JFK
TAPE DETAILS HIGH-LEVEL VIETNAM COUP PLOTTING IN 1963;
DOCUMENTS
SHOW NO THOUGHT OF DIEM ASSASSINATION;
U.S.
OVERESTIMATED INFLUENCE ON SAIGON GENERALS.
Washington D.C., November 5, 2003 - A
White House tape of President Kennedy and his advisers,
published this week in a new book-and-CD collection and excerpted
on the Web, confirms that top U.S. officials sought the November
1, 1963 coup against then-South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem
without apparently considering the physical consequences for Diem
personally (he was murdered the following day). The taped meeting
and related documents show that U.S.
officials, including JFK, vastly overestimated their ability to
control the South Vietnamese generals who ran the coup 40 years
ago this week.
The Kennedy tape from October 29, 1963 captures the highest-level
White House meeting immediately prior to the coup, including the
President's brother voicing doubts about the policy of support
for a coup: "I mean, it's different from a coup in the Iraq
or South American country; we are so intimately involved in this…."
National Security Archive senior fellow John Prados provides a
full transcript of the meeting, together with the audio on CD,
in his new book-and-CD publication, The White House Tapes:
Eavesdropping on the President (New York: The New Press, 2003,
331 pp. + 8 CDs, ISBN 1-56584-852-7), just published this week
and featuring audio files from 8 presidents, from Roosevelt to
Reagan.
To mark the 40th anniversary of the Diem coup, a critical turning
point in the Vietnam war, Dr. Prados also compiled and annotated
for the Web a selection of recently declassified documents from
the forthcoming documentary publication, U.S. Policy in the Vietnam
War, to be published in spring 2004 by the National Security Archive
and ProQuest Information and Learning. Together with the Kennedy
tape from October 29, 1963, the documents show that American leaders
discussed not only whether to support a successor government,
but also the distribution of pro- and anti-coup forces, U.S. actions
that could be taken that would contribute to a coup, and calling
off a coup if its prospects were not good.
"Supporting the Diem coup made the U.S. responsible for
the outcome in South Vietnam in exactly the way Bobby Kennedy
feared on October 29," said Dr. Prados. "Ironically,
though, as the conversation continued, he and the other doubters
abandoned these larger considerations and concentrated only on
whether a coup would succeed - nothing else mattered."
The posting today also includes the transcript of Diem's last
phone call to U.S. ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, inquiring "what
the attitude of the U.S. is" towards the coup then underway;
Lodge dissembled that he was not "well enough informed at
this time to be able to tell you."
JFK
and the Diem Coup
by
John Prados
By 1963, about mid-way through America's involvement in the wars
of Vietnam, the policymakers of the Kennedy administration felt
trapped between the horns of a dilemma. South Vietnam, the part
of the former state of Vietnam which the United States supported,
remained in the throes of a civil war between the anti-communist
government the U.S. favored and communist guerrillas backed by
North Vietnam. Government forces could not seem to get a handle
on how to cope with the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam,
as the communist movement was known. American military and intelligence
agencies disputed progress in the war. While denying journalists'
observations that the United States was slipping into a quagmire
in Vietnam, the Kennedy administration was privately well aware
of the problems in the war and tried measures of all kinds to
energize the South Vietnamese effort.
One big problem was in Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam,
with the South Vietnamese government itself. Plagued by corruption,
political intrigues, and constant internal squabbling, the South
Vietnamese were often at loggerheads. With the Americans, whose
interest lay in combating the National Liberation Front guerrillas,
the South Vietnamese promised cooperation but often delivered
very little. There were other difficulties rooted in the way the
South Vietnamese government had been created originally, and the
way the U.S. had helped organize the South Vietnamese army in
the 1950s, but these factors would not be directly relevant to
the events of 1963. (Note 1)
The
Saigon government was headed by President Ngo Dinh Diem, an autocratic,
nepotistic ruler who valued power more than either his relations
with the Vietnamese people or progress in fighting the communists.
Diem had originally come to power by legal means, appointed prime
minister of the government that had existed in 1954, and he had
then consolidated power through a series of military coups, quasi-coups,
a government reorganization, a referendum on his leadership, and
finally a couple of staged presidential elections. Diem styled
South Vietnam a republic and held the title president, but he
had banned political parties other than his own and he refused
to permit a legal opposition. From 1954 onwards the Americans
had been urging political reforms upon Diem, who repeatedly promised
that reforms would be made but never enacted any.
