Ngo Dinh Diem presidential visit to Australia

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Ngô Đình Diệm visited Australia and the United States in 1957.
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The Ngô Đình Diệm presidential visit to Australia from 2 to 9 September 1957 was an official visit by the first president of the

Diệm, who made official visits to the United States and other anti-communist countries.[2] As with his American trip, Diệm was warmly and lavishly received during the height of the Cold War, garnering bipartisan praise from both the Liberal Party of Australia of Prime Minister Robert Menzies and the opposition Australian Labor Party
(ALP).

Diệm addressed the

election fraud and other corrupt practices. The Australian Catholic
leadership and media were particularly glowing towards the South Vietnamese head of state. A member of Vietnam's Catholic minority and the brother of Vietnam's leading archbishop, Diệm had pursued policies in Vietnam favoring his co-religionists. He exempted the Catholic Church from land redistribution, gave them more aid and job promotions, and allowed Catholic paramilitaries to attack Buddhists, who formed the religious majority.

Diệm's visit was a highmark in relations between Australia and South Vietnam. Over time, Diệm became unpopular with his foreign allies, who began to criticise his autocratic style and religious bias. By the time of his

Vietnamese refugees
were allowed to resettle in Australia in large numbers.

Background

In 1933, the devoutly Catholic Diệm was appointed Interior Minister of Vietnam, serving under Emperor

Imperial Japan attacked Indochina and wrested control from France, but when they were defeated by the Allies in 1945, a power vacuum was created.[5] The communist-dominated Việt Minh of Hồ Chí Minh fought for Vietnamese independence, while the French attempted to regain control of their colony by creating the French Union-allied State of Vietnam under Bảo Đại. A staunch anti-communist nationalist, Diệm opposed both and attempted to create his own movement, with little success.[6] With both the French and the communists hostile to him, Diệm felt unsafe and went into self-imposed exile in 1950.[7] He spent the next four years in the United States and Europe enlisting support, particularly among Vatican officials and fellow Catholic politicians in America. The success of the effort was helped by the fact that his elder brother Ngô Đình Thục was the leading Catholic cleric in Vietnam and had studied with high-ranking Vatican officials in Rome a few decades earlier.[8][9]

In 1954, the French lost the

Geneva Conference was held to determine the future of French Indochina.[10] The Việt Minh were given control of North Vietnam, while the State of Vietnam controlled the territory south of the 17th parallel. The Geneva agreements, which the State of Vietnam did not sign, called for reunification elections to be held in 1956.[11][12] Bảo Đại appointed Diệm as his prime minister, hoping that he would be able to attract American aid as the French withdrew from Southeast Asia.[13][14] Diệm then deposed Bảo Đại in a fraudulent referendum and declared himself president of the newly proclaimed Republic of Vietnam.[15][16] Diệm received support from the U.S. and other anti-communist countries in the midst of the Cold War. He refused to hold the national elections and asserted that Hồ Chí Minh would rig the ballots in the north, although he had done so himself in deposing Bảo Đại.[16][17]

Meetings and ceremonies

Diệm arrived in the capital

Asia Pacific region; Diệm had visited Thailand in August and went on to South Korea after leaving Australia.[2] The magnitude of the ceremonial welcome accorded to Diệm was unseen since the visit in 1954 by Queen Elizabeth II.[19] According to Peter Edwards, a military historian at the Australian War Memorial specialising in the Vietnam War,[1] "Everywhere he was feted as a man of courage, faith and vision",[1] and he noted that Diệm was received with "more ceremony and pageantry" than the visit of Queen Elizabeth II in 1954.[1]

Diệm travelled with five others, including the Minister for Public Works and Communications, the Health Minister, and the Permanent Secretary-General of the Department for National Defense.[20] Ahead of his arrival, the South Vietnamese leader had specifically asked to visit Australian manufacturing sites in Sydney and Melbourne, particularly those in the food processing, textile, shipbuilding and housing industries.[20]

Upon disembarking from his plane at

William Slim and the Prime Minister of Australia Robert Menzies, and was also introduced to the British High Commissioner Lord Carrington and United States Ambassador William Sebald.[21] He was given a 21-gun salute and a guard of honour by the Royal Australian Air Force, whose fighter jets flew overhead,[19] before making a speech about bilateral relations. Diệm said thanked Australia for its "unflagging support in our most critical hours" and praised relations as being of "a quality normally only found in countries united by long friendship".[21] He said "From our common love for freedom and our determination to keep it, stem the solidarity and friendship between our two countries."[21] The South Vietnamese leader was then hosted for a dinner reception at Yarralumla, the residence of the Governor-General.[20]

