<P> Beginning in the summer of 1955, Diệm launched the "Denounce the Communists" campaign, during which communists and other anti-government elements were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, or executed . He instituted the death penalty against any activity deemed communist in August 1956 . According to Gabriel Kolko about 12,000 suspected opponents of Diệm were killed between 1955 and 1957 and by the end of 1958 an estimated 40,000 political prisoners had been jailed . </P> <P> In May 1957, Diệm undertook a ten - day state visit to the United States . President Eisenhower pledged his continued support, and a parade was held in Diệm's honor in New York City . Although Diệm was publicly praised, in private Secretary of State John Foster Dulles conceded that Diệm had been selected because there were no better alternatives . </P> <P> Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara wrote in Argument Without End (1999) that the new American patrons of the Republic of Vietnam (ROV) were almost completely ignorant of Vietnamese culture . They knew little of the language or long history of the country . There was a tendency to assign American motives to Vietnamese actions, though Diệm warned that it was an illusion to believe that blindly copying Western methods would solve Vietnamese problems . </P> <P> Between 1954 and 1957 there was large - scale but disorganized dissidence in the countryside which the Diệm government succeeded in quelling . In early 1957 South Vietnam enjoyed its first peace in over a decade . Incidents of political violence began to occur in mid-1957, but the government "did not construe it as a campaign, considering the disorders too diffuse to warrant committing major GVN (Government of Vietnam) resources ." By early 1959, however, Diệm had come to regard the (increasingly frequent) disorders as an organized campaign and implemented Law 10 / 59, which made political violence punishable by death and property confiscation . There had been some division among former Viet Minh whose main goal was to hold the elections promised in the Geneva Accords, leading to "wildcat" activities separate from the other communists and anti-GVN activists . </P>

Who was in office when the vietnam war started