The obvious lesson — “be careful for what you wish for” — is an oft-used argument against U.S. regime change fantasies today. It is rarely heeded. But what Cheevers presents here is much more nuanced and critical to our understanding of what happened. Diem’s supporters in Saigon, like Nolting and Taylor and Harkins, were willing to ignore or minimize the VC’s growing superiority on the battlefield and Diem’s weakening position because they wanted the U.S. to stay, they believed the domino theory and that America was there to do good. Those pushing the putsch were myopically anti-communist too, they thought replacing Diem would help win the war against the North and prevent a communist sweep regionally. Many of these people, from both camps, went on to convince Johnson — Robert McNamara, Maxwell Taylor, William Bundy, etc. — that the war needed to be expanded.
There was no one looking at withdrawal. “Nuetralization” — an idea pressed for years by France’s Charles de Gaulle that would, through intense negotiation, hammer out a deal in which both North and South would commit to no outside military alliances in service of a future reunification — was roundly discarded by both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Thirty years later McNamara admitted “we erred seriously in not even exploring the neutralization option.”
Please read in full and share if you are so inclined, here: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/diem-coup-assasination-vietnam/
ALSO : Join me, the author Jack Cheevers and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi from the National Security Archive for a broader discussion on this critical moment in history and what it says about our foreign policy today, tomorrow 2/17 at 1 p.m. my registering here: https://quincyinst.org/events/kennedys-coup-how-diems-assassination-became-our-foreign-policy-albatross/
Hope to see you on the event!
best
Kelley