The autocratic style of Diem's leadership was not lost upon the
South Vietnamese, who were less and less enamored of the Saigon
leader. A major military coup against Diem had occurred in November
1960, which he had survived only due to divisions among the military
leadership. Diem exploited these to play factions off against
each other and thus secure his own political survival. In February
1962 disgruntled air force pilots had bombed the presidential
palace in hopes of killing Diem and forcing new leadership, but
that too did not work, as Diem at that moment had been in a different
part of the palace to the one that was attacked. Diem reassigned
military officers to improve his security but again neglected
to undertake political reforms. (Note 2)
The Kennedy administration between 1961 and 1963 repeatedly increased
the levels of its military aid to Saigon, funding growth in the
Vietnamese armed forces. The U.S. military, and American military
intelligence, focused on the improvements in the ratio of troop
strength between the government and guerrillas that followed from
force increases and argued the war was successful. Diplomats and
aid officials were more pessimistic. The CIA, ordered to make
an intelligence assessment in the spring of 1963, permitted their
view to be swayed by the military and produced a national intelligence
estimate that downplayed Diem's political weaknesses. President
Kennedy heard warnings from his State Department officials and
a rosy picture from the military, and felt reassured by the CIA
estimate. (Note 3)
White House impressions were shattered beginning on May 8, when
South Vietnamese security forces acting under the orders of one
of Ngo Dinh Diem's brothers, fired into a crowd of Buddhist religious
marchers celebrating the Buddha's 2,527th birthday. The rationale
for the breakup of this march was no more serious than that the
Buddhists had ignored a government edict against flying flags
other than the South Vietnamese state flag. Another of Diem's
brothers, the Roman Catholic archbishop for this same area of
South Vietnam had flown flags with impunity just weeks before
when celebrating his own promotion within the Church; the Buddhists
may have been encour-aged by that act to think their own actions
would be permitted as well. Suppression of this Buddhist march
in the ancient Vietnamese imperial capital of Hue led to a political
crisis, the "Buddhist crisis," that ignited Saigon throughout
the summer and fall of 1963. (Note 4)
The two brothers of Diem implicated in the Hue suppression were
not even the Saigon leader's main problem. Diem's brother Ngo
Dinh Nhu sat in the presidential palace as private counselor,
manipulator, emissary, and puppetmaster of the Saigon government.
Even more than Diem himself Nhu was regarded widely in South Vietnam
as a menace, directing Diem's political party, some of his intelligence
services, and Special Forces created under one of the American-sponsored
aid programs. Nhu took a very negative view of the Buddhist troubles.
President Diem's response to the Buddhist crisis, once he passed
beyond denying that anything was happening, was to promise political
and religious reforms, and negotiations for a modus vivendi with
the Buddhists were carried out in Saigon. Nhu, however, encouraged
the South Vietnamese leader to renege on the agreement and, once
again, Diem failed to enact any of the political concessions that
had been agreed.
Buddhist religious demonstrations came to Saigon in late May
and soon became almost daily events. On June 11 the protests attained
a new level of intensity after a bonze publicly immolated himself
at a busy Saigon street intersection as the climax of a demonstration.
Photographs of the scene startled the world, and made the Buddhist
troubles a political issue in the United States for President
Kennedy, who faced a tough problem in continuing economic and
military aid to a government so clearly violating the human rights
of its people. The CIA put out an addendum to its previous national
intelligence estimate revising its assessment of Diem's political
prospects, and State Department intelligence circulated a report
predicting major trouble in Saigon. (Note 5)
President Diem's worsening situation led him to declare martial
law in August 1963, and on August 21 Ngo Dinh Nhu used the martial
law authority to carry out major raids on the largest pagodas
of the Buddhist group behind the protests. Nhu conducted the raids
in such a way as to suggest that South Vietnamese military commanders
were behind them, and used troops funded by the United States
through the CIA to carry out the raids. Within days of the raids,
South Vietnamese military officers were approaching Americans
to inquire as to what the U.S. response might be to a military
coup in Saigon. (Note 6)
This situation forms the background to the selection of documents
included in this briefing book. The documents frame those meetings
and major instructions in which President Kennedy was directly
involved in considerations of a coup in Saigon. There were two
main periods during which these deliberations took place, August
and October 1963. The first sequence followed quickly on the pagoda
raids, the second occurred once the South Vietnamese generals
initiated a new round of coup preparations. The documents here
consist primarily of records of meetings or key cabled instructions
or reports pertinent to the coup, which would eventually take
place on November 1, 1963. (Note 7)
There were two major episodes where the American involvement
in these Vietnamese political events would be the most intense,
although the U.S. remained heavily engaged in Vietnam throughout.