The centrepiece of Diệm's visit was a speech to a joint sitting of the

Doc Evatt, the leader of the opposition Australian Labor Party joined in, proclaiming that peace, stability and democracy had been achieved in South Vietnam.[24] On the same day, Diệm also visited the Australian War Memorial and the Australian National University.[20]

On Wednesday, 4 September,

partition in 1954.[28]

The guard of honour and a 21-gun salute that Diệm received at Parliament House was repeated in Sydney and Melbourne, where large crowds cheered Diệm's arrival at the airport and the passing of his motorcade.[1] After arriving in Sydney on Friday, September 6, around midday aboard the RAAF Convair,[27] the South Vietnamese leader was taken outside the capital cities for two days during the weekend,[20] so that he could see the Snowy Mountains Scheme, a large hydroelectricity project in highland Victoria.[22] He returned to Sydney on Sunday, September 8, and left Australia the following evening.[20] In one of Diệm's final functions in Sydney, a minor emergency occurred at the Australia Hotel during a banquet hosted by the Premier of New South Wales, Joseph Cahill. A fire ignited in a pile of rubbish, causing alarm bells to sound for ten minutes, interrupting Premier Cahill when he was making his speech, but no evacuation was required.[29]

At the end of the visit, Menzies bestowed on Diệm an honorary

Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George, one of the highest imperial honours that had been bestowed on someone who was not a British subject.[1] In his final comments, Diệm said "I have been enriched by this visit to Australia, for I have noted the vast material and spiritual resources of a people who are hard-working, upright, frank, and loyal in their social, political and international relations."[30] He was met by Governor-General Slim, Prime Minister Menzies, the heads of the branches of the Australian Defence Force, the New South Wales Police Commissioner, and given a guard of honour by 100 soldiers before departing on a Qantas Super Constellation requisitioned for his use.[30] Edwards said of the trip: "Australia had now associated Diệm's survival with its national interest, publicly and without restraint", something that eventually extended to military support against the Vietnamese communists.[1]

Diệm spent little time on detailed defence and policy discussions with Australian officials during the trip, because of his extensive meetings with Catholic leaders.

South East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO), which had vowed to defend the south under the provisions of the Manila Treaty.[32] Despite the public statements of support, the Australian government never shared the details of the SEATO plans with Diệm.[32]

Media reception and support

The Australian media wrote uniformly glowing reports that heaped praise on Diệm, and generally presented him as a courageous, selfless and wise leader.

ballot stuffing and arbitrary arrests of all opposition.[37] The newspapers also failed to mention that the South Vietnamese economy was largely being propped up by the Commercial Import Program run by the United States and that land reform had failed.[38]

A middle-aged, portly man with wavy greying hair sits half profile with a dark suit and tie, with a ceremonial handkerchief in his suit breastpocket.
Robert Menzies, Australian Prime Minister for 18 and a half years, cheered and decorated Diệm.

The mainstream media depicted Diệm as a friendly and charismatic leader who related well to the populace.

Herald showed photographs of the president eating cheese, and inspecting the foliage at the Botanic Gardens.[1] Diệm was depicted making friends with a young boy from a Collingwood public housing estate and having tea with South Vietnamese students studying abroad at the University of Melbourne, with the females wearing the traditional áo dài.[35] In contrast, Diệm was generally regarded as aloof and distant from the population, rarely heading outside the presidential palace to mingle with his people,[39] and holding military processions in honour of his ascension to power in front of empty grandstands.[40]

The strongest support for Diệm came from the Australian Catholic media.

Cần Lao Party (Personalist Labor Party), which provided a clandestine network of support and police-state mechanisms to protect Diệm's rule. It counted many leading public servants and military officers among its members.[42] Diệm also maintained land policies that were preferential to the Roman Catholic Church, the largest property owner in the country. Their holdings were exempt from redistribution under land reform schemes, while the construction of Buddhist temples was restricted; military and civil service promotions were given preferentially to Catholics.[43] Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies and in some areas, forced conversions, looting, shelling and demolition of pagodas occurred.[44][45]

The

Norman Thomas Gilroy when they studied at the Vatican.[1]

Diệm's achievements and support for Catholics were particularly praised by

centre-left social democratic party. The split occurred in the 1950s during the McCarthyism scares, as the Catholic factions broke away to form the DLP on the basis that the ALP was too lenient towards communists.[1] One of the reasons that Menzies strongly backed Diệm was to gain further favour with the DLP and accentuate the divisions among his left wing opponents.[1]

Diệm's visit prompted increased interest in Vietnam by Australian Catholics, particularly supporters of the DLP. Australian Catholics came to see South Vietnam as an anti-communist and Vatican stronghold in Asia and as a result, became strong supporters of the Vietnam War.[46] Harold Lalor, a Jesuit priest and leading confidant of Santamaria,[47] had studied with Thục in Rome. During the trip, Diệm met with Gilroy,[31] the first Australian cardinal, as well as Santamaria and Archbishop of Melbourne Daniel Mannix, both of whom praised him strongly. Mannix was one of the most powerful men in Australia during the era, and had great political influence.[31]

