The Vietnam War: A film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick
Episode 1
The Catholic angle was interesting. As elsewhere - e.g. China - the converts were presumed to be collaborators and often were. Diem was an exception there and his Catholicism was part of the reason Catholics rallied to the U.S. cause, though any intense anti-communist was pushing through an open door.
Kennedy's shift from rejection to engagement may have flowed from his Catholic identity. Every week at mass there was a last prayer - for the conversion of Russia. Among Catholics an American Navy doctor was much celebrated. His books Deliver us From Evil and the Night They burned the Mountain were best sellers. He declared the two greatest evils in the world to be disease and communism. He served in the effort described to bring fleeing Catholics from the North after partition. Dooley was forced out of the Navy when his homosexuality became known. He then set up the jungle clinic which helped to establish his mystique. - gwc
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