We have for the most part selected documents that reflect high
level action by the United States government-meetings with President
Kennedy and his chief lieutenants. Our document selections reflect
these intense sequences, but they are drawn from a much larger
set of materials in the National Security Archive's U.S. Policy
in the Vietnam War, Part I: 1954-1968. The first period of intense
activity occurred in August 1963, when South Vietnamese military
officers initially planned to secure American support for their
coup against Ngo Dinh Diem. This period included an incident that
became very well-known in U.S. government circles, in which State
Department official Roger Hilsman originated a cable giving the
South Vietnamese generals the green light for a coup against Diem
(Document 2). Much of the succeeding U.S.
activity revolved upon making it seem that policy had been rescinded
without in fact changing it. The second high point came in October
1963, when final preparations were made for the coup that was
carried out.
In the wake of the coup against Diem and the assassination of
the Saigon leader and his brother, many observers have wrestled
with the question of President Kennedy's involvement in the murders.
In 1975 the Church Committee investigating CIA assassination programs
investigated the Diem coup as one of its cases. (Note
8) Kennedy loyalists and administration
participants have argued that the President had nothing to do
with the murders, while some have charged Kennedy with, in effect,
conspiring to kill Diem. When the coup did begin the security
precautions taken by the South Vietnamese generals included giving
the U.S. embassy only four minutes warning, and then cutting off
telephone service to the American military advisory group. Washington's
information was partial as a result, and continued so through
November 2, the day Diem died. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara
recounts that Kennedy was meeting with his senior advisers about
Vietnam on the morning of November 2 (see Document
25) when NSC staff aide Michael V. Forrestal entered the Cabinet
Room holding a cable (Document 24 provides
the same information) reporting the death. (Note
9) Both McNamara and historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.,
a participant as White House historian, record that President
Kennedy blanched at the news and was shocked at the murder of
Diem. (Note 10) Historian Howard Jones notes
that CIA director John McCone and his subordinates were amazed
that Kennedy should be shocked at the deaths, given how unpredictable
were coups d'etat. (Note 11)
Records of the Kennedy national security meetings, both here
and in our larger collection, show that none of JFK's conversations
about a coup in Saigon featured consideration of what might physically
happen to Ngo Dinh Diem or Ngo Dinh Nhu. The audio
record of the October 29th meeting which we cite below also
reveals no discussion of this issue. That meeting, the last held
at the White House to consider a coup before this actually took
place, would have been the key moment for such a conversation.
The conclusion of the Church Committee agrees that Washington
gave no consideration to killing Diem. (Note 12)
The weight of evidence therefore supports the view that President
Kennedy did not conspire in the death of Diem. However, there
is also the exceedingly strange transcript of Diem's final phone
conversation with Ambassador Lodge on the afternoon of the coup
(Document 23), which carries the distinct
impression that Diem is being abandoned by the U.S. Whether this
represents Lodge's contribution, or JFK's wishes, is not apparent
from the evidence available today.
A second charge has to do with Kennedy administration denials
that it had had anything to do with the coup itself. The documentary
record is replete with evidence that President Kennedy and his
advisers, both individually and collectively, had a considerable
role in the coup overall, by giving initial support to Saigon
military officers uncertain what the U.S. response might be, by
withdrawing U.S. aid from Diem himself, and by publicly pressuring
the Saigon government in a way that made clear to South Vietnamese
that Diem was isolated from his American ally. In addition, at
several of his meetings (Documents 7, 19,
22) Kennedy had CIA briefings and led discussions
based on the estimated balance between pro- and anti-coup forces
in Saigon that leave no doubt the United States had a detailed
interest in the outcome of a coup against Ngo Dinh Diem. The CIA
also provided $42,000 in immediate support money to the plotters
the morning of the coup, carried by Lucien Conein, an act prefigured
in administration planning Document 17).
The ultimate effect of United States participation in the overthrow
of Ngo Dinh Diem was to commit Washington to Saigon even more
deeply. Having had a hand in the coup America had more responsibility
for the South Vietnamese governments that followed Diem. That
these military juntas were ineffectual in prosecuting the Vietnam
war then required successively greater levels of involvement from
the American side. The weakness of the Saigon government thus
became a factor in U.S. escalations of the Vietnam war, leading
to the major ground war that the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson
opened in 1965.
Note: The following documents are in PDF format.
