27-06-2016, 04:24 PM
(This post was last modified: 27-06-2016, 07:52 PM by Scott Kaiser.)
[FONT=&]1.) 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).
2.) [/FONT][FONT=&]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.
3.) [/FONT][FONT=&]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.
4.) [/FONT][FONT=&]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.
5.) [/FONT][FONT=&]SORUCE: Lyndon B. Johnson Library: Lyndon B. Johnson Papers: National Security File: Country File Vietnam Addendum, box 263 (temporary), folder: Hilsman, Roger (Diem) [/FONT]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."
6.) Regarding (5) five above, this is the poorly drafted cable president Kennedy speaks about in his tape in which he mentions that a coup took place in which he acted [surprised] about, however, Kennedy's lack of knowledge regarding the coup, and his tape does not exclude [him] or [his] administration which was at the forefront of the Diem brother's assassination and early coup.
7.) The new regime hired foreign nationalist with assassination training, the generals who opposed Diem's regime hired French assassins to privately eliminate both Diem brothers upon surrender, (which they did in fear that had either brother been brought to exile a government in exile could be formed.)
8.) It is a known fact that Ed Kaiser who was trained in the FFL was sent to Loas, then onto Saigon in preparation of this assassination, proof of this information will be disclosed shortly.
2.) [/FONT][FONT=&]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.
3.) [/FONT][FONT=&]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.
4.) [/FONT][FONT=&]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.
5.) [/FONT][FONT=&]SORUCE: Lyndon B. Johnson Library: Lyndon B. Johnson Papers: National Security File: Country File Vietnam Addendum, box 263 (temporary), folder: Hilsman, Roger (Diem) [/FONT]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."
6.) Regarding (5) five above, this is the poorly drafted cable president Kennedy speaks about in his tape in which he mentions that a coup took place in which he acted [surprised] about, however, Kennedy's lack of knowledge regarding the coup, and his tape does not exclude [him] or [his] administration which was at the forefront of the Diem brother's assassination and early coup.
7.) The new regime hired foreign nationalist with assassination training, the generals who opposed Diem's regime hired French assassins to privately eliminate both Diem brothers upon surrender, (which they did in fear that had either brother been brought to exile a government in exile could be formed.)
8.) It is a known fact that Ed Kaiser who was trained in the FFL was sent to Loas, then onto Saigon in preparation of this assassination, proof of this information will be disclosed shortly.