar's unironic belief in the effectiveness of Madam Nhu's Social Purification Law, of a piece with his generally unskeptical attitude toward many of Diem's policies.

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?

Moyar says that Pham influenced journalists like Karnow, Halberstam, and Sheehan, whom he largely blames for Diem's downfall, in an anti-Diem direction without providing any evidence except that Pham was a Communist agent. That Pham might have acted in the opposite direction to preserve his more important mission as intel operative and analyst is not credited or discussed. See pg. 215 of Moyar.

Skimming over a bit more of pg. 215, I also see that Moyar apparently believes that Confucianism is a religion, that being a member of the Confucian "religion" means one cannot be a Buddhist or harbor Buddhist beliefs, and that Vietnamese peasants approved of governments that crushed public demonstrations with force.

[Steve Blair]

Again your line of reasoning is confusing to me. Are you saying that while Pham was a communist agent he acted "more Catholic than the Pope" to avoid suspicion, and this necessarily included not spreading communist propaganda and disinformation to the press? What was his purpose as a communist agent, to back up Diem's claims that he was winning the war?

If you stop to think about it from a classic subversion standpoint, it would make perfect sense for Pham to back the claims of the Diem regime. Why? Because then fewer people would look at what was really going on in the countryside and VCI activity could continue unchecked.

It's also worth noting that the majority of the ethnic Vietnamese population of SVN was in the Mekong Delta region (generally speaking...although both III and IV CTZs were densely populated compared to the rest of the country) so an examination of Diem's popularity in that region is perfectly justified. The relevance of the central government at the village level in Vietnam during this period is still the subject of some debate, but one thing that isn't debated is that Diem was not especially popular at that level (this shows up both in recent research and contemporary studies...some of which came out before the coup). Still, as Ken points out (and I'll paraphrase) "he may have been a bastard, but he was their bastard." Diem had precious little in common with the common folk of SVN, but they at least understood his brand of corruption. Could we have "won" with him? Doubtful.

[stanleywinthrop]

Could we have "won" with him? Doubtful.

But we clearly did not "win" without him, which is one of Moyar's main themes, and one of the main reasons for history, to ponder such questions.

[Steve Blair]

But we clearly did not "win" without him, which is one of Moyar's main themes, and one of the main reasons for history, to ponder such questions.

Sure, but I don't think there's as much to ponder as Moyar seems to think. Diem was a part of the equation, but the GVN was also sinking quickly with him. There is no reason to suspect, based on both his performance and that of the people around him, that he could have "pulled the rabbit out of the hat" and salvaged SVN.

[stanleywinthrop]

Sure, but I don't think there's as much to ponder as Moyar seems to think. Diem was a part of the equation, but the GVN was also sinking quickly with him. There is no reason to suspect, based on both his performance and that of the people around him, that he could have "pulled the rabbit out of the hat" and salvaged SVN.

I don't think Moyar is claiming that Diem could have "pulled the rabbit out of the hat" and won the war quicly and easily. He is arguing that Diem represented the best chance of pacifiying south vietnam without direct U.S. intervention, and the natural U.S. focus on true democracy absolute human rights got in the way of our stated overall goal--to win the war.

[Steve Blair]

I don't think Moyar is claiming that Diem could have "pulled the rabbit out of the hat" and won the war quicly and easily. He is arguing that Diem represented the best chance of pacifiying south vietnam without direct U.S. intervention, and the natural U.S. focus on true democracy absolute human rights got in the way of our stated overall goal--to win the war.

Well...we will certainly have to agree to disagree here.