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Documents
DOCUMENT 1
DCI Briefing, July 9, 1963
SOURCE: John F. Kennedy Library: John F. Kennedy Papers (Hereafter
JFKL: JFKP): National Security File: Country File, box 51, folder:
Cuba: Subjects, Intelligence Material.
This document shows that Director of Central Intelligence John
A. McCone briefed President Kennedy within twenty-four hours after
a South Vietnamese general first approached CIA officer Lucien
Conein. At the time multiple different plots were anticipated,
at least one of which might become active the following day (the
Tuyen plot referred to aborted, Tran Kim Tuyen was sent out of
the country as ambassador to Egypt). The CIA also here recognizes
the political significance of the Buddhist issue in South Vietnam.
DOCUMENT 2
State-Saigon Cable 243, August 24, 1963
SOURCE: JFKL: JFKP: National Security File: Meetings & Memoranda
series, box 316, folder: Meetings on Vietnam 8/24/63-8/31/63
This is the notorious "Hilsman Cable," drafted by
Assistant Secretary of state For Far Eastern Affairs Roger A.
Hilsman in response to a repeated contact between General Don
and Conein on August 23. The U.S. government position generally
supported action to unseat Ngo Dinh Nhu and if Diem's departure
were necessary to reach that goal, so be it. Hilsman's stronger
formulation of that position in this cable was drafted while President
Kennedy, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert
S. McNamara, and CIA director McCone were all out of town. Though
the cable had the proper concurrences by their deputies or staff,
the principals were converted by officials who opposed the Hilsman
pro-coup policy. Much of the rest of August 1963 was taken up
by the U.S. government trying to take back the coup support expressed
in this cable while, out of concern for the U.S. image with the
South Vietnamese generals, without seeming to do so.
DOCUMENT 3
Memorandum of Conversation, "Vietnam," August
26, 1963, Noon
SOURCE: JFKL: Roger Hilsman Papers, Country Series, box 4, folder:
Vietnam: White House Meetings 8/26/63-8/29/63, State Memcons
The first of a series of records of meetings in which President
John F. Kennedy and his lieutenants consider the implications
of a coup and the difficulties of bringing off a successful one.
DOCUMENT 4
Memorandum for the President, August 27, 1963
SOURCE; JFKL: John Newman Papers, Notebook, August 24-31, 1963.
National Security Council staffer Michael V. Forrestal sends
a memo to President Kennedy advising on what he may expect to
hear at the meeting on Vietnam policy scheduled for that afternoon.
DOCUMENT 5
Memorandum of Conversation, "Vietnam," August
27, 1963, 4:00PM
SOURCE: JFKL: Roger Hilsman Papers, Country Series, box 4, folder:
Vietnam: White House Meetings 8/26/63-8/29/63, State Memcons
President Kennedy continues his consideration of a policy of
support for a coup in Saigon, this time with the participation
of recently-returned ambassador to Saigon Frederick C. Nolting.
The former ambassador opposes any coup in Saigon but frankly admits
that the prospects for a coup depend upon the U.S. attitude. Secretary
Rusk argues that Nolting's recommendations are inadequate. Kennedy
orders Assistant Secretary Hilsman to prepare a study of the contingency
options. This is the State Department record of the meeting.
DOCUMENT 6
Memorandum of Conference with the President, August 27,
1963, 4:00 PM
SOURCE: JFKL: JFKP: National Security File, Meetings & Memoranda
series, box 316, folder: Meetings on Vietnam 8/24/63-8/31/63
A different record of the same Vietnam policy meeting, one compiled
by the National Security Council (NSC) staff, reports more fully
on comments by CIA's William Colby, Secretary McNamara, Roger
Hilsman, McGeorge Bundy and others.
DOCUMENT 7
Memorandum of Conversation, "Vietnam," August
28, 1963, Noon
SOURCE: JFKL: Roger Hilsman Papers, Country Series, box 4, folder:
Vietnam: White House Meetings 8/26/63-8/29/63, State Department
Memcons
State Department record of the meeting on Vietnam policy, notes
continued opposition by former ambassador Nolting, interventions
by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Deputy Secretary of State
W. Averell Harriman, Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon,
and others. There is discussion of the status of coup forces as
well as U.S. military moves. The meeting ends with an understanding
the White House will re-establish a policy-making body along the
lines of the "Executive Committee" created during the
Cuban Missile Crisis and that it shall meet daily. (Another, NSC
staff, record of this meeting with additional detail is available
in Foreign Relations of the United States 1961-1963, v.4,
pp. 1-9, ed. John P. Glennon, Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1991.) The importance of the Vietnam issue is further
highlighted by the fact that President Kennedy is taking the time
to hold two of these policy sessions on the same day as the massive
March on Washington for civil rights by African-Americans and
others.
