President of the Republic of Vietnam from 1955 until his assassination in 1963. Prior to this office, he was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam from 1954 to 1955. His politics were financed by the United States with the intention of preventing the Communists of North Vietnam from reunifying Vietnam after the 1946 to 1954 French Indochina War. Diem, along with his brothers Nhu and Can, and a sister-in-law presided over what can be described by critics as a highly corrupt, ineffectual, oppressive government. Yet, others claim street crime, such as prostitution and opium-use, were down and he established educational programs. He and Nhu were eventually captured and killed during a military coupe. Born into an elite, conservative Roman Catholic family, Diem became a Mandarin, taking the vow of chastity and fully devoting himself to ridding the French colonialists from his country. With the support of the United States, he attempted to prevent the partitioned South Vietnam from being overrun by the forces of North Vietnam President Ho Chi Minh and the National Liberation Front or, the Viet Cong. Being Catholic, he was at odds with the Buddhist, which was the religion of at least 75% of the South Vietnamese. On his 1963 orders, his military started raiding pagodas and preventing Buddhist monks from practicing their religious rituals. This religious persecution precipitated a protest in the middle of a busy intersection in Saigon of the self-sacrifice by fire of the Mahayana Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc on June 11, 1963. This action gained international attention to the crisis with the documentation of the Pulitzer Prize recipient photograph by American Malcolm Browne. The United States had discontinued their support to his politics. With losing the public's approval and fearing for his life, he and members of his family went into hiding. On November 2, 1963, Diem and Nhu were captured, bound and executed. Originally, he was buried in an unmarked grave next to the American Embassy, but over the years, Diem's remains were moved from one cemetery to the next, until reaching a resting place in a province outside of Saigon with his grave marker being inscribed with only his Catholic name to obscure his actual identity. The end came for the Republic of Vietnam on the last day of April in 1975 with the Communists reunifying Vietnam.