Diplomats at War: Friendship and Betrayal on the Brink of the Vietnam Conflict

by Charles Trueheart

For two Americans in Saigon in 1963, the personal and the political combine to spark the drama of a lifetime

Before it spread into a tragic war that defined a generation, the conflict in Vietnam smoldered as a guerrilla insurgency and a diplomatic nightmare. Into this volatile country stepped Frederick “Fritz” Nolting, the US ambassador, and his second-in-command, William “Bill” Trueheart, immortalized in David Halberstam’s landmark work The Best and the Brightest and accidental players in a pivotal juncture in modern US history.

Diplomats at War is a personal memoir by former Washington Post reporter Charles Trueheart—Bill’s son and Nolting’s godson—who grew up amid the events that traumatized two families and an entire nation. The book embeds the reader at the US embassy and dissects the fateful rift between Nolting and Trueheart over their divergent assessments of the South Vietnamese regime under Ngo Dinh Diem, who would ultimately be assassinated in a coup backed by the United States. Charles Trueheart retells the story of the United States’ headlong plunge into war from an entirely new vantage point—that of a son piecing together how his father and godfather participated in, and were deeply damaged by, this historic flashpoint. Their critical rupture, which also destroyed their close friendship, contains the kernel of how the United States became inextricably embroiled in the Vietnam conflict.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, American History

368 pages, Hardcover

First published February 13, 2024

Reviews

[KOMET · Rating 5 out of 5]

Diplomats at War: Friendship and Betrayal on the Brink of the Vietnam Conflict is a complex and ultimately tragic story of the development and playing out of U.S. foreign policy in South Vietnam between 1961 and 1963. Its author was the son of the U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission (William Trueheart) in Saigon during that time. He explores the complicated relationships between Ngo Dinh Diem (the President of the Republic of Vietnam), his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu (who served as Diem's counselor and exerted a baleful influence in the government), and the Kennedy Administration.

The book also explores the relationship between William Trueheart and his close friend from their university days in the late 1930s (Virginians both) Fritz Nolting, the U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam from May 10, 1961 to August 15, 1963, when he was replaced by Henry Cabot Lodge. Sadly, this was a relationship that was not to survive the changing nature of U.S. policy vis-a-vis Diem's government as the situation in South Vietnam went from bad to worse, culminating in the Buddhist Crisis of the spring and summer of 1963. Indeed, this crisis caught both the Diem government and the Kennedy Administration flatfooted, and led to the latter losing confidence in Diem's ability to govern South Vietnam. With Lodge installed as Ambassador that August, plans were put into effect to foment a coup (one in which the Kennedy Administration could claim deniability) among the leading generals of the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) to depose Diem and Nhu.

Events in South Vietnam would spiral out of control and by year's end, the U.S., now led by a new President (Lyndon Johnson) --- following President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas TX on November 22, 1963 --- would be fated to be ensnared in a full-scale war in Vietnam that would end in defeat for both the U.S. and South Vietnam.

[Bob Pearson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent account of the American effort to help establish a stable South Vietnam government and help defeat the North Vietnamese and Vietcong military invasion. Both failed. Woven into that narrative is the friendship between two excellent Foreign Service Officers that was destroyed over differences of policy. The struggle within the Kennedy Administration to find the correct formula and the right resources and strategy reveals the nature of what turned out to be a hopeless task. We are left with the major dilemma that was true at the time - whether to help South Vietnam or leave it to the contending parties to shape the outcome. In retrospect, it seems clear that the U.S. should have let the contending parties sort it out. The effect on our U.S. society and the aftermath of distrust and division in our country triggered a long decline in faith in the leadership of our country. That long decline has lasted until today though there is no attempt to reach back to that moment to crystallize the consequences. The author's father was one of the Foreign Service Officers involved, and his ability to search into the details of the differences and the effect of those differences on the lives of both officers is some ways a microcosm of the conflict itself.