DOCUMENT 8
Central Intelligence Agency, Current Intelligence Memorandum
(OCI 2703/63), "Cast of Characters in South Vietnam,"
August 28, 1963
SOURCE: JFKL: JFKP: National Security File: Country File, box
201, folder: Vietnam: General, CIA Reports 11/3/63-11/5/63 [An
August document filed with November materials]
The front page of this intelligence memorandum contains notes
by McGeorge Bundy on his impressions of the discussion at the
White House meeting that day at noon. The memorandum itself is
a useful rundown on the various South Vietnamese persons involved
in the coup plots and counterplots.
DOCUMENT 9
Memorandum of Conversation, "Vietnam," August
28, 1963, 6:00 PM
SOURCE: JFKL: John Newman Papers, Notebook, August 1963
In a brief meeting following President Kennedy's encounter with
the civil rights leaders who had led the March on Washington (see
the recording of that meeting and its transcript, available in
John Prados, ed. The White House Tapes: Eavesdropping on the President.
New York: The New Press, 2003, pp. 69-92 and Disc 2), the President
declares that a series of personal messages from him to U.S. officials
in Saigon will be designed to elicit their views on a coup and
a general cable will furnish fresh directives.
DOCUMENT 10
Memorandum of Conference with the President, August 29,
1963, 1200 Noon
SOURCE: JFKL: JFKP: National Security File: Meetings & Memoranda
series, box 316, folder: Meetings on Vietnam, 8/24/63-8/31/63
Policy review of the latest issues in the coup plotting in South
Vietnam, where President Kennedy asks for disagreements with the
course of action the U.S. is following. Secretary McNamara recommends
the U.S. disassociate itself from the South Vietnamese military's
coup plans, with some support from other officials, particularly
Ambassador Nolting. All agree that Diem will have to get rid of
Nhu, however. The President is told that American official Rufus
D. Phillips, a former CIA officer, has been ordered to inform
the South Vietnamese generals that Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge
is behind the contacts which CIA officers are having with them.
Kennedy issues instructions, then breaks up for a smaller meeting
in the Oval Office.
DOCUMENT 11
Memorandum of Conversation, "Vietnam," August
29, 1963, 12:00 Noon
SOURCE: JFKL: Roger Hilsman Papers: Country Series, box 4, folder:
Vietnam: White House Meetings 8/26/63-8/29/63, State Department
Memcons
President Kennedy explores the possibility of "an approach
to Diem" on reforms and getting rid of Ngo Dinh Nhu. However,
Secretary Rusk reports that both the U.S. ambassador, Henry Cabot
Lodge, and the military advisory group leader, General Paul D.
Harkins, are on record agreeing that the war cannot be won with
a Diem-Nhu combination at the head of the Saigon government. This
is a different version of the meeting described in Document 10.
DOCUMENT 12
State-Saigon Cable 272, August 29, 1963
SORUCE: Lyndon B. Johnson Library: Lyndon B. Johnson Papers:
National Security File: Country File Vietnam Addendum, box 263
(temporary), folder: Hilsman, Roger (Diem)
These are the instructions adopted by President Kennedy at the
White House meetings on this date. They are carefully drawn to
associate the United States with moves to oust Ngo Dinh Nhu from
the South Vietnamese government, notes that "a last approach
to Diem remains undecided," and that the U.S. will not engage
in joint coup planning though it will support a coup "that
has a good chance of succeeding."
DOCUMENT 13
National Security Council Staff-State Department Draft, Michael
Forrestal and Roger Hilsman, "Suggested Draft of Presidential
Letter Adapted to Phase I of the Plan," September 12,
1963
SOURCE: JFKL: Roger Hilsman Papers, Country File, box 4, folder:
Vietnam, September 11-20, 1963 (2)
President Kennedy's instructions in late August to Assistant
Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs Roger Hilsman led to
a two-phase plan to put pressure on Diem for reforms and to dispense
with his brother Nhu. Hilsman prepared such a plan, which included
evacuation of Americans and terminating aid parts of the South
Vietnamese military. This plan was at the center of U.S. discussions
throughout much of September, but in the middle of it Kennedy
privately had Hilsman prepare a letter to Diem with the help of
Michael Forrestal of the NSC staff designed to ask Diem to make
reforms, while simultaneously reassuring the Saigon leader and
warning him that the U.S. would take actions (according to the
Hilsman pressure plan) "which make it clear that American
ccoperation and American assistance will not be given to or through
individuals whose acts and words seem to run against the purpose
of genuine national reconciliation and unified national effort."
