Reaction To The 1963 South Vietnamese Coup - Media Reaction

Media Reaction

The media caught on to the signals that Washington had given to the junta. Time declared in its cover story that US economic aid reductions and public criticism of Diệm's policies towards the Buddhists had "set the scene for the coup" and made US denials "misleading". It asserted that the Kennedy administration's pressures were "an invitation to overthrow". On American official broke from the line and told the media: "Hell, there's been so much advance knowledge we can't possibly imagine why the Diệm government didn't know, too". A picture of Taylor, Minh and Walt Rostow on the tennis court in Saigon in October was printed with the caption "There could be no doubt that the US encouraged the coup". The New York Times asserted that Washington "had created the atmosphere that made the coup possible". It opined that Kennedy's CBS television interview with Walter Cronkite on 2 September in which the president called for "changes in policy and perhaps with personnel" amounted to a "virtual invitation to insurrection".

Over time, later investigations and analyses by US officials came to accept responsibility for the coup. The Pentagon Papers declared that the United States "must accept its full share of responsibility". It noted that from August and afterwards, Washington "variously authorized, sanctioned and encouraged the coup efforts of the Vietnamese generals and offered full support for a successor government". It referred to Washington's termination of aid in October as "a direct rebuff, giving a green light to the generals". The papers held that Washington maintained secret contact with the generals "throughout the planning and execution of the coup and sought to review their operational plans and proposed new government". In the 1970s, the Church Committees concluded that "American officials offered encouragement to the Vietnamese generals who plotted Diem's overthrow, and a CIA official in Vietnam gave the generals money after the coup had begun". The Pentagon Papers concluded that "ur complicity in his overthrow heightened our responsibilities and our commitment in an essentially leaderless Vietnam."