Word: diem
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NAIVETÉ ABOUT DIEM. The Pentagon papers reflect Washington's shallow perception of the complexity of South Viet Nam's problems and the U.S.'s limited ability to deal with them. Shortly before the 1963 coup that overthrew President Ngo Dinh Diem, the White House cabled to then Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge a lengthy set of instructions. Tidily organized under points A through M, the missive loftily proposed solutions for a country riven by political and religious strife and on the verge of military collapse. According to the cable's ungainly prose, Lodge was directed...
KENNEDY ON TROOP COMMITMENTS. During the early months of his Administration, President John F. Kennedy tried to maneuver the South Vietnamese into requesting assistance from American troops. Kennedy dispatched then-Vice President Johnson to Viet Nam in May 1961 with orders to "encourage" President Ngo Dinh Diem to ask for U.S. ground troops. Two months before, Kennedy had authorized secret raids against North Viet Nam. Diem resisted American pressure at first, arguing that the presence of American troops would violate the 1954 Geneva Agreements and open his administration to criticism as a puppet government. But in October. Diem made...
...DIEM COUP. The Pentagon papers show that the U.S. first conspired with South Vietnamese military plotters against President Diem, later backed away from an active role and, in the end, stood by and allowed the coup to take place. In the summer of 1963, officials in Saigon and Washington, D.C., debated whether or not to coax Diem into instituting reforms or to support a military coup. Kennedy and his advisers had come to view Diem and his brother, Secret Police Chief Ngo Dinh Nhu, as corrupt mandarins whose brutal oppression of Buddhists and political opponents was an embarrassment...
Characteristically both Machiavellian and idealistic, the Kennedy Administration approved efforts to encourage a coup after Diem's attack on Buddhist pagodas in August, but when reservations over the success of an overthrow deepened, the U.S. withdrew its clandestine support of the generals and the coup was delayed. Concern heightened, however, with reports that Nhu might seek rapprochement with the North, which could have resulted in a neutralist government in Saigon. The plotting continued, and two days before Diem was ousted, McGeorge Bundy cabled Lodge...
ONCE A COUP UNDER RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP HAS BEGUN, IT IS IN THE INTEREST OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT THAT IT SHOULD SUCCEED. Lodge Was ordered not to intervene directly on either side; but without American support, Diem's government was doomed. At 4:30 p.m. on Nov. 1, Diem telephoned Lodge; it was the last contact any American had with Diem before his assassination the following day. WITHDRAWAL ADVICE. In an August 1963 session of the National Security Council, State Department Expert Paul M. Kattenburg recommended that the U.S. withdraw from Viet Nam completely. The suggestion was spurned by Secretary...