PERSONS/ENTITIES: CONEIN, COLBY, WILLIAM, DIEM, MINH, GENERAL
DATES: 1 November 1963
CATEGORIES: DIEM TOP SECRET

OCCURRENCE: COLBY states that "When CONEIN was told by the generals, GENERAL MINH, that the NHU brothers, DIEM and NHU, had committed suicide, CONEIN thought it incredible on its face. This was because both brothers were very strong Catholics and CONEIN doubted that they would have done such a thing. According to COLBY, CONEIN was offered a chance to look at the bodies but turned it down. In trying to reconstruct the period of the assassination on November 1, COLBY reports that there was a telephone conversation between President DIEM and the generals. In fact there were several of them. President DIEM was very strangely rejecting the generals, calling them to discipline, and so forth, in the early stages. At a later stage, in the early morning of November 1, he called and indicated that he would surrender if he would be properly handled. The generals then sent somebody down to receive that surrender and found that President DIEM was not there. He'd actually gotten out through the back door of the palace and had gone down to another section of the city."
SOURCE: CONEIN was not in attendance.
STAFF: R. DAWSON
DATE: 29 June 1975
FILE:

PERSONS/ENTITIES: CONEIN, CRITIC, JGS headquarters, STATION
DATES: 1 Nov 1963
CATEGORIES: DIEM TOP SECRET

OCCURRENCE: The IG Report makes the following statement: "The fact that CONEIN was at JGS headquarters is well known in official circles" and bolsters that notoriety by the following statement: "The first cable (on the coup) was received at headquarters at 0117 hours, (November 1, 1963,) Washington time, and was filed on the CRITIC network at 0159. At 0256 hours, following receipt of the sixth non-CRITIC cable, headquarters instructed the STATION to put the coup reporting on the CRITIC network at the STATION. Sometime during the day of 1 November (the confirmation copy of the cable lacks a date/time stamp) headquarters cabled a warning to the STATION against including the names of CIA personnel in its CRITIC cables. CONEIN is identified by and as being at JGS headquarters in eleven CRITIC messages, seven of which were put into the CRITIC channel, without the name being deleted, here at headquarters."
SOURCE: CIA IG Report, 1967, p. 42
STAFF: R. DAWSON
DATE: 29 June 1975
FILE: