Ngo Dinh Diem presidential visit to Australia

He was universally extolled by the media, which praised him for what they perceived to be a successful, charismatic, democratic and righteous rule in South Vietnam, overlooking his authoritarianism, election fraud and other corrupt practices.

The success of the effort was helped by the fact that his elder brother Ngô Đình Thục was the leading Catholic cleric in Vietnam and had studied with high-ranking Vatican officials in Rome a few decades earlier.

[20] Ahead of his arrival, the South Vietnamese leader had specifically asked to visit Australian manufacturing sites in Sydney and Melbourne, particularly those in the food processing, textile, shipbuilding and housing industries.

[20] Upon disembarking from his plane at Canberra Airport on the morning of Monday 2 September,[20] Diệm was photographed for The Age and described as a "small but striking figure in a royal blue silk frock coat, long white trousers and black mandarin hat".

Diệm said thanked Australia for its "unflagging support in our most critical hours" and praised relations as being of "a quality normally only found in countries united by long friendship".

[20] On Wednesday, 4 September,[20] Diệm visited the Royal Military College Duntroon in Canberra, where he watched and addressed a parade of Australian cadets, who were training to become officers.

[26] On Thursday, 5 September, Diệm attended official receptions at Melbourne Town Hall and at the residence of the Governor of Victoria, re-emphasising his themes of anti-communism and the bilateral focus on democracy.

[27] The next morning, before departing for Sydney, Diệm inspected a textile factory in the inner-northern suburb of Carlton and visited several large-scale public housing estates.

At the time, Australia was undergoing a post-World War II population boom and was dealing with housing pressures, an issue that was also confronting South Vietnam following the large influx of northern refugees after the partition in 1954.

[1] After arriving in Sydney on Friday, September 6, around midday aboard the RAAF Convair,[27] the South Vietnamese leader was taken outside the capital cities for two days during the weekend,[20] so that he could see the Snowy Mountains Scheme, a large hydroelectricity project in highland Victoria.

[20] In one of Diệm's final functions in Sydney, a minor emergency occurred at the Australia Hotel during a banquet hosted by the Premier of New South Wales, Joseph Cahill.

A fire ignited in a pile of rubbish, causing alarm bells to sound for ten minutes, interrupting Premier Cahill when he was making his speech, but no evacuation was required.

[1] In his final comments, Diệm said "I have been enriched by this visit to Australia, for I have noted the vast material and spiritual resources of a people who are hard-working, upright, frank, and loyal in their social, political and international relations.

"[30] He was met by Governor-General Slim, Prime Minister Menzies, the heads of the branches of the Australian Defence Force, the New South Wales Police Commissioner, and given a guard of honour by 100 soldiers before departing on a Qantas Super Constellation requisitioned for his use.

[24] At the end of the visit, Diệm and Menzies released a bilateral statement, announcing that they would increase the magnitude of the Colombo Plan, a program under which Asian students could study abroad in Western nations.

The Age opined that Diệm was not "morally equivocal" but "incorruptible and intensely patriotic" compared to his anti-communist counterparts,[1] and "the type of Asian leader whose straight talk and courageous manner should be valued".

[1] Diệm was depicted making friends with a young boy from a Collingwood public housing estate and having tea with South Vietnamese students studying abroad at the University of Melbourne, with the females wearing the traditional áo dài.

[35] In contrast, Diệm was generally regarded as aloof and distant from the population, rarely heading outside the presidential palace to mingle with his people,[39] and holding military processions in honour of his ascension to power in front of empty grandstands.

Diệm's elder brother Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục was the leading Catholic figure in Vietnam and a classmate of Spellman when the pair studied in Rome.

Their holdings were exempt from redistribution under land reform schemes, while the construction of Buddhist temples was restricted; military and civil service promotions were given preferentially to Catholics.

[1] The paper also praised Diệm's Catholic links, pointing out that Thục was a former classmate of the current Archbishop of Sydney Norman Thomas Gilroy when they studied at the Vatican.

Over time, the media in both Australia and the United States began to pay more attention to Diệm's autocratic style and religious bias,[48] especially after the eruption of the Buddhist crisis in 1963,[49] and the iconic self-immolation of Thích Quảng Đức.

In 1970, Labor leader Gough Whitlam posed with the Viet Cong flag,[60] and his deputy Jim Cairns, the chairman of the Vietnam Moratorium Committee, led large anti-war protests.

[61] Labor won the 1972 federal election on an anti-war platform,[62] and Whitlam withdrew Australian troops and recognised North Vietnam, which welcomed his electoral success.