In the Shadows of Utopia: The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian Nightmare7 Juli 2022

S2 Ep6: The Path to the Second Indochina War (Part Three): Agent Orange, Kennedy and the Buddhist Crisis

On June 11th, 1963, a Buddhist monk named Thich Quang Duc sat down at a Saigon intersection, was doused in petrol, and set himself alight without moving or making a sound. The photograph went around the world. Five months later Ngo Dinh Diem was dead, and three weeks after that, so was John F. Kennedy.

Time Period Covered: 1961 to 1963

What is Agent Orange, and why did the Kennedy Administration decide to use it? How did Diem's regime collapse? What was the Buddhist Crisis?

In the final part of our exploration into the beginnings of the 'Vietnam War', we look at the circumstances surrounding the early Kennedy years and how a 'prudent' approach to South Vietnam resulted in a number of problems, both immediate and in the future. We look in depth at Operation Ranch Hand, the decision to use defoliants in South Vietnam, and how the Diem regime becomes a no longer viable partner for the US and their wider strategic interests. We explain the Buddhist Crisis and the self-immolation of Quang Duc, and the competing visions of a new South Vietnam. Finally the coup against Diem, Kennedy's assassination, and the return of Pol Pot to the jungles of Vietnam represent a new chapter in the coming historical hurricane.

Sources

Christopher Goscha Vietnam: A New History
Fredrick Logevall The Embers of War
Edward Miller The Vietnam War & Reinterpreting the Buddhist Crisis (Modern Asian Studies November 2015)
Neil Sheehan The Pentagon Papers
Geoffrey Warner The United States and Vietnam 1945-1965 (International Affairs October 1972)
William Buckingham The US Air Force and Herbicides in Southeast Asia

Show Content
https://www.shadowsofutopia.com/dramatis-personae.html

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S3 Ep10: Interview: The Man Who Stole the Gods | Douglas Latchford & Cambodia’s Looted Khmer Art with Matthew Campbell

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S3 Ep9: 1973 Part One: The Return of the King

In early 1973, Norodom Sihanouk travelled down the Ho Chi Minh trail and back onto Cambodian soil for the first time since the coup. China Pictorial published a special issue of photographs to prove i...

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S3 Ep8: Terrorism, Rock and Roll and the Battle of Angkor Wat

At the beginning of 1972, Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese forces fought each other in the temple complex at Angkor. In Phnom Penh, a city swollen with refugees and rocked by bombings, the radios played Sin...

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S3 Ep7: How to Get Out of a War in Indochina: Nixon, Mao and the Paris Peace Accords

In February 1972 Richard Nixon flew to Beijing to shake Mao's hand. In May he went to Moscow. In between, North Vietnam launched the largest conventional offensive of the war and American bombers retu...

16 Feb 2h

S3: Interview: Maoism, the Three Ghosts, and the Khmer Rouge with Matt Galway

In this extended interview, I’m joined by historian Matt Galway, author of Global Maoism, to unpack the intellectual, ideological, and historical foundations of Maoism and Cambodian communism.We begin...

19 Jan 1h 31min

S3 Ep6: 1972 - Life (and Death) in the Liberated Zones. Regrets for the Khmer Soul and M-13

In 1972 a Phnom Penh schools inspector named Ith Sarin spent nine months inside Khmer Rouge territory and came back to write about it. Around the same time a French scholar named Francois Bizot spent ...

4 Jan 1h 38min

S3: Interview: The Super Great Leap Forward and the Khmer Rouge Prison System with Henri Locard

This episode is a follow-up to the two-hour discussion I had with historian Henri Locard. The video of that full conversation is available for free on Patreon right here (or just go to https://www.pat...

22 Okt 20251h 8min

S3: Interview: Who Killed Haing Ngor? With Patricia Nunan

You've seen The Killing Fields, you probably know that Haing Ngor, who played Dith Pran in the film won an oscar. You might also know that he was murdered in Los Angeles. But the version of that story...

17 Okt 202534min