Former US Amb. to S. Vietnam about US betrayal of Diem (1981)

“These were meetings at which the majority of the State Department were for a change. Ah. The reading of the CIA was against a change, although they were not in a policy position. The reading of the military was against a change. Ah. The reading of certain members of the White House staff were for a change. That is, for a coup or change in American policy, which would likely bring about a coup. I do not think the thing was well-coordinated. Ah. Certainly, it was a, a series of meetings after which nobody quite knew what the president wanted to do. Then, he made a talk, do you remember, before ah Walter Cronkite in which he said we might be ch, cha, calling for a change in, in policy, and perhaps in personnel. Or, tha... not we would be calling but they perhaps should make a change in policy and perhaps in personnel.
These were indications ah of ah decided change and they were taken very hard in Saigon by the Diem government. Another symbol, of course, was the asylum that was given Thich Tri Quang in the US Embassy, and tha—that symbol ah was very ah very strong. Ah. My own view was that even at that point, ah, we would have done much better to stick with the constitutional government or at the very least, to have let them know ah that our policy was changing. I don't think it was fair, just, or honorable to an ally of nine years ah to do this behind his back, and ah, for myself, I am convinced that that change in policy at the end of the Kennedy administration was the thing that got us locked into this unnecessary and disastrous war.”