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Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011

Te past year and a half has witnessed a marked deterioration in the security and political situation in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), overshadowing all other internal developments and breaking the relative stability and general surface calm that had prevailed since President Ngo Dinh Diam consolidated his authority in 1955–56. The Communist clandestine apparatus — maintained and directed by the Communist regime to the north, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) — has stepped up its guerrilla, terrorist, and other subversive activities to levels unprecedented since the end of the Indochina hostilities (1946–54). The gravity of the security situation in turn has generated serious criticism of Diem's leadership both in and outside the government bureaucracy, including the military establishment, and has aggravated discontent among the traditionally politically apathetic peasantry. These trends were climaxed in an abortive anti-Diem coup in Saigon in November 1960 by a small group of middle level and junior army paratroop officers and civilian oppositionists.

As in the past, Diem and his close advisors tend to view virtually every problem besetting their country as caused directly or indirectly by the dual Communist threat of internal subversion and external aggression. In their planning, therefore, they continue to give absolute highest priority to military and security measures directed toward what they consider to be their most urgent tasks: 1) to defend against Communist encroachment essentially by maintaining a larger and stronger military establishment (with substantial US aid); and 2) to maintain firm control over the bureaucracy and over the military and security establishments in order to prevent their use to dislodge Diem and his advisors from power and in order to organize the population to serve their programs. At the same time, the Vietnamese leadership is no less anxious to keep the people fed and supplied at a level sufficient to avert serious unrest.

In Diem's scale of values, democracy in the sense of individual freedom, although it remains an ultimate goal, under present circumstances frequently ranks below (and has sometimes been inimical) to these urgent tasks. While eschewing the systematic regimentation and repression of the population characteristic of North Vietnam, Diem and other government leaders are seeking to stimulate a more cohesive group effort by the people of South Vietnam than yet obtains. Although attempting to do so within the framework of constitutional government, any conflict between the two is generally resolved in favor of strong central authority. Accordingly Diem has been willing to maintain the form of representative institutions and the promises of civil rights instituted when the Republic of Vietnam was first established, but the country continues to be governed in an authoritarian manner tempered by Diem's paternalistic outlook. It is not certain that the institutional framework of government would survive the death or removal of Diem, its creator. Rh