JFK’s Memoir Dictation on the Assassination of Diem
JFK's Memoir Dictation on the Assassination of Diem
In this recording, made on the evening of Monday, November 4, 1963, less than three weeks before he himself would eventually be assassinated, Kenedy reflected upon the tumultuous events that had transpired in Saigon over the previous weekend, the overthrow and murder of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu.
While Kennedy was recording, his young children, John John (aged 3) and Caroline (aged 6), joined their father for a few moments.
President John F. Kennedy, thirty-fifth President of the United States, 1961-1963.
Biographical sketch from American President.
Ngo Dinh Diem was the first president of South Vietnam, 1955-1963.
Biographical sketch from The National Security Archive.
Dictabelt Tape M, John F. Kennedy Library and Museum. Raw audio file available at the Miller Center's Presidential Recordings portal.
"Telegram From the Embassy in Vietnam to the Deparment of State," November 2, 1963 | Source: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian.
Oral History from a U.S. Navy Nurse in Saigon during November 1963 coup against the South Vietnamese government. Source: Department of the Navy, Naval Historical Center.
CIA memo, "The Situation in South Vietnam," November 2, 1963 | Source: National Security Archive.
Bibliographies
Bibliography - Vietnam Conflict, Miller Center of Public Affairs.
Bibliography of the Vietnam War, Prof. Edward E. Moise, Clemson University.
Vietnam War Bibliography, Richard Jensen, University of Illinois-Chicago.
Scholarship
James G. Blight, Janet M. Lang, and David A. Welch, Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived: Virtual JFK (Lanham, MD: 2009).
Philip Catton, Diem's Final Failure: Prelude to America's war in Vietnam (University of Kansas: 2002).
Seth Jacobs, Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America's War in Vietnam, 1950-1963 (Lanham, MD: 2006).
Howard Jones, Death of a Generation: How the Assassinations of Diem and JFK Prolonged the Vietnam War (New York: 2003).
John M. Newman, JFK and Vietnam: Deception, Intrigue, and the Struggle for Power (New York: 1992).
Archives
John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston, MA.
Virtual Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.
U.S. Department of State: Office of the Historian, Vietnam, August-December 1963.
Documents Relating to the Vietnam War, Mt. Holyoke College.
October 29, 1963, Meeting Tape 85, Whitehousetapes.org.
Robert Kennedy cautions against supporting a coup against South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem.
JFK's Memoir Dictation on the Assassination of Diem
See Stephanie van Hover, Marc J. Selverstone, and Patrice Preston-Grimes, "Window Into the White House," Social Education, vol. 72, no. 3 (April 2008), 130-135.
Teaching with the Tapes
Chester Pach, "The United States in the 1960s," Ohio Univesity.
Jeff Woods, "White House Tapes," Arkansas Tech University.