to the observer who learned about the coup by reading the foreign press, nothing suggested that one of the worst debacles in the history of American foreign relations had just transpired, or that the war against the Viet Cong would soon unravel. Praise for the plotters surged forth from journalists in Saigon and Washington. The editorial page of the New York Times, enlisting many of David Halberstam's arguments, pronounced, “The coup in Saigon was inevitable, and, given the stubborn refusal of President Diem to institute political reforms that had long been urged upon him, it was by this time highly desirable.” The Washington Post published an editorial entitled “HOPE IN SOUTH VIET-NAM” immediately after the coup. “It long has seemed almost impossible to continue with the Diem government any effective resistance to the Communist conquest of this part of Southeast Asia,” the Post asserted. “Nothing was more certain than the ultimate collapse of such a monument to vanity and cupidity.” The foreign media gave wide coverage to anti-Diem demonstrations in the streets of Saigon, to the burning of the offices of the state-run Times of Vietnam, and to the toppling of a statue of the famed Trung sisters that bore resemblance to Madame Nhu. American onlookers unfamiliar with Asia were inclined to view these events as proof that “the people” despised the Diem regime, particularly since the media did not report that the rebels had staged many, if not all, of these demonstrations.