"The breaking point came in August 1963, when Diem’s troops and police barged into pagodas in Saigon, Hue, and elsewhere, manhandling and arresting hundreds of Buddhist monks and nuns.
Outraged, Roger Hilsman, the assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern Affairs, drafted what became known as the 'green light cable' to the U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge. Lodge was instructed to pressure Diem to get rid of Nhu, who Hilsman viewed as the architect of the pagoda raids. (Nhu denied this.) If Diem refused, Lodge was to surreptitiously contact his generals and promise them full U.S. military and economic support if they overthrew Diem.
Kennedy regarded the green light cable as a mistake, drafted and sent without sufficient high-level review, but never rescinded it. ....
JFK recognized that the United States had a special obligation to post-coup South Vietnam and urged Lodge to do everything possible to help stand up a more effective government. But the patrician ambassador had little taste for nation building, and was distracted as supporters at home touted him as a 1964 Republican presidential candidate. Three weeks after Diem’s assassination, Kennedy lay dead in Dallas."
The full article is worth a read today here: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-regime-change-vietnam/
and stay tuned for my review of Cheever's book, which is actually quite riveting (though painfully depressing)
Kelley