This was a reference to Ngo Dinh Nhu. The annotations in this
draft are Roger Hilsman's.
DOCUMENT 14
State Department-National Security Council Staff Draft, Roger
Hilsman-Michael Forrestal, Potential Kennedy-Diem Letter, September
12, 1963
SOURCE: JFKL: JFKP: National Security File: Meetings & Memoranda,
box 316, folder: Meetings on Vietnam, September 11-12, 1963
This is a clean copy of the final draft of the letter included
as Document 13. President Kennedy brought up the letter at a national
security meeting in the evening of September 11, asking if one
had been prepared as he had previously suggested. National security
adviser McGeorge Bundy tried to dissuade Kennedy from the letter
idea. The letter was prepared, however, but ultimately rejected
as too awkward and indirect (trying to get rid of Nhu without
mentioning him by name, for example). Instead President Kennedy
decided to send Robert McNamara and General Maxwell D. Taylor
on a survey trip to South Vietnam, where they could speak to Diem
privately, as well as evaluate prospects for a coup on the ground.
That trip took place at the end of September. Diem proved unresponsive.
Kennedy turned back to his pressure program.
DOCUMENT 15
Central Intelligence Agency, Untitled Draft, October 8, 1963
SOURCE: JFKL: President's Office File, Departments and Agencies
series, box 72, folder: CIA, 1963.
Ngo Dinh Nhu struck back at his American enemies by using newspapers
he controlled in Saigon to reveal the name of the CIA station
chief in Saigon, John Richardson, claim there were divisions between
Ambassador Lodge and the CIA station, and that the CIA was responsible
for adverse developments in South Vietnam since the Pagoda Raids
of August. Much of this was then picked up and reported in the
press in the United States. John Kennedy had scheduled a press
conference for October 9 and in this briefing note the CIA tried
to prepare him for questions that might be asked. Kennedy was
indeed asked about the CIA in Saigon at that news conference,
and he replied, "I can find nothing . . . to indicate that
the CIA has done anything but support policy. It does not create
policy, it attempts to execute it in those areas where it has
competence and responsibility." The president described John
Richardson as "a very dedicated public servant." Clearly
JFK kept very close to his CIA briefing note.
DOCUMENT 16
Department of State, "Successor Heads of Government,"
October 25, 1963
SOURCE: JFKL: Roger Hilsman Papers, Country File, box 4, folder:
Vietnam, 10/6/63-10/31/63
Joseph A. Mendenhall, of the Far East Bureau of the State Department,
who had recently completed a survey mission to South Vietnam at
President Kennedy's request, supplies a list of possible Vietnamese
figures to head a successor government in Saigon. Note that the
list assumes a civilian government and includes none of the military
men who eventually constituted the junta that replaced Diem.
DOCUMENT 17
Department of State, "Check-List of Possible U.S. Actions
in Case of Coup," October 25, 1963
SOURCE: JFKL: Roger Hilsman Papers, Country File, box 4, folder:
Vietnam 10/6/63-10/31/63
Mendenhall also compiles a set of options the Kennedy administration
can take in support of a coup aimed at the Diem government. Note
that he mentions providing money or other "inducements"
to Vietnamese to join in the plot. The CIA would actually provide
$42,000 to the coup plotters during the coup itself (other amounts
in support are not known).
DOCUMENT 18
National Security Council Staff, "Check List for 4 PM
Meeting," no date [October 29, 1963]
SOURCE: JFKL: JFKP: National Security File: Country File, box
201, folder: Vietnam, General, Memos & Miscellaneous, 10/15/63-10/28/63
National security adviser McGeorge Bundy supplies an agenda
for the last meeting President Kennedy held with his top officials
prior to the actual coup in Saigon. Bundy suggests opening with
an intelligence briefing on the array of opposing forces, proceeding
to a discussion of whether Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge should
make an expected trip home for consultations, and ending contingency
planning for a coup.
