the Geneva Accords, and the Accords expressly forbade the interference of third powers. However, in 1955, the State of Vietnam's Prime Minister, Ngo Dinh Diem, toppled Bảo Đại in a fraudulent referendum organised by his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, and proclaimed himself president of the Republic of Vietnam. The Accords mandated nationwide elections by 1956, which Diem refused to hold, despite repeated calls from the North for talks to discuss elections.
Vietnam War
The pro-Hanoi Vietcong began a guerrilla campaign in the late 1950s to overthrow Diem's government, which an official Vietcong statement described as a "disguised colonial regime." In the North, the communist government massacred landowners and peasant rebels in a series of purges, with upper estimates of the death toll ranging between 100,000 and 900,000. Northern collectivization efforts, though broadly successful, also led to a brief famine. In the South, Diem went about crushing political and religious opposition, imprisoning or killing tens of thousands; dissidents were routinely labelled as communists even if they were anti-communist.
In 1963, Buddhist discontent with Diem's pro-Catholic regime erupted into mass demonstrations following the banning of the Buddhist flag and the Hue Vesak shootings. With Diem unwilling to compromise, Nhu orchestrated the Xa Loi Pagoda raids; estimates of the death toll range into the hundreds. As a result, America's relationship with Diem broke down, resulting in the 1963 coup that saw Diem and Nhu assassinated.
Diem was followed by a series of corrupt military regimes that often lasted only months before being toppled by other military officers. With South Vietnam paralyzed by instability, the communists began to gain ground. There were more than a dozen South Vietnamese governments between 1961 and 1965, before the pairing of Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky and General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu took control in mid-1965. Thieu gradually
