Culpability Of US Involvement In Vietnam Coup

Kennedy Administration on Vietnam coup

The Kennedy Administration believed in the credibility of the U.S. anti-communist commitments after WW2. By 1963, it aided South Vietnam and expanded its advisers in there to contain the spreading of communism which was the belief of the North Vietnam. Unfortunately, the leader of the South Vietnamese was poor in his ways; failing political and economical progress violating US-South Vietnam agreement. The US was privately well aware of the problems in the government and tried measures of all kinds to energize the South Vietnamese effort. Although the US was not culpable for Diem and Nhu’s assassination, the Kennedy Administration is highly culpable fro the Vietnam coup because the US continually supported the Generals who are initiating the coup and not stopping it and that there was no expectation of what might physically happen to them.

The Kennedy Administration is very culpable to the coup because they encouraged and supported the overthrow of Diem’s weak government. According to a telegram from the State Department to Ambassador Lodge, "if, in spite of all your efforts, Diem refuses, then we must face the possibility that Diem himself cannot be preserved." (35) The evidence shows that Diem’s resistance to cooperate to the agreement he made enlightened the US to place positive fundamental changes in the operation of his government. The US would not want South Vietnam to suffer more than it already has which is why if defying is what Diem would give back as a promise to the United States, then US has an answer fort that. To start thinking of a plan, Ambassador Lodge sent a cablegram to the Sec. of State Rusk which stated that "propose we go straight to Generals with our demands without informing Diem. Would tell them we prepared have Diem without Nhus but it is in effect up to them whether to keep him." (36) At this point, the evidence suggests that upon seeing the situation of South Vietnam, a proposal was made by the US Ambassador to try to help the US to persuade Generals in advancing a coup as a means to correct Diem’s policies. There’s a probability that this will be realized because the US had been backing them up since and that the poor performance of the government is visible in the eyes of the people. According to a cablegram from Ambassador Lodge to Sec. Rusk, "we are launched on a course from which there is no turning back: the overthrow of the Diem government.