spartans_in_darkness

EO 1.4. (c)
T61i 3EeRETh'e6MINTiiXl
CU) As the summer's Buddhist crisis slowly
bubbled over, American officials in both Saigon
and Washington were edging away from total
support of Diem. In late August, Ambassador
Lodge had informed Washington that talks with
Diem to convince him to drop his brother from
the government had failed. He added that some
ARVN general officers, under the command of
General Duong Van "Big" Minh, were planning a
coup in reaction to the 21 August crackdown on
the Buddhists.
CU) On 24 August, the State Department
cabled Ambassador Lodge that the United States
could "not tolerate" this situation with Nhu. Diem
had to be convinced to replace his brother and his
followers. If Diem refused, then, as the cable
added, "we must face the possibility that Diem
himself cannot be preserved." 165
CU) This cable itself symbolized Washington's
confusion and distress with Diem's actions.
Originally drafted over the weekend by Roger
Hilsman, the head of the State Department's Far
Eastern Bureau, Averell Harriman, Michael
Forrestal, an aide to McGeorge Bundy, the president's
national security advisor, and George Ball,
deputy undersecretary of state, the message was
sent with virtually no review by senior officials,
including the president. On the following Monday
all the major advisors met at the White House.
The meeting broke down into an acrimonious
exchange as sides were taken over whether or not
to support Diem. Generally, officials in Saigon,
like Ambassador Lodge and the CIA's station
chief John Richardson, were against supporting
Diem, as were the drafters of the cable, Hilsman,
Forrestal, Harriman, and Ball. Senior officials,
such as Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Vice
President Lyndon Johnson, and CIA chief John
McCone, supported Diem. 166
CU) President Kennedy had begun to waver in
his support of Diem. Initially he may have favored
sticking with Diem, but by the beginning of
September he was coming around to the position,
espoused by Ambassador Lodge, that Diem had
to be pressured to change his policies. In a 2
September interview he stated that the war could
not be won "unless a greatereffort was made by
the [Diem] government to win popular support.,,167
He also called for changes to Saigon's
personnel, a barely veiled reference-to Nhu.
ETS//SI) In response to the Buddhist crackdown,
the coup rumors, and more talk about
Diem's contacts with the North Vietnamese, NSA
established a SIGINT Readiness condition
ALPHA on 26 August and, later, condition
BRAVO "WALLACE" at the maior sites in the
region. 168 1
CU) Despite Kennedy's misgivings about
Diem, the administration remained skeptical that
the generals had the ability or determination to
carry off a coup and, if one did occur, they feared
the result would be open civil war between the
Ngo faction and the dissidents.'' With the
prospect of a civil war, the situation would be ripe
for the communists to assert themselves and seize
control. Faced with American vacillation and
riven with fears that Nhu Cor the CIA) were aware
of the plot and ready to pounce on them, the coup
leaders, headed by General "Big" Minh, cancelled
their plans on 31 August. 172
CU) The coup crisis had passed, at least for the
moment. President Kennedy and his advisors
continued to question the viability of Diem's
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