AUDIO CLIP
President Kennedy Meets with His National Security Council on
the Question of Supporting a Coup in South Vietnam (10 minutes
55 seconds) From John Prados, ed. The White House Tapes: Eavesdropping
on the President (New York: The New Press, 2003, 331 pp. +
8 CDs, ISBN 1-56584-852-7)
(See Document 19 below for the official NSC staff record of this
meeting)
[NOTE: This audio clip is a Windows Media Audio file (.wma) and
should be opened using Windows Media Player]
DOCUMENT 19
Memorandum of Conference with the President, October 29,
1963, 4:20 PM
SOURCE: JFKL: JFKP: National Security File, Meetings & Memoranda
series, box 317, folder: Meetings on Vietnam, 10/29/63
The NSC staff record of the discussion at the meeting that followed
from Bundy's agenda. American leaders suddenly exhibit cold feet,
starting with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy who, as he had
done during the Cuban Missile Crisis, warns against precipitate
action. Bobby Kennedy was seconded by Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman
General Maxwell D. Taylor and CIA director John McCone. Other
doubts are also expressed. The group also considered a cable of
instructions to Ambassador Lodge. (The recording and a transcript
of the discussion at this key meeting is available in John Prados,
ed. The White House Tapes: Eavesdropping on the President,
op. cit., pp. 97-140 and Disc 3.)
DOCUMENT 20
Draft Cable, Eyes Only for Ambassador Saigon, October 29,
1963
SOURCE: JFKL: JFKP: National Security File: Country File, box
204, folder: Vietnam: Subjects: Top Secret Cables (Tab C) 10/28/63-10/31/63
This document is the NSC staff's draft of a cable to Ambassador
Lodge which is discussed at the meeting recorded in Document 18.
It contains instructions for the ambassador's travel as well as
arrangements for operating the embassy in a coup situation, and
material on Washington's attitude toward the coup.
DOCUMENT 21
Draft Cable, Eyes Only for Ambassador Lodge [CIA cable
79407, noted in upper right hand corner], October 30, 1963
SOURCE: JFKL: JFKP: National Security File: Country File, box
201, folder: Vietnam, General: State & Defense Cables, 10/29/63-10/31/63
McGeorge Bundy answers a cable from Ambassador Lodge with additional
commentary flowing from President Kennedy's meeting on October
29. Note Washington's presumption that "We do not accept
. . . that we have no power to delay or discourage a coup."
The discussion at the meeting and in the previous cable and this
one clearly indicate the Kennedy White House miscalculated its
ability to influence the South Vietnamese generals and their plans.
DOCUMENT 22
Memorandum of Conference with the President, November 1,
1963, 10:00 AM
SOURCE: JFKL: JFKP: National Security File, Meetings & Memoranda
series, box 317, folder: Meetings on Vietnam 11/1/63-11/2/63
President Kennedy meets with his national security team even as
the South Vietnamese generals in Saigon are activating forces
for their coup. Kennedy is briefed on coup forces and on the progress
of the coup thus far, which appears to be (and is) going against
President Diem. Secretary Rusk and CIA director McCone advise
on relevant matters for U.S. action and Secretary McNamara comments
on public relations aspects of the situation.
DOCUMENT 23
Department of State, John M. Dunn, Memorandum for the Record,
November 1, 1963
SOURCE: Gerald R. Ford Library: Gerald R. Ford Papers: National
Security Adviser's Files: NSC Convenience File, box 6, folder:
Henry Cabot Lodge, inc. Diem (2)
This document records President Ngo Dinh Diem's last conversation
on the telephone with Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. Diem asks
what is the attitude of the United States toward the coup plot
and Lodge replies, disingenuously, that he does not feel well-enough
informed to say what the U.S. position actually is.
DOCUMENT 24
Central Intelligence Agency, "The Situation in South Vietnam,"
November 2, 1963
SOURCE: JFKL: JFKP: President's Office File, box 128A, folder:
Vietnam: Security, 1963
The CIA reports the fall of Diem and the success of the generals'
coup. The report notes that Diem and Nhu are dead, by suicide
as announced on the radio.
DOCUMENT 25
Memorandum of Conference with the President, November 2,
1963, 9:15 AM
SOURCE: JFKL: JFKP: National Security File: Meetings & Memoranda
series, box 317, folder: Meetings on Vietnam 11/1/63-11/2/63
This is the NSC staff record of the initial high level meeting
held by President Kennedy in the wake of the Saigon coup. It was
during this meeting that NSC staffer Michael Forrestal entered
the room with news of Diem's death. Kennedy and his advisers confront
the necessity of making public comment on the death of Ngo Dinh
Diem and consider the implications for the United States.
DOCUMENT 26
Embassy Saigon, Cable 888, November 2, 1963
SOURCE: JFKL: JFKP: National Security File: Country File, box
201, folder: Vietnam: General, State Cables, 11/1/63-11/2/63
The Embassy provides several accounts of what actually happened
to Ngo Dinh Diem and Ngo Dinh Nhu.
