Ambassador Lodge and the Secret Purge of John Richardson
A 1963 memorandum kept secret for decades shows an Ambassador using the press to force a coup in South Vietnam while the CIA scrambled to hide its plans from him.
By Desmond Okafor ·
Regime Change
Four Dead Students and the May 13 Reform Bluff
Four students were killed by Indonesian soldiers on May 12; a confidential cable sent a day later shows a government attempting to stall a revolution with empty talk of reform.
By Constance Bell ·
General Prabowo and the 1998 List of Disappearances
A confidential telegram kept secret for decades shows the US Embassy tracking a surge in missing persons while playing a high-stakes game with Indonesia's leadership
By Desmond Okafor ·
Rudini and the May 14 Bid to Replace Suharto
A confidential telegram kept secret for years shows a retired general using reports of student riots to market himself to the US as a replacement for a fleeing president.
By Harlan Pryce ·
Eduardo Frei and the White House Decision to Bury a Coup
The White House chose to protect foreign assets over congressional transparency in a 1975 memo that remained secret for decades, ensuring the silence of those who plotted to overthrow a democracy
By Desmond Okafor ·
B.J. Habibie and the Threat of a Special Parliamentary Session
Confidential cables from 1998 show how the US watched Indonesian students fight to scrub a 32-year dictatorship from the presidency while B.J. Habibie clung to a fragile office.
By Theo Marchetti ·
"Coup Planning Week" and the Death of Ngô Đình Diệm
Forrestal knew what the State Department did not: the White House had already decided the South Vietnamese president had less than a year to live.
By Harlan Pryce ·
President Ford and the 1975 Panic Over CIA's Chilean Pay-Roll
For decades, the identities of the corporate fronts and political puppets the CIA funded in Chile stayed hidden to protect a global playbook of regime change.
By Harlan Pryce ·
Tran Van Don and the Price of a Disposable Coup
For nearly two decades, the 1963 overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem was presented as a strategic necessity, until a private dinner in 1981 admitted the plotters were terrified of being traded back for the men they murdered
By Harlan Pryce ·
"Trigger-Happy People" Killed Ngô Đình Diệm, Rusk Told Senate
President Ngô Đình Diệm and his brother were executed in a CIA-backed coup, but the State Department spent a secret Senate hearing scrubbing the record of American fingerprints.
By Theo Marchetti ·
US plotted to capture the Ngo family and destroy the Saigon Palace
Top Secret plans from August 1963 show Washington weighing the use of combat forces and the destruction of a palace to ensure the fall of the Ngo family.
By Desmond Okafor ·
State Department plotted to kill Fidel, Raul and Che simultaneously
To avoid creating an untouchable icon, U.S. planners sought to besmirch Fidel Castro's character and kill the Cuban leadership in a coordinated strike.
By Desmond Okafor ·