PERSONS/ENTITIES: NGO DINH NHU CONEIN

DATES: July 11, 1963

CATEGORIES: DIEM

OCCURRENCE: CONEIN states that: "On July 11, 1963, NHU called the generals together for a staff meeting and shocked them by telling them that he knew of some coup planning going on by the generals. This scared the generals and other officers, needless to say, that NGO DINH NHU would be completely aware that there was some dissidence in the ranks." P. 20-21.

TOP SECRET

SOURCE: Hearings, SSCI, June 20, 1975, Conein

STAFF: R. DAWSON

FILE: DATE: 30 June 1975

PERSONS/ENTITIES: Krulak, Major General Victor H. Kennedy, John F. Mendenhall, Joseph, State National Security Council

DATES: 3/63

CATEGORIES: Diem

OCCURRENCE: Higgins notes that Kennedy dispatched Krulak and Mendenhall to Viet Nam to make a tour of the country to determine the effect of the Buddhist crisis on the war against the Viet Cong. Returning to Washington, Krulak and Mendenhall each gave a different report on the effect. Higgins notes that Kennedy asked wryly, "Have you two fellows been in the same country?" Higgins goes on to note that this was indeed indicative of the American reaction to Vietnam generally. Krulak, Higgins points out, visited the theatre of war by going to all core areas as well as six divisional and some twenty-five regimental and battalion headquarters. But Mendenhall saw the theatre of the political intrigue, i.e., Hue in Saigon. These latter two areas was the only Viet Nam that Americans knew during that time, and it was the slightly effete, volital society which was the haven of Viet Nam's chronically critical and bickering intellectuals. P. 35.

SOURCE: Our Vietnam Nightmare by Marguerite Higgins, Harper and Row

STAFF: Dawson

DATE: