spartans_in_darkness

"FOP 5E6RE"FN60MIPHH)(1
regime. Certainly, the administration was committed
to staying in Vietnam; a suggestion to
withdraw, timidly put forward by a State
Department analyst, Paul Kattenberg, was
brusquely put down. 173 In the discussions that
ensued that month, it was obvious that a major
obstacle was ignorance of the true situation in
Vietnam. At a 10 September meeting in the White
House, a two-man fact-finding mission, which
had just returned from South Vietnam, briefed
the president and his advisors on the current
progress of the counterinsurgency programs. The
military member, Marine Corps General Victor
Krulak, told President Kennedy that the "shooting
war is still going ahead at an impressive pace."
He was followed by Krulak's civilian counterpart,
Joseph Mendenhall, a senior State Department
foreign service officer, who painted a different
picture, reporting that there was a "breakdown of
the civilian government in Saigon" and that "Nhu
must go if the war is to be won." 174
(V) At this point, President Kennedy, looking
from one to the other, asked, "Did you two gentlemen
visit the same country" 175
(V) Still not satisfied, Kennedy dispatched his
secretary of defense, Robert McNamara, and the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General
Maxwell Taylor, to Saigon to see for themselves
what was happening. Accompanying them were
William Colby from the CIA, William Sullivan
from the State Department, and Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense William Bundy. The findings
of this group were much the same as those of the
earlier mission. The difference was that General
Taylor's conclusion that progress was being made
in the war was the main conclusion of the report.
The pessimistic analysis on the part of the group's
civilians was muted. The latter had remained
skeptical about Diem's political strength and
expected that a larger and longer American intervention
in Vietnam was inevitable.F" But the
report did propose a stronger position regarding
Diem, and suggested that the V.S. stop certain aid
(V) General M'lxwell T'lylor, PresidentJohn F.
Kennedy, 'lnd Mr. Robert McN'lm'lr'l
programs so as to "covertly" influence him to
change his policies.
(V) However, events intervened again to
upset Washington's plans. On 5 October, General
Minh met 'with a CIA operative, Lucien Conein,
and revealed to him that a coup was planned for
the very near future. He outlined three possible
plans to Conein: assassination ofNhu and another
of Diem's brothers, Ngo Dinh Can, the xenophobic
recluse who ruled Hue like a satrap and
was even more hated than Nhu; surrounding
Saigon and blockading Diem into surrender; or, a
direct confrontation in Saigon between rebel and
loyalist troops. Minh asked Conein for assurances
that the Americans would not thwart the coup.F"
(V) When Washington was informed by
Ambassador Lodge of the plot, it took his suggestion
that the V.S. neither "stimulate" nor "thwart"
the coup. But this effort at disengagement could
hardly be construed by the Vietnamese plotters as
anything but a tacit approval. Since the V.S. had
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