Elkind Jessica - Aid under Fire

Praise for

Aid Under Fire: Nation Building and the Vietnam War

Elkinds excellent book makes an important contribution to the literature on early US involvement in Vietnam, offering an engaging and well-researched social history of the American aid workers responsible for implementing the US nation-building project. Her analysis is astute, and she ably situates the grassroots efforts of the aid workers within the broader context of US policy.

Scott Laderman, coeditor of Four Decades On:
Vietnam, the United States, and the Legacies of the Second Indochina War

A thought-provoking and cogently argued study of US nation-building programs in Vietnam. Elkinds ground-level analysis highlights the enormous, perhaps insurmountable, obstacles that hampered the American aid effort.

Philip E. Catton, author of Diems Final Failure:
Prelude to Americas War in Vietnam

Aid Under Fire is an important book that expands our understanding of the US effort to modernize South Vietnam by revealing the critical role played by aid workers on the ground.

Amanda Kay McVety, author of Enlightened Aid:
U.S. Development as Foreign Policy in Ethiopia

Aid Under Fire

AID UNDER FIRE

Nation Building

and the

Vietnam War

JESSICA ELKIND

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Copyright 2016 by The University Press of Kentucky

Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University.

All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Elkind, Jessica Breiteneicher, 1976- author.

Title: Aid under fire : nation building and the Vietnam War / Jessica Elkind.

Description: Lexington, Kentucky : University Press of Kentucky, [2016] | Series: Studies in conflict, diplomacy and peace | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016011182| ISBN 9780813165837 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780813167176 (pdf) | ISBN 9780813167169 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Vietnam (Republic)Politics and government. | Nation-buildingVietnam (Republic) | Technical assistance, AmericanVietnam (Republic) | United States. Operations Mission to Vietnam. | Intercultural communicationVietnam (Republic)Case studies. | Military assistance, AmericanVietnam (Republic) | Economic assistance, AmericanVietnam (Republic) | Vietnam (Republic)Economic conditions. | United StatesForeign relationsVietnam (Republic) | Vietnam (Republic)Foreign relationsUnited States.

Classification: LCC DS556.9 .E55 2016 | DDC 959.704/31dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016011182

This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

For Ethan

And Caleb, Maya, and Sadie

Contents

Abbreviations

Mainland Southeast Asia. Map by Dick Gilbreath, University of Kentucky Cartography Lab.

Introduction

Building South Vietnam

On a humid day in October 1956, a small group of Americans traveled from Saigon deep into the Mekong delta of southern Vietnam. The group consisted of several prominent figures, including Leland Barrows, the director of the US aid program in South Vietnam, and Allen Ellender, a Democratic senator from Louisiana. The Americans had ventured nearly two hundred kilometers southwest from Saigon on an observation tour of Cai San, an area being developed as a resettlement site for northerners who had fled their homes following the partition of Vietnam two years earlier. As the visit by these high-ranking officials indicated, Cai San was an important showpiece of modernization efforts in South Vietnam. The newly arrived aid workers, along with high-level policy makers in both Washington, DC, and Saigon, believed that introducing American-style institutions and developmental models in projects like Cai San would accelerate South Vietnams transition to modernity. In the process, American aid workers would bolster a separate, non-Communist state that would be friendly to the political, economic, and strategic interests of the United States in Southeast Asia. South Vietnam, they hoped, might eventually serve as a model for other nations in the decolonizing world.

But, as the Americans approached a ferry terminal to cross the river at Long Xuyen, the sound of gunshots and explosions shattered the serenity of this delta outpost. Three minutes before the Americans reached the ferry boarding, insurgents ambushed a jeep carrying South Vietnamese army troops. The attackers threw grenades and trained small arms on the vehicle, injuring several of the Vietnamese soldiers in the process. The Americans narrowly escaped the attack. Although South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem suggested that the insurgents had intended to hit the American aid workers, US and South Vietnamese officials were never able to confirm conclusively the identity of the attackers or their intended target.1