OF ALL the vexing international problems in recent months, none has compared with Vietnam for sheer murkiness and confusion. At their best, the news reports coming out of Saigon have been contradictory and fragmentary. At their worse, they have been misleading and propagandists. As if the political situation was not difficult enough to comprehend, the religious issue—summed up in that frequent identification of President Diem’s regime as “Roman Catholic”—added one more alley to an already complex maze. Yet for all the uncertainty of where precisely the truth lay, there was a widespread consensus (which we shared) that the Diem regime should be replaced. No one argued that it was a popular government or an efficient one; the most that could be said was that there were no apparent alternatives in sight. 

Now, by virtue of a military coup, an alternative has emerged, thus fulfilling the prophecy of some observers that the attitude and loyalty of the army to President Diem would prove to be the key to the fate of his rule. So far, however, nothing has resulted from the coup which would justify a solid judgment on the likelihood of a stable Vietnamese government. On the positive side, the leader of the “Military Revolutionary Committee,” Lieutenant General Duong Van Minh, apparently has the respect of those American soldiers and diplomats who have, over the years, come to know him. As for the newly designated Premier, Nguyen Ngoc Tho, he must, until there is some evidence to the contrary, be assumed to be only a figurehead.

The most obvious negative note is the unhappy and unnecessary killing of President Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu. The official account of their deaths, the one put forth by the military junta, was suicide. That was simply an outright lie, and a particularly implausible one at that. They were, in fact, murdered—and, worse still, apparently on the orders of someone in the junta. Whatever his failings as an administrator, whatever his weaknesses as a leader of his people, Ngo Dinh Diem was a good, courageous, idealistic man, one who had rendered great services to his country in the critical years just after 1954. He deserved a far better fate, even if in the end he did not deserve the Presidency. 

Because of that killing, some degree of skepticism about the new leadership is in order. A change was needed. A change was made. For all that, there is no reason to apply different standards to the military rulers than to the Diem family. That they are anti-Communist is to the good; but that does not mean they have the right to run roughshod over the people’s liberties. So far, there have been no indications that they intend to do so. But neither have they announced any plans to establish a legally representative government. For the moment, one can do no more than suspend judgment and await the next development. The war in Vietnam must be won, but it remains to be seen whether that goal can be achieved in a way which is just, humane and sensitive to human rights.