PERSONS/ENTITIES: CONEIN NHU, NGO DINH MADAME NHU CAN, NGO DINH DATES: "Summer 1963" CATEGORIES: DIEM OCCURRENCE: CONEIN stated that the attacks in May in Hue followed up by an attack in August on the pagodas in Saigon consolidated the three or four different sects of the Buddhists by making them become a political entity which they had never been before. CONEIN stated that it had become obvious to people in the State Department, USAID and JUSPAO, as well as persons within the CIA and the country team generally, that the true power of the government at that time was not DIEM but rather NHU and CAN, as well as MADAME NHU, the chief of the women's solidarity movement. DIEM was felt to be out of touch with reality and not getting the true facts as everything was being channeled through his brother, NHU. pp. 44-45 TOP SECRET SOURCE: Hearings, SSCI, June 20, 1975, Conein FILE: STAFF: R. DAWSON DATE: July 1, 1975 PERSONS/ENTITIES: CONEIN DATES: "middle May 1963" CATEGORIES: DIEM OCCURRENCE: CONEIN said that the DIEM government started the Buddhist antagonism but could not understand their doing so. He gave his personal opinion as that "they had a chance to get out of it and get out of it very gracefully within the first two weeks after the 8th of May incident in HUE by meeting the demands of paying off the families of those people who were killed when the military attacked the pagodas in Hue. If this would have been done, I think that we would have been much better off....This was a turning point of the political situation...." pp. 41-42 TOP SECRET SOURCE: Hearings, SSCI, June 20, 1975, Conein FILE: STAFF: R. DAWSON