Aftermath

See also: Buddhist crisis, Arrest and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm, and Military history of Australia during the Vietnam War

The positive reception accorded to Diệm in 1957 contrasted with increasingly negative Australian attitudes towards Vietnam. Over time, the media in both Australia and the United States began to pay more attention to Diệm's autocratic style and religious bias,

settle in Australia in large numbers.[66]

See also

  • Ngô Đình Diệm presidential visit to the United States

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Ham, p. 57.
  2. ^ a b Jacobs, pp. 100–104.
  3. ^ Jacobs, pp. 20–21.
  4. ^ Karnow, p. 231.
  5. ^ Jacobs, p. 22.
  6. ^ Jacobs, p. 23.
  7. ^ Jacobs, p. 25.
  8. ^ Jacobs, pp. 26–33.
  9. ^ Karnow, p. 233.
  10. ^ Jacobs, p. 37.
  11. ^ Jacobs, pp. 40–42.
  12. ^ Karnow, p. 235.
  13. ^ Jacobs, pp. 38–39.
  14. ^ Karnow, p. 234.
  15. ^ Jacobs, p. 85.
  16. ^ a b Karnow, p. 239.
  17. ^ Jacobs, pp. 98–99.
  18. ^ Edwards (1997), p. 24.
  19. ^ a b c Torney-Parlicki, p. 210.
  20. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Vietnam's Leader Here Today For State Visit". The Sydney Morning Herald. 2 September 1957. p. 5.
  21. ^ a b c "President Ngo Dinh Diem in Canberra". The Age. 3 September 1957. p. 1.
  22. ^ a b c Edwards (1992), p. 194.
  23. ^ "Spiritual Rearmament Needed in Asia's Fight". The Age. 4 September 1957. p. 5.
  24. ^ a b c d e Edwards (1992), p. 195.
  25. ^ "News of the Day". The Age. 5 September 1957. p. 2.
  26. ^ "Close Link Between Australia and Vietnam—President". The Age. 5 September 1957. p. 3.
  27. ^ a b "Crowded Day for Vietnam President". The Age. 6 September 1957. p. 5.
  28. ^ "Leader of Vietnam Sees Housing Areas". The Age. 7 September 1957. p. 5.
  29. ^ "President Diem Honorary Knight". The Sydney Morning Herald. 10 September 1957. p. 4.
  30. ^ a b c "Aust. to increase aid for Vietnam". The Sydney Morning Herald. 10 September 1957. p. 1.
  31. ^ a b c Duncan, p. 341.
  32. ^ a b c d e f Edwards (1992), p. 197.
  33. ^ Torney-Parlicki, p. 211.
  34. ^ "A welcome visitor from Saigon". The Age. 3 September 1957. p. 2.
  35. ^ a b Edwards (1992), pp. 195–197.
  36. ^ Jacobs, p. 95.
  37. ^ Tucker, pp. 288–293.
  38. ^ Edwards (1992), pp. 197–198.
  39. ^ Halberstam, p. 19.
  40. ^ Halberstam, pp. 20–21.
  41. ^ Jacobs, pp. 27–32.
  42. ^ Jacobs, pp. 86–88.
  43. ^ Jacobs, pp. 91–96.
  44. ^ Warner, p. 210.
  45. ^ Fall, p. 199.
  46. ^ Edwards (1997), p. 45.
  47. ^ Duncan, pp. 125, 170.
  48. ^ Jacobs, pp. 135–145.
  49. ^ Karnow, pp. 300–315.
  50. ^ Prochnau, pp. 309, 316–320.
  51. ^ Jones, p. 269.
  52. ^ Jacobs, p. 149.
  53. ^ Hammer, p. 145.
  54. ^ Karnow, pp. 318–325.
  55. ^ Karnow, pp. 323–330.
  56. ^ Edwards (1997), pp. 83–85.
  57. ^ Deery, Phillip. "Arthur's last hurrah: Calwell, Whitlam and the Ky visit to Australia". Australian Society for the Study of Labour History - Canberra Region. ASSLH. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
  58. ^ Edwards (1997), pp. 141–142.
  59. ^ Edwards (1997), pp. 143–146.
  60. ^ Edwards (1997), p. 290.
  61. ^ Edwards (1997), pp. 270–282.
  62. ^ Edwards (1997), pp. 314–316.
  63. ^ Edwards (1997), pp. 317–320, 325–326.
  64. ^ Edwards (1997), pp. 332–335.
  65. ^ Edwards (1997), p. 336.
  66. ^ Jupp, pp. 723–724, 732–733.

References

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