Erin ’s Reviews > Kennedy's Coup: A White House Plot, a Saigon Murder, and America's Descent into Vietnam > Status Update

The CIA also worked closely with Nhu the most powerful behind the scenes figure in South Vietnam.

About 70% of South Vietnam's population identified nominally as Buddhist

Eisenhower popularized the "domino theory" that if one Southeast Asian nation fell to communism other inevitably would topple as well

Monkey meat was among the delicacies for sale in the jam packed central market.

In 1950 President Harry Truman began channeling American military aid to the French in their fight against the Viet Minh but Diem wanted Washington to shift its aid to noncommunist Vietnamese nationalist.

During the 1930s Ho Chi Minh's newly formed Indochinese Communist Party helped organize revolts in 2 provinces with peasants briefly establishing Bolshevik style soviets.

The tonal Vietnamese language was difficult to learn and few American advisors ever mastered it.

Before the Americans came to Vietnam, it was conquered and colonized by the French.

Hue had long been the cultural and intellectual wellspring of Vietnam.