DOCUMENT 27
Memorandum of Conference with the President, November 2,
1963, 4:30 PM
SOURCE: JFKL: JFKP: National Security File: Meetings and Memoranda
series, box 317, folder: Meetings on Vietnam, 11/1/63-11/2/63
A follow-up meeting is held by President Kennedy in the afternoon,
as recorded in this NSC staff record. Director McCone of the CIA
argues that Washington lacks any "direct evidence" that
Diem and Nhu are, in fact, dead. There is discussion of resuming
U.S. military aid programs that had been suspended in the last
weeks of the Diem regime. Note that Kennedy's appointments schedule
for this date indicates the meeting took slightly more than one
hour. The discussion as noted in this document cannot have consumed
that amount of time.
DOCUMENT 28
CIA, "Press Version of How Diem and Nhu Died" (OCI
3213/63), November 12, 1963
SOURCE: JFKL: JFKP: National Security File: Country File, box
203, folder: Vietnam: General, Memos and Miscellaneous 11/6/63-11/15/63
This document comments on what is known about the deaths of Diem
and Nhu and raises questions about some of the details that have
appeared in the press. The CIA shows (Paragraph 7) that it still
does not have an authoritative version of the deaths even almost
two weeks after the coup. Its best judgment is, however, close
to the truth (for the most authoritative account of the killings
see Nguyen Ngoc Huy, "Ngo Dinh Diem's Execution," Worldview
Magazine, November 1976, pp. 39-42).
DOCUMENT 29
Department of State, Memorandum William P. Bundy-Bill Moyers,
"Discussions Concerning the Diem Regime in August-October
1963," July 30, 1966
SOURCE: Lyndon B. Johnson Library: Lyndon B. Johnson Papers,
National Security File, Country File Vietnam, box 263, folder:
Hilsman, Roger (Diem 1963)
At the request of President Johnson's press secretary, Assistant
Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs William P. Bundy sets
to paper a retrospective view of the Kennedy administration's
decisions regarding policy toward Diem, the forcing out of Nhu,
and how support for the South Vietnamese coup developed at top
levels in Washington.
Notes
1. For a general overview see Stanley Karnow,
Vietnam: A History. New York: Viking, 1983.
2. See Denis Warner, The Last Confucian.
New York: Macmillan, 1963; also Anthony T. Bouscaren, The Last
of the Mandarins: Diem of Vietnam. Pittsburgh: University
of Pittsburgh Press, 1965. A recent reinterpretation that frames
Diem as a misunderstood reformist is in Philip E. Catton, Diem's
Final Failure: Prelude to America's War in Vietnam. Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, 2002.
3. John Prados, Lost Crusader: The Secret
Wars of CIA Director William Colby. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2002, pp. 105-108.
4. See, in general, Pierro Gheddo, The Cross
and the Bo Tree: Catholics and Buddhists in Vietnam. New York:
Sheed and Ward, 1970.
5. American eyewitness reports on these events
can be found in Malcolm Browne, The New Face of War. New
York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968; and David Halberstam, The Making
of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam During the Kennedy Era.
New York: Knopf, 1964. An important recent reconstruction of these
events through the eyes of American journalists can be found in
William Prochnau, Once Upon a Distant War: Young War Correspondents
and the Early Vietnam Battles. New York: Random House, 1995.
For the CIA intelligence reporting see Harold P. Ford, CIA
and the Vietnam Policymakers: Three Episodes, 1962-1968. Langley
(VA): CIA History Staff/Center for the Study of Intelligence,
1998 (the last-named source is available in the National Security
Archive's Vietnam Document Collection).
6. Prados, Lost Crusader, pp. 113-115.
7. Specific studies of the coup against Diem
include Ellen J. Hammer, A Death in November: America in Vietnam,
1963. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1987; and, more recently, Howard
Jones, Death of a Generation: How the Assassinations of Diem
and JFK Prolonged the Vietnam War. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2003.
8. United States Congress, Senate (94th Congress,
1st Session). Select Committee to Study Governmental Activities
with Respect to Intelligence, Interim Report: Alleged Assassination
Plots Involving Foreign Leaders. Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1975.
9. Robert S. McNamara with Brian VanDeMark, In
Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. New York:
Times Books, 1995, p. 83.
10. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand
Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House. Greenwich(CT): Fawcett
Books, 1967, p. 909-910.
11. Howard Jones, Death of a Generation,
op. cit., p.426.
12. Alleged Assassination Plots, pp.
5, 223.