President had coup doubts

Press, 3 October 1983, Page 10

President had coup doubts

NZPA-Reuter Washington

The late American President, John Kennedy, who had! supported a coup against the South Vietnamese leader, Ngo Dinh Diem, in 1963, urged at the last minute that it be called off unless success was likely, says a study released yesterday. The study, a special 24page section in “U.S. News and World Report” magazine, sheds new light on the coup and the assassination of Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu. Based on interviews and newly declassified documents, it quotes Mr Kennedy as telling the United States Ambassador in Saigon, Henry Cabot Lodge, in a cable on October 29, three days before the coup: “We reiterate (that the) burden of proof must be on coup group to show a substantial possibility of quick success; otherwise we should discourage them from proceeding ...”

The next day Mr Kennedy’s National Security Adviser, McGeorge Bundy, insisted to Mr Lodge that the United States had the power to delay or discourage a coup, but: “once a coup under responsible leadership has begun ... it is in the interest of the U.S. Government that it should succeed.” A.

Diem and Nhu were killed on November 2, 1963, 20 days before Mr Kennedy’s own assassination in Dallas.

The magazine says that the death of Diem and his powerful brother with Washington’s active encouragement was the start of a huge American military entanglement in Vietnam that ended in 1973 after 58,000 American ser-j vicemen had died in the war.

It says that Mr Kennedy and many of his top advisers, increasingly disillusioned with the brothers’ repressive policies, ap-

proved a cable to Mr Lodge on August 24, 1963, saying that Diem “must rid himself of Nhu and his coterie ...

“If, in spite of all your efforts, Diem remains obdurate and refuses, then we must face the possibility that Diem'himself cannot be preserved.” r

The article says that Vietnamese generals, who were leading the opposition to Diem and Nhu, were to be informed of this American policy and given assurances of American support in case of a temporary ’‘breakdown (of) / central Government mechanism” — a clear reference to a possible coup.

It says that State Department officials including Mr Lodge generally favoured the coup, but American military leaders argued that it would damage South Vietnam’s war effort against the Viet Cong, which they said was going well.

When Mr Kennedy began to have “second thoughts” a few days later, Mr Lodge cabled: “We are launched on a course from which there is no respectable turning back: the overthrow of the Diem Government” But a few days later, when no coup had occurred, Mr Kennedy and some of his began to study

alternatives such as cutting off American economic aid to Diem in an effort to put pressure on him to get rid of Nhu and reform his government.

When word was received from Mr Lodge in early October that South Vietnamese generals were again planning a coup, Mr Kennedy ordered: “No initiative should now be taken to give any active covert encouragement to a coup,” the article says. But he ordered Mr Lodge urgently “to identify and build contacts with alternative leadership” in South Vietnam.

In a cable on October 6, the article says, the White House reaffirmed this directive but added a new note: “While we do not wish to stimulate a coup, we also do not wish to leave impression that U.S. would thwart a change of government or deny economic and military assistance to a new regime."

By October 29, when Mr Lodge called a coup “imminent,” Mr Kennedy replied that it must have a substantial possibility of success.

When news of the Diend and Nhu assassinations reached the White House on November 2, the magazine

says, “President Kennedy was shocked, but many others were not. Military and C.I.A. officers had always known the violence inherent in a coup.” It says that the Central Intelligence Agency’s director, John McCone, informed early in October that the Vietnamese generals were considering killing Diem’s two younger brothers but not Diem, cabled his station chief in Saigon: “(We) certainly cannot be in the position of stimulating, approving or supporting assassination, but on the other hand we are in no way responsible for stopping every such threat of which we might receive even partial knowledge.” But Mr McCone added flatly that Washington “certainly would not favour assassination of Diem.” On October 6, after a meeting with Mr Kennedy, Mr McCone formally ordered his station chief to withdraw his consideration of the assassination plan, the article says. But it says that American planners never made Diem’s safety “an unyielding condition of support for the coup ... (Officials) in effect looked away from the strong odds that it would mean Diem’s assassination.”