KENNEDY'S COUP

An in-depth examination of the Kennedy administration’s role in the 1963 coup overthrowing the president of South Vietnam.

Ngo Dinh Diem, along with his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, ran South Vietnam in near-dictatorial style after becoming president in 1955. Cheevers, author of Act of War: Lyndon Johnson, North Korea, and the Capture of the Spy Ship Pueblo, writes that Diem “used police-state methods to control his people; routinely ignored U.S. advice intended to make his government more effective; meddled in his army’s operations for political reasons; and was congenitally unable to delegate authority (to the point that he personally reviewed passport applications).” Meanwhile, communist insurgents—the Viet Cong—aided by North Vietnam, were gaining ground in their war against the government. Diem’s domestic problems were almost worse. In May 1963, police massacred Buddhists protesting repressive measures by the regime. In response, a monk publicly burned himself to death. Until then, John F. Kennedy had paid only intermittent attention to Vietnam, and his advisers were seriously divided in their opinion of Diem and Nhu. But news photos of the burning monk convinced him that Vietnam was going to be trouble. In August, State Department intelligence chief Roger Hilsman drafted a message—later known as “the green light cable”—advising newly appointed Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge that Washington wouldn’t oppose a coup. Kennedy, on vacation, OKed the memo with little input from other advisers. On Nov. 2, a clique of generals stormed the palace, capturing and killing Diem and Nhu. Three weeks later, Kennedy himself was dead, and the real disaster of Vietnam was underway. Cheevers’ impressive research underpins his story with quotes from dozens of officials, military personnel, and journalists. “American support for toppling Diem,” Cheevers concludes,” originated not with Kennedy, but with Hilsman, a third-tier State Department bureaucrat who, with his green light cable, commandeered the president’s Vietnam policy and enmeshed the United States in the generals’ conspiracy. JFK recognized the cable as a mistake, but never overrode it.”

A shocking history of the politics and personalities behind one of America’s gravest foreign policy blunders.