In 1959 Colby became the CIA's deputy chief and then chief of station in Saigon, South Vietnam, where he served until 1962. Tasked by CIA with supporting the government of Ngo Dinh Diem, Colby established a relationship with President Diem's family and with Ngo Ngô Đình Nhu, the president's brother, with whom Colby became close. While in Vietnam, Colby focused intensively on building up Vietnamese capabilities to combat the Viet Cong insurgency in the countryside. He argued that "the key to the war in Vietnam was the war in the villages." In 1962 he returned to Washington to become the deputy and then chief of CIA's Far East Division, succeeding Desmond Fitzgerald, who had been tapped to lead the Agency's efforts against Castro's Cuba. During these years Colby was deeply involved in Washington's policies in East Asia, particularly with respect to Vietnam, as well as Indonesia, Japan, Korea, and China. He was deeply critical of the decision to abandon support for Diem, and he believed this played a material part in the weakening of the South Vietnamese position in the years following.