Cable 243

The cable came in the wake of the midnight raids on 21 August by the regime of Ngô Đình Diệm against Buddhist pagodas across the country, in which hundreds were believed to have been killed.

The cable declared that Washington would no longer tolerate Nhu remaining in a position of power and ordered Lodge to pressure Diệm to remove his brother.

In effect, the cable authorized Lodge to give the green light to Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) officers to launch a coup against Diệm if he did not willingly remove Nhu from power.

The cable came in the wake of the midnight raids of 21 August by the Catholic regime of Ngô Đình Diệm against Buddhist pagodas across the country in which hundreds were believed to have been killed and more than a thousand monks and nuns were arrested.

A group of generals of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam had asked Diệm to give them extra powers to fight the Viet Cong but secretly wanted to maneuver for a coup.

[3] The message was drafted by W. Averell Harriman, Roger Hilsman, and Michael Forrestal[4] who were the only senior State Department officials on duty on 24 August 1963, a Saturday afternoon, with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and CIA director John McCone on vacation.

President John F. Kennedy was on vacation at Hyannis Port, his family retreat, when Forrestal telephoned seeking to expedite the process with the commander-in-chief's verbal approval.

[5] Kennedy asked them to "wait until Monday" when all the key figures would be in Washington, but Forrestal said that Harriman and Hilsman wanted to get the cable "out right away".

[5] Harriman and Hilsman then drove from their offices to a Maryland golf course where Under Secretary of State George Ball was playing with Alexis Johnson.

Having returned home, Ball read the message but, knowing that the telegram could raise the morale of the generals and prompt a coup, refused to authorize it until his three visitors had gained Secretary of State Dean Rusk's endorsement.

[6] He washed his hands of the matter since it was between Kennedy and the State Department: "In McNamara's absence I felt I should not hold it up, so I went along with it just like you countersign a voucher".

Richard Helms of the CIA also endorsed the message without notifying Director John McCone and later said that he believed that Forrestal was only advising of a resolution that had already been made.

[7]The cable went on to instruct Lodge to inform Diệm that the US could not accept the raids and to call for strong action to address the Buddhist crisis.

[7] Lodge was told to tell the South Vietnamese military officers that: [The] US would find it impossible to continue support GVN militarily and economically unless [the] above steps are taken immediately which we recognize requires [the] removal of the Nhus from the scene.

[7] Lodge replied the next day and endorsed the strong position but proposed to refrain from approaching Diệm to suggest that Nhu be removed.

[8] The decision to authorize the cable prompted significant infighting in the Kennedy administration, which began on a Monday morning meeting at the White House on August 26.

Kennedy was met with angry comments by US Secretary of State Dean Rusk, McNamara, McCone, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Maxwell Taylor, all of whom denied authorizing the cable.

Years afterward, Taylor declared: The anti-Diệm group centered in State [department] had taken advantage of the absence of the principal officials to get out instructions which would never have been approved as written under normal circumstances.

[10]Taylor claimed that the message was reflective of Forrestal and Hilsman's "well-known compulsion" to remove Diem[11] and accused them of pulling "a fast one".

Kennedy had unanimous but uneasy and unhappy support from his advisers, but in reality, only the decision had been made by members of a vocal anti-Diệm minority that had sidestepped their colleagues and avoided getting a consensus to put in place a policy without a thorough deliberation.

[13] Encouraged by the authorization for Lodge to interfere directly in South Vietnam's governance process, Diệm's critics in the State Department tried to capitalize on the momentum that they had developed.

Continuing on from Saturday's activism, Hilsman recommended pressuring Diệm to replace his brother Nhu with a combination of military figures and civilians.

Encouraged by the administration's choice to proceed with the telegram, Hilsman said that if Diem retained his brother, Washington should move to remove Diem and start a military-led regime led by General Trần Thiện Khiêm, the Army Chief of Staff and General Nguyễn Khánh, who commanded the II Corps, one of the four in South Vietnam, based in the Central Highlands town of Pleiku.

[13] Taylor called on Kennedy to support Diệm until a better leader had been lined up and pointed out that since the officers were divided, they could not be relied on to plot and stage a coup.

Taylor became angry that Felt had advised the State Department to move against Diệm without first consulting the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

[15] When pressed by McNamara as to which generals to support, Hilsman listed only Dương Văn Minh, Trần Thiện Khiêm, and Nguyễn Khánh and said that the trio had some colleagues that it had refused to name.

[15] Kennedy expressed agreement with Lodge that the Ngô brothers would never part ways, as did officials in Vietnam, but Rusk disagreed.