JFK Weighed Evacuating 4,000 Americans Before Ousting Ngo Dinh Diem
By Harlan Pryce ·
Marked Top Secret, this record captures the moment US officials decided Ngo Dinh Diem was a liability, weighing the evacuation of thousands of civilians against a betrayal of a longtime ally.
Ngo Dinh Diem believed he had the trust of the American president, while in Washington, men in suits calculated the number of flights needed to rescue 4,000 civilians from the chaos of his fall. The cost of this deception was a presidency and a country pushed toward a precipice.
According to a Top Secret "Memorandum of Conference With the President" dated August 28, 1963, the White House was operating in a fog of its own making. The meeting, which included Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, CIA Director John McCone's successor and officials like Richard Helms and William Colby, opened not with a strategic masterstroke, but with a confusing detail about a commercial telegram.
A Telegram from Laguna Beach
Mr. Colby opened the briefing by addressing a complication: an anonymous person in Laguna Beach, California, had sent a commercial telegram to Ambassador Lodge in Saigon urging him to overthrow Diem. The concern in the room was not the morality of the suggestion, but the optics. Reports had reached Washington that Diem believed this random cable was actually a direct instruction from the President.
In the trade, there is nothing more dangerous than a target who believes he knows the exact nature of the plot against him. When a head of state thinks he has seen the order for his own removal, the window for a controlled transition closes, and the window for a bloodbath opens.
4,000 Americans in Saigon
General Taylor provided the cold math of an emergency exit. He reported that 3,000 to 4,000 evacuees could be airlifted by U.S. forces already in Vietnam, noting that more forces were being moved closer to Saigon to speed up the process. He specified that there were over 4,000 Americans in Saigon alone, excluding military personnel.
This is how a coup is actually weighed in the Situation Room—not by the ideological purity of the rebel generals, but by the airlift capacity of the 7th Fleet. Ambassador Lodge had already expressed concern that the airlift capability was inadequate. The administration was preparing for the end of a government before they had even decided to trigger it.
"Bad in Principle"
Inside the room, the debate split along the lines of pragmatism and honor. Ambassador Nolting stood almost alone in his opposition. He argued that supporting a coup was "bad in principle and sets a bad precedent." Nolting reminded the group that he had given personal commitments to Diem based on instructions from Washington. He believed only Diem could hold the fragmented country together.
His colleagues were less sentimental. Mr. Ball argued that the United States was "already beyond the point of no return" and that it would be impossible to live with a situation where Diem's brother, Nhu, remained ascendant. Mr. Harriman was more blunt, claiming that Diem and his followers had "betrayed us" and that the U.S. had already lost the fight in Vietnam if a coup did not occur.
From a professional standpoint, the record shows a government that had spent years building a client state only to find the client ungovernable. The conservative instinct is to value stability and the sanctity of a commitment, but in the heat of 1963, the urgency of the war against the Viet Cong overrode the ethics of the alliance. The administration decided that the "good faith" Nolting spoke of was a luxury they could no longer afford.
Standby Authority
President Kennedy resisted the idea that the U.S. had to proceed simply because they had already gone too far. He noted that the rebel generals did not appear "very enthusiastic." However, the military reality favored the status quo: General Taylor reported that forces loyal to Diem in the Saigon area outnumbered the rebels two to one.
Despite the risk of failure, the President directed the Defense Department to find ways to build up the anti-Diem forces. The meeting detailed a list of "standby authority" requested by Ambassador Lodge, which included the power to suspend all economic aid to the Diem government and to make a public announcement that the U.S. was supporting the forces trying to overthrow him.
Secretary McNamara warned that the U.S. should not let a coup start if it could not win, because the administration could not survive a failed attempt that left Diem in power and humiliated. The group spent the afternoon debating the "caliber" of the troops and the possibility that Diem might arrest the generals before they were ready to strike.
The President adjourned the meeting at noon, ordering the group to meet again at 6:00 PM.