Dartmouth Events

"Misalliance," Edward Miller, Associate Professor of History

"Misalliance: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Roots of America's Intervention in the Vietnam War" public lecture by Prof Ed Miller, historian of American foreign relations and modern Vietnam

Tuesday, September 24, 2013
4:30pm – 6:00pm
Room 003, Rockefeller Center
Intended Audience(s): Public
Categories: Lectures & Seminars

During the 1950s, U.S. leaders hailed South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem as a model Cold War ally and funneled massive amounts of aid to his regime. But in 1963, Diem was ousted and assassinated in a coup backed by Washington. In this talk, Edward Miller revises the conventional wisdom about Diem and his downfall. By depicting Diem as a shrewd and ruthless operator with his own vision for Vietnam’s modernization, Miller explains why he and his American allies clashed early and often over questions of reform and development. In 1963, these clashes, in combination with rising internal resistance to Diem’s nation building programs, led to a crisis that fractured the alliance and changed the course of the Vietnam War.

Edward Miller is a historian of America’s relations with the world, with particular expertise in the Vietnam War. Since arriving at Dartmouth in 2004, he has offered courses on the U.S. and the World, American Empire, and the Vietnam War. His first book, Misalliance: Ngo Dinh Diem, the United States, and the Fate of South Vietnam, was published by Harvard University Press in 2013. This book is based in part on extensive research in Vietnamese sources, including South Vietnamese government records held in archives in Ho Chi Minh City. 

Co-sponsored by the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding.

For more information, contact:
Joanne Needham
603-646-2207

Events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.