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For their part, the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese were flabbergasted when they learned of Diệm’s and Nhu’s deaths as a result of an American-inspired coup; they could not believe the Americans would allow South Vietnam to be disrupted in this way. “They were gifts from heaven for us,” said a senior Vietcong official.155 “Both Ho Chi Minh and he (Mao) thought that Ngo Dinh Diem was not so bad,” wrote journalist Edgar Snow, based on an interview with Mao Zedong in January 1965. “After all,” said Mao, “following his assassination, was everything between Heaven and Earth more peaceful?” Even Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, who participated in the coup that brought down Diệm, later said that “he actually ran the country pretty well” given the circumstances confronting him.156 Diệm had many faults, but his pride meant that he “didn’t want us in there fighting his war,” noted McNamara.157
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Brian Van DeMark (Road To Disaster: A New History of America's Descent into Vietnam)