PERSONS/ENTITIES:
CODE, HENRY CABOT
KENNEDY, JOHN F.
KENNEDY, ROBERT F.
MC CONE, JOHN

DATES:
5 or 6 Oct. 1963

CATEGORIES:
TOP SECRET

OCCURRENCE: MC CONE recalled a meeting with President KENNEDY and Attorney General ROBERT F. KENNEDY held with him on or about October 5 or 6, 1963. The Attorney General was rather non-committal in the meeting. He and I walked downstairs together, and he said, "John, are you sure you are right?" And I said, "I think I am and he said I'm rather surprised at the position you took. And I said, well, you didn't disagree with it..."(?) This discussion had nothing to do with assassinations. This was whether we should let the coup go or use our influences not to. Then interestingly enough, the President sent a series of messages to CABOT LODGE urging that he'd do all that he could to get DIEM to change his ways. CABOT LODGE's first attempt failed and then he was called -- CABOT LODGE was called by DIEM's office and DIEM said, you tell the President to tell me what he wants me to do and I'll do it. Unfortunately, the forces were surrounding the palace at that very moment and the coup was on. It was a kind of a dramatic little part of the history of that tragedy...

SOURCE:
Hearings, SSCI, June 6, 1975, McCone, pp. 63-64.

STAFF:
R. DAWSON

DATE:
29 June 1975

FILE:

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PERSONS/ENTITIES:
KAHN, CONEIN, LODGE, TRUHAUT, WM.
NGO DINH KAHN
SMITH, DAVID
COLBY, WILLIAM, MC CONE, JOHN

DATES:
5-7 Oct. 1963

CATEGORIES:
TOP SECRET

OCCURRENCE: COLBY testified as to the events surrounding the cable from Saigon of 5 October 1963 which reads as follows: "We do not set ourselves irrevocably against the assassination plot since the other alternative means either a blood bath in Saigon, or a protracted struggle which could rip the army and the country asunder." And the response on 6 October 1963 which COLBY wrote for MC CONE as follows: "MC CONE directs that you withdraw recommendation to Ambassador concerning assassination plan under MC CONE instructions as we cannot be in a position to actively condone such course of action thereby endangering our own responsibility, therefore COLBY explained that this second message he drafted was to eliminate assassination as an alternative. COLBY stated that the assassination of DIEM's other brothers NHU and KAHN, NGO DINH KAHN, were to continue. A reply was sent on October 7 from Saigon in response to the MC CONE cable saying that action was taken as directed, meaning that the Ambassador had been so informed to withdraw the recommendation."

SOURCE:
Hearings, SSCI, June 20, 1975, Colby, pp. 12-17

STAFF:
R. DAWSON

DATE:
29 June 1975

FILE: