Kennedy vs the CIA

[Jerry Freeman]

Oct 2, 1963
Stated in the article..."Kennedy will have to make a judgment if...the functioning of the CIA is to be preserved"
The CIA made it for him it seems.

[Mitch Todd]

Some researchers have said that the high source that told Krock those things was JFK himself.

The only sources mentioned in the article are in Saigon. Any researcher who thinks it was JFK is a fool.

BTW, the article is really about ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge's efforts to get rid of Saigon CIA station chief John Richardson. Lodge saw Richardson as an obstacle to removing Diem from power via coup d'etat. Lodge wound up publicly outing Richardson, forcing the CIA to remove him.

This is an Esquire article by Richardson's son, with Jr's take on the kerfluffle:

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a1653/father-spy-0399/ 

Here is Richardson's obituary in the NYT, with some reminisence from Daniel Sheehan.

https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/14/us/john-h-richardson-84-cia-station-chief-in-saigon-in-early-60s.html

"'And then Henry Cabot Lodge took over' as United States Ambassador in Saigon, Mr. Sheehan said, 'and he deliberately forced Richardson to leave as part of his campaign to bring down the regime -- not because Richardson had performed badly as station chief, but because Richardson was a kind of symbol of American support for Nhu'

[Barry Pollard]

Sources clearly mentioned are both Saigon and Washington, the latter often with presidential approval.
Article is about the administration's internal differences with the CIA.
The Lodge item just one example of info leaked to the press on the conflict.

From the esquire piece and relating to Robinson's questioning of Nazis;
"I have sworn on the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man".
That's a hard out for me.


How many of JFK's 16,000 men in Vietnam were CIA? One researcher says most of them, pure black ops warfare and most actions neither recorded or reported, this is after BOP.
As time went on JFK wanted to replace or control them with Pentagon/Army people, true?

Diem was taken out not for the tens of thousands he killed, nor the thousands he imprisoned, not even for the Budhist situation or his lol, stance on "democratic rights"  but rather, because he and his brother were again and consistantly asking the US to leave, so they could begin talks with the north and that, could not be tolerated but everything before that was. Diem would rather deal with the north than have all those foreign troops running around, wasn't "his country" anymore and they couldn't stand it, he wanted out and they got it. Democracy was never a real option, far too unreliable and peace with the north unthinkable.

[Brian Walker]

How many of JFK's 16,000 men in Vietnam were CIA? One researcher says most of them, ?

Not a good sign if only one researcher said that. Researchers claim all kinds of things. IF that researcher had any proof at all of what he claimed it would be common knowledge and you would not have to talk about one researcher.


Who is that researcher?

[Barry Pollard]

Not a good sign if only one researcher said that. Researchers claim all kinds of things. IF that researcher had any proof at all of what he claimed it would be common knowledge and you would not have to talk about one researcher.

Who is that researcher?

Hey Brian.
I'm almost positive it was Greg Burnham in one of his talks on JFK's withdrawal from Vietnam, he doesn't go into it, just says it, perhaps you've seen it, it's on Youtube and IIRC not too far from the beginning.
Anyway, they don't all have to be CIA but the idea is, it was in their hands, they're calling many of the shots on the ground, more or less.
Also, proof of what what went on during JFK's Vietnam war, is pretty thin on the ground is it not?
All I've read and heard from CT's over the years is about the withdrawal, that, they know and talk about.

Here's, I think, a really good summary of the Vietman war from the start, what you want to take note of though, if you have the time, is what happens when JFK enters the arena, the speaker go into such a defence of JFK it's embarrassing. Even when encouraged by the interviewer to talk about what was done over there during JFK's reign, he cannot do it.

Here's another one from a modern Dutch/American expert on the Vietnam war, he starts his lecture on the war with the Johnson administration!! So perhaps I've been looking in the wrong places... any tips?
Not recommended watching btw, body laungage is annoying as hell.

Apologies Jerry if you feel this is slightly OT.

[Mitch Todd]

Sources clearly mentioned are both Saigon and Washington, the latter often with presidential approval.

The only one clearly mentioned is Starnes acting as Lodge's mouthpiece. The rest are balled up into a nebulous sentence that really doesn't get farther than "reporters with excellent reputations for reliability;" Krock simply presumes who their sources are. Also, Krock didn't say that the President approved of the leakage, only that it had been tolerated and he implied that at some point JFK would clamp down.

Article is about the administration's internal differences with the CIA.
The Lodge item just one example of info leaked to the press on the conflict.

You're reading your own prejudices into the text. It's not the administration vs the CIA, it's unnamed people within the other departments. In fact, it's almost certainly members of the Harriman/Hillman/Forrestal clique within the State Department. For the most part, the CIA opposed removing Diem. The Pentagon generally felt the same way, though, IIRC not as strongly. So did Lodge's predecessor at the Saigon embassy, Fred Nolting. It's not that they thought Diem was the nicest guy, but they didn't see anyone else in SVN that could replace him effectively. As Nolting told Karnow, the choice wasn't between Diem and someone else, it was Diem and chaos. The administration wound up choosing chaos.

From the esquire piece and relating to Robinson's questioning of Nazis;
"I have sworn on the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man".
That's a hard out for me.


How many of JFK's 16,000 men in Vietnam were CIA? One researcher says most of them, pure black ops warfare and most actions neither recorded or reported, this is after BOP.
As time went on JFK wanted to replace or control them with Pentagon/Army people, true?

Well, I stopped at "one researcher says." I have a shortlist of whom that might be, and none of them impress me as effective historians.

Diem was taken out not for the tens of thousands he killed, nor the thousands he imprisoned, not even for the Budhist situation or his lol, stance on "democratic rights"  but rather, because he and his brother were again and consistantly asking the US to leave, so they could begin talks with the north and that, could not be tolerated but everything before that was. Diem would rather deal with the north than have all those foreign troops running around, wasn't "his country" anymore and they couldn't stand it, he wanted out and they got it. Democracy was never a real option, far too unreliable and peace with the north unthinkable.

"[Diem] and his brother were again and consistantly asking the US to leave."----sorry, but you're going to have to source that one. I think the Ngo brothers tried to scare the US that once, but no one took it seriously. If Averell Harriman had little use for Diem, Ho Chi Minh had even less. And without US support, Diem wouldn't be able to stand for long against a North Vietnam that was increasingly well supported both Moscow.

And, as I've already noted, Diem wasn't the nicest guy, but neither were his opponents nor his would-be replacements. Value judgments are useless unless you understand the relative value of the possible alternatives.

[Mitch Todd]

Two things. Firstly, it is not foolish to think that JFK was the source if one considers what the researchers wrote -- JFK and Krock were friends. Perhaps it was casual, but JFK would choose someone who he had a relationship of some kind with to get this message out.

Secondly, the issue wasn't just at the embassy level. Numerous sources have said that Lodge himself was not following the orders of the White House. This is no surprise when one considers his longtime issues with the Kennedy family.

The Diems needed to be replaced, not murdered, because they were keeping the vast majority of the American financial support and doing nothing to prepare the South Vietnamese for self-defense. JFK wanted out in term of defense.

If JFK were feeding this stuff to Krock, you have a problem. Krock's article is actually fairly sympathetic to the CIAs plight; Krock wouldn't keep pointing out that the CIA couldn't respond to the leakers if he wanted to dump on The Company. He'd have just piled on the accusations already in print.

I have no idea where you got the idea that Lodge was "not following the orders of the White House." He most emphatically was following the instructions given to him in Cable 243. That cable is a story unto itself, and is worth looking up. Essentially, the push to remove Diem came from one group within State. One led by Avarell Harriman, JFK's "Ambassdor at Large."  There was an end run around the cabinet involved, JFK was mad for a bit, but he and the other bigwigs in the administration still went with it in the end.

I also have no idea where you get that Lodge and the Kennedys had "issues." Couldn't have been much of an issue, because JFK is the guy who appointed Lodge to the Saigon post in the first place.

As for your accusations against the Ngos, (it's Ngo Dinh Diem and Ngo Dinh Nhu; traditionally, Vietnamese names are surname first), they did a good enough job of keeping the SVN government together. That was in itself an accomplishment; after Diem was removed, the SVN government almost collapsed, convulsing into a series of coups and counter-coups. And 1962 had gone extremely well in the war against the VC. '63 wasn't really all that bad on the battlefield, either, no matter what some will tell you. And, no, they weren't super-shiny statesmen with 2.4 kids and a white picket fence in front of their strategic hamlet. Neither were any of the other guys who wanted to run Saigon, either from the North of the South. Politics ain't the realm of chiorboys.

[Ray Mitcham]

I will go with what RFK said in 1964 and 1965. People can have opinions on whether JFK was getting out but nobody knows. Anyone who claims to now should not be taken seriously.  JFK still did not have to face the decision to fight or lose. LBJ did have to face that.

JFK was being told the commies would be finished by the end of 1965 so of course he was telling people he was going to pull out then and that is exactly when he said he was going to get out.

One question which to me settles the whole thing. If JFK was planning on pulling out and losing Vietnam why was he going around telling the American people and the world what a disaster it would be for the US if Vietnam was lost to the commies?

It was for political reasons, Brian. There was a Presidential election coming up and he was playing to the crowd.... appearing to act tough.