[J.C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

As CT puts it, this was a memoir written inside a work of history, as the author was a 12-year-old child living inside the American mission during the history he's gone back to document. The book is a fascinating work, incredibly well-researched, timestamping diplomatic hubris, friendships, egoism, and double standards inside two of the American empire's most exclusive and "well-educated" clubhouses. Smacks of Mad Men meets The Diplomat, the story serves to remind the reader to regularly check to make sure everyone is listening, to forgive those we care about, to call their parents, and to prioritize self-care above all else.

[Blair · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Diplomats at War” is a memoire form the author – Charles Trueheart - set at the time he was a young boy and the son of a US diplomat – wrapped up in the history of America’s involvement in Vietnam in the early 1960s.

The book was recommended to me, by Bill Manfull, a friend whose father was also diplomat in Saigon during this period. Bill's older siblings and parents were referenced in the book.

I’m drawn to stories about Vietnam – past and present – because I lived there in the mid 1994's just after Bill Clinton lifted the Trade Embargo on February 4, 1994 - some 30 years after Diplomats at War took place). After pushing hard, I got my wish to open up and lead McCann-Erickson's office in Vietnam.

I loved the book and its many layers. As a memoire, it covered the formative stages of young man growing up in a diplomatic life. Kids in diplomatic families are often nomads – comfortable almost everywhere, except perhaps their own native land.

During my 20 years in Asia, I became friends with many diplomats from my native Canada and elsewhere. I resonated with many of these nomads and their families, and much of this story, and also found that it's difficult to come "Home" after being away for a long period of time. Overseas postings change you and for your countrymen, they are generally seen to be unusual. It's often difficult to pick up where you left off.

It was also a personal history of a very interesting time of both Vietnam and America – as it covered the escalation during JFK’s time to that of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Civil rights battled with Vietnam and the Space Race to capture all our attention during the 1960s! The author helped refocus these events for me.

Finally, the story was well constructed and well written, pivoting around the relationship between Fritz Nolting the then US Ambassador to South Vietnam, and Bill Trueheart, the author’s father and #2 (DCM) at the US Embassy. These men were fellow Virginians who had served their country in WW2, were fluent in French – the language of the elite in South Vietnam, and career diplomats.

Although they started out as friends the friendship grew strained along the fault lines of those who felt the US could succeed in keeping Vietnam from falling to the Communists and those who didn’t.

It’s an excellent read and I liked everything about it. And I highly recommend it.

[Smoothfin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written from a somewhat different perspective (young lad living the life of a diplomat's kid), with the catalyst being his impulse to unravel the demise of a relationship between his father and his father's close friend (respectively the DCM and Ambassador of the US mission in South Vietnam in 1962 and 1963) during the Diem coup and murder. It provides a different view of things from the diplomats' views and how their actions set the coup in motion and how they let it destroy their relationship (or was it just a relationship of convenience that fell apart at the first real test? that was one of my ultimate questions). If you've got a strong interest in the US - Vietnam war (the second indochina war, as some in the field called it), then I think you'd find this an interesting read. well-sourced with good end-notes and a bibliography. Some information provided that was new to me, especially in regards to Fritz Nolting's and Bil Trueheart's personal views, approaches, and techniques of dealing with the Diem family, South Vietnamese generals and politicians, and the Kennedy Administration's machinery.

[Anthony Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very worthwhile personal narrative of by the son of Bill Trueheart, the DCM at the Saigon Embassy when Vietnam's then-leader Diem was deposed and murdered in a coup. The book traces the friendship between Trueheart and Ambassador Fritz Nolting which imploded when Nolting felt he was kept out of the loop at a crucial moment in history. Very well written, fascinating addition to a period that is already well-covered in literature, most notably in the Best and the Brightest.

[Grace Hoffmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Riveting. Dense and verging on scholarly at some points, but then magical with personal recollections. Happy to see my old professor from Georgetown, Fr. FX Winters, quoted. An amazing period -- the author says at the end it could have been a novel, and I agree. The question marks in the narrative and the personal connection make it even more compelling.

[Lucy Keough · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps the primary takeaway from this very excellent reporting is that us never had a clear consensus on the goal of US involvement in Vietnam beyond some vague notion of the domino theory. And thus it’s little wonder that it was such a quagmire. This quite apart from the immorality of the war and the manner in which it was waged .