Re: JFK Talking to Ambassador Lodge Regarding the Anti-Ngo Coup

On Sunday, March 21, 2021 at 7:33:27 AM UTC-4, x wrote:
> I hadn't heard this conversation before. One of the 
> things about that's "new" is, JFK apparently acknowledged 
> in August '63 and Nhu would be killed if a coup occurred. 
> 
> http://fullmeasure.news/news/shows/jfk-vietnam?fbclid=IwAR0ztmFtO2u0oOZBhsHdraqJCYBSrEVCg0JiUSTGBEySOqb4CGRKD7yEQjY

Whether he knew they would be killed or not I'm very skeptical that he was 
shocked by it. The fact that Lodge refused to intervene - was a passive 
spectator - indicates to me that it apparently wasn't much of a concern.

Maxwell Taylor, the then Chairman of JCS who would later be named 
ambassador to South Vietnam by LBJ, said this about the coup: "There was 
the memory of Diệm to haunt those of us who were aware of the 
circumstances of his downfall. By our complicity, we Americans were 
responsible for the plight in which the South Vietnamese found 
themselves".

As Colin Powell said about Iraq, "If you break it you own it." Once JFK 
"broke" the government our involvement deepened considerably - morally, 
politically, militarily. This situation what LBJ inherited. He gets blamed 
for almost all of it while JFK gets a pass. History isn't fair but neither 
is life.