In his discussions with the insurgent generals, Conein meanwhile told them that the United States could not be of any help during initial action of assuming power of state. It would be entirely their own action, win or lose. At the end of August the Kennedy administration sent another, more forceful message to the coup plotters, saying that the United States would support a coup if it had a good chance of succeeding, but it would not permit the participation of U.S. forces. The president also told Ambassador Lodge that it was fine if Washington initiated action to suspend further aid to the Diem regime.

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According to the Assassinations Report issued by the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 1975, the initial coup plan failed because the Generals did not feel ready and did not have sufficient balance of focus. If Diem did not realize at that point that his hold on power was fleeting, a series of public pronouncements from Washington should have allayed any doubt. On September 8, David Bell, the director of the Agency for International Development, told a television reporter that Congress might cut off further aid to Diem if radical changes were not carried out. On September 12, Senator Frank Church, with President Kennedy’s approval, introduced a resolution in the Senate condemning the South Vietnamese government for its repressive measures and calling for aid to be cut off.

In October 1963, Secretary McNamara and General Taylor arrived in Saigon on a fact-finding mission. After meeting with President Diem, they recommended to President Kennedy that the United States work with Diem but hold back further financial and political support. They also proposed a 1,000-man troop withdrawal by the end of the year. Their most important concern was that no actions resulting in a coup take place at that time.

On October 3, however, Conein made contact with General Minh, who told him that a new coup was in the offing and asked for American support if it succeeded. In their discussion Minh revealed that the plan included the assassinations of both Diem and Nhu. On October 5, 1963, according to the Assassinations Report, the unnamed acting chief of the CIA station in Saigon cabled Washington that he had recommended to Ambassador Lodge that the United States not set ourselves irrevocably against the assassination plot.

Also according to the Assassinations Report, CIA Director John McCone later stated that after a meeting with both the president and Attorney General Robert Kennedy, he believed that President Kennedy agreed with his recommendation to assemble all pertinent intelligence on the coup plot, despite the fact that the president had great reservations about Diem. McCone further said that during his talk with President Kennedy they did not discuss assassination specifically, only whether or not the United States should let the coup go ahead or try to stop it. McCone left the meeting believing that the president concurred with the CIA director’s hands-off recommendation.

In Saigon, Conein met secretly with General Don, one of the coup plotters, telling him that the United States was opposed to any assassinations. The general responded, All right, you don’t like it, we won’t talk about it anymore.

On October 28, Don told Ambassador Lodge that he would tell him of the plans for the coup before it took place. Lodge called Washington, reporting that he could do nothing to stop the coup. Washington hurriedly replied, telling Lodge to try to talk the generals out of going ahead with the coup. By that point neither Lodge nor any other American official in Washington or Saigon could exert any more influence over the generals. The coup was on.

In the pre-dawn darkness of November 1, 1963, ARVN soldiers loyal to the generals took up positions around Saigon. They took over police headquarters and radio stations and began to move on the presidential palace. The coup leaders gave only a four-minute warning to the U.S. embassy, allowing Ambassador Lodge no time to react. When they confronted Diem, the plotters demanded that he resign and guaranteed him and the Nhus safe exit from the country. Diem called Lodge, who said that the United States could take no action.

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