The pivot was already underway before the Missile Crisis ended. Cuba was a cul-de-sac—an island with a Soviet guarantee. Vietnam was an open road. The same men, the same methods, the same budgets. Just a different map on the wall.
Edward Lansdale understood this better than anyone. He had built the playbook in the Philippines, refined it in Saigon in the fifties, then wasted two years on the Caribbean fantasy. Now the machinery was coming home.
The Miami exiles raged. The JMWAVE station—once the largest CIA installation outside Langley—began its slow drawdown. Boats that had run guns to Cuba would soon run heroin from Laos. The war had simply changed theaters.
But before the full pivot could occur, there was a problem in Saigon. And the problem had a name.
1. CURRENT SITUATION UNTENABLE. Buddhist crisis has exposed fundamental weakness of GVN. Diem increasingly isolated, dependent on brother Nhu and Madame Nhu, whose public statements have become serious liability.
2. ARVN GENERAL OFFICER CORPS divided but significant faction prepared to move against palace if assured of USG non-interference. Key contacts include Gen. Duong Van Minh ("Big Minh"), Gen. Tran Van Don.
3. REQUEST GUIDANCE: Should station maintain current support for Diem or signal receptivity to alternative leadership?
[CABLE INITIATED WASHINGTON POLICY DEBATE RESULTING IN DEPTEL 243]
The debate consumed August. State wanted Diem gone. The Pentagon wanted him kept. The CIA was split. And the Kennedys—Jack and Bobby both—struggled with a question that should have been familiar: Could you remove a head of state without removing his head?
The answer came on a Saturday, when most of the principals were out of town. A cable went out—DEPTEL 243—drafted by Harriman and Hilsman at State, cleared by a skeleton weekend crew, telling the generals in Saigon that the United States would not oppose a coup.
...US GOVERNMENT CANNOT TOLERATE SITUATION IN WHICH POWER LIES IN NHU'S HANDS. DIEM MUST BE GIVEN CHANCE TO RID HIMSELF OF NHU AND HIS COTERIE AND REPLACE THEM WITH BEST MILITARY AND POLITICAL PERSONALITIES AVAILABLE.
IF, IN SPITE OF ALL YOUR EFFORTS, DIEM REMAINS OBDURATE AND REFUSES, THEN WE MUST FACE THE POSSIBILITY THAT DIEM HIMSELF CANNOT BE PRESERVED.
WE MUST AT SAME TIME ALSO TELL KEY MILITARY LEADERS THAT US WOULD FIND IT IMPOSSIBLE TO CONTINUE SUPPORT GVN MILITARILY AND ECONOMICALLY UNLESS ABOVE STEPS ARE TAKEN IMMEDIATELY...
[DEPTEL 243 — THE "GREEN LIGHT" CABLE]
Kennedy was furious when he learned the full implications on Monday morning. He hadn't understood. Or he hadn't wanted to understand. The cable had gone out under his authority, but the decision had been made in the gaps between phone calls.
But it couldn't be recalled. The generals in Saigon now knew—or believed they knew—that Washington wanted change. The machinery was in motion.
For two months, the coup planning stuttered. The generals were nervous. Diem was suspicious. Ambassador Lodge—a Republican whom Kennedy had appointed to share the blame if Vietnam collapsed—played his own game, meeting with plotters while sending optimistic cables home.
And in Saigon Station, Lucien Conein—"Lou" to everyone, "Black Luigi" to those who knew his OSS history—served as the cutout. He met the generals in dentist offices. He promised American support. He carried a bag with $42,000 in CIA funds, just in case the generals needed walking-around money.
1. GENERALS HAVE MOVED. ARVN UNITS SURROUNDING PALACE. DIEM TELEPHONED LODGE 1530 LOCAL REQUESTING CLARIFICATION US POSITION. LODGE NONCOMMITTAL.
2. DIEM AND NHU ESCAPED PALACE VIA TUNNEL APPROXIMATELY 2000 LOCAL. CURRENT LOCATION BELIEVED CHO LON (CHINESE QUARTER).
3. GENERALS REQUEST GUIDANCE: WHAT TO DO WITH DIEM IF CAPTURED?
4. CONEIN REPORTS GEN. MINH STATED: "WE CANNOT LET HIM LEAVE THE COUNTRY." IMPLICATIONS UNCLEAR BUT OMINOUS.
November 2nd, 1963. The Feast of All Souls. Diem and Nhu were found in a Catholic church in Cho Lon, taken into an M-113 armored personnel carrier, and shot. The official story was suicide. The photographs showed otherwise: hands bound behind their backs, multiple bullet wounds, Nhu's face beaten beyond recognition.
Two bodies in the back of an APC. One in a gray suit, one in a dark blue sharkskin. Both bound. Both executed.
The man who ordered the killings — Gen. Duong Van "Big Minh" — would survive the war. The man who authorized the coup would not survive the month.
When Kennedy saw the photographs, according to Maxwell Taylor, he went white. Left the room. An aide heard him say: "We must bear a good deal of responsibility for this."
Responsibility. A strange word for a President who had greenlit the coup, received updates throughout the operation, and declined to intervene when the endgame became obvious. Perhaps he hadn't understood what "cannot let him leave the country" meant. Perhaps he thought there were limits.
There are never limits.
In Georgetown, the old network gathered the intelligence that didn't appear in cables. The word was that Kennedy was shaken—not just by Diem's death but by the realization of what he had set in motion. He was talking about Vietnam differently now. Talking about withdrawal. Talking about "after the '64 election."
Three weeks later, John F. Kennedy would fly to Texas.
OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE — ALL STATIONS
POTUS DALLAS MOTORCADE
SHOTS FIRED
CONDITION UNKNOWN
STAND BY FOR FURTHER
The cable went out at 12:34 PM Central Standard Time. Twenty-one days after Diem. The machinery that had ground up a president in Saigon had found another target.
Coincidence, the Warren Commission would later conclude. A lone gunman. No conspiracy. The Commission's most diligent member—the man who had spent the most time examining the evidence, directing the staff, shaping the conclusions—was Allen Welsh Dulles.
The man Kennedy had fired. The man who knew what the machinery could do. The man who understood that some questions are asked precisely so that no one will have to answer them.
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