The Diem cables

[J. Raymond Carroll]

The investigation would have discovered it was E. Howard Hunt and his friends at the CIA who had been forging documents on behalf of Nixon.

There is a witness missing from the debate so far. Neither I nor Pat Speer has access to the testimony of Chuck Colson, a key player in the forgery issue (if there was a forgery). Apparently Ashton Gray does have access to all the Watergate testimony and the facilities to scan them. Could I impose on Mr. Gray and ask that he kindly post the relevant parts of Colson's testimony, so that we have a more complete record on this issue.

[Ashton Gray]

As I understand Ashton Gray, he is arguing that Hunt is innocent of the charge and that in fact no forgery took place. To my reading, that is the bare essence of the argument.

No, that isn't your reading: that's your spin. That's your twist. That's your own fraud. That's your own willful misrepresentation of my position. That's your own slime on this forum. It ain't mine. Don't attribute your mealy-mouthed, evasive, incomprehensible obtuseness to me. I didn't hire you to represent me. I wouldn't have you represent me if you were paying me 50 times your own hourly rate.

What I've said, and have demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt repeatedly—which you well know, since you read every word I write—is that my opinion is that Hunt is guilty as sin of a knowing, willful fraud on the courts, on Congress, and on the people of the United States. I've laid out ample evidence of that regarding Memorial Day weekend 1972 CIA op.

Now I've demonstrated in this thread the extremely high probability that Hunt was willfully and knowingly and collusively involved with John Dean and with L. Patrick Gray in perpetrating yet another fraud on the courts, on Congress, and on the people of the United States in perjured testimony about forgery and destruction of evidence. And I've made it very clear that in my prudent and extremely well-informed opinion, the alleged destruction of evidence never took place at all, and that the planned and knowing and willful hoax was a wholesale assault on the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of America during wartime, which in my opinion is ample evidence to call for an immediate, if not sooner, investigation of the following offenses, as defined at USC 18 Part I Chapter 115, §2381 et seq., for all living co-conspirators:

• § 2381. Treason
  Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
  § 2383. Rebellion or insurrection
  Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
  § 2382. Misprision of treason
  Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States and having knowledge of the commission of any treason against them, conceals and does not, as soon as may be, disclose and make known the same to the President or to some judge of the United States, or to the governor or to some judge or justice of a particular State, is guilty of misprision of treason and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than seven years, or both.
  § 2384. Seditious conspiracy
  If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
  § 2388. Activities affecting armed forces during war
  (a) Whoever, when the United States is at war, willfully makes or conveys false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies; or
  Whoever, when the United States is at war, willfully causes or attempts to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or willfully obstructs the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States, to the injury of the service or the United States, or attempts to do so—
  Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
  (b ) If two or more persons conspire to violate subsection (a) of this section and one or more such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each of the parties to such conspiracy shall be punished as provided in said subsection (a).
  (c ) Whoever harbors or conceals any person who he knows, or has reasonable grounds to believe or suspect, has committed, or is about to commit, an offense under this section, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
  (d) This section shall apply within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States, and on the high seas, as well as within the United States.
  

And if you still can't understand my position, and still have some delusion that I'm declaring Hunt "innocent," it's little wonder that you believe in the existence of invisible cables.

Ashton Gray

Edited July 5, 2006 by Ashton Gray

[Ashton Gray]

Neither I nor Pat Speer has access to the testimony of Chuck Colson, a key player in the forgery issue (if there was a forgery).

Thanks for the express revelation that you are tag-teaming.

Could I impose on Mr. Gray and ask that he kindly post the relevant parts of Colson's testimony, so that we have a more complete record on this issue.

I ain't your page or clerk. I'll post what I want to post "at a time and place of my choosing."

Ashton Gray

[Ashton Gray]

Of course these documents did involve Watergate. We have to ask what was the motivation of Nixon’s aides to destroy documents that implicated John and Robert Kennedy in assassinations of foreign leaders, etc.? Was it not in their interest to expose the illegal behaviour of the Kennedys? This would have hurt the Democrats and Edward Kennedy, and would have helped them win the 1972 presidential election. Yet Gray definitely destroyed these documents.

I think your argument is rock solid—right up to the last sentence.

Seriously, there's absolutely no evidence of Gray having destroyed evidence. Not only is there no evidence of it, there are at least three conflicting stories by Gray himself of his purported "destruction of evidence," meaning that the best evidence is that a hoax was created about the destruction of evidence and the whole thing is yet another elaborate lie by people supposedly "confessing." (Gee, sounds awfully familiar.)

There's also a complete contradiction in Gray's own statements, as I documented above, about his ever having had in his possession any such discrediting information on Kennedy.

Then with Hunt, Dean, and Gray, we have three completely contradictory descriptions of purported "forged cables" (or cable—gee, losing count sounds awfully familiar). The only thing that there's evidence of at all is collusion between Hunt, Dean, and Gray to give "confessions" that are total, whole-cloth fictions. (Now, where have I run into something similar before?)

And here's why the question of "did he destroy, didn't he destroy" isn't even a fork in the road, but a perfect trap in the road:

Any way you try to figure any outcome from the stories, it all could only harm the Nixon White House.

• As I quoted from Hunt earlier in this thread, he claimed that the authentic cables were damning to the Kennedy administration without forgeries (something also not stipulated by me, but his claim)—which destroys the entire motive for forging cables in the first place.
  
• The purported "forgeries," like every one of Hunt's storybook operations, went absolutely nowhere. Nowhere! Forgeries had nothing whatsoever to do with what Conein said in his interview. But the unevidenced claim of their existence, by three people in "confessions," sure helped to bring down the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces during wartime.
  
• Since the purported forged cables (damn, it's hard to talk about complete fictions) couldn't be used, ever, for anything besides "personal edification" (Hunt)—whatever the hell that means—then why would any such forgeries have been kept at all? (That, of course, assuming that they ever had been made at all, which they weren't.) According to Hunt, the goddamned non-things sat in his safe collecting dust for almost eight months! Even assuming, arguendo, that there ever were any forgeries, the only possible use of keeping them was damage to Nixon! (And of course, the whole thing is completely circular since the safe way to damage Nixon—without any evidence of much larger crimes against the perps themselves—was just to claim the existence and say they were destroyed. It's a perfect, self-proving and inescapable trap, with relatively minor consequences to the perps if there's no evidence, but major consequences to the perps if there is evidence.
  
• If they'd had actual dirt on the Kennedy administration, they would have used it, just as you argue above. Not to use it, or ever even let Nixon know of its existence, was only to undermine Nixon.
  
• To simply "confess" that such dirt on Kennedy existed (when it didn't), but then was destroyed by Nixon administration officials, was to bring down Nixon.
  

It just goes on forever. In a giant circle.

On the "forged cable(s)" issue alone there's one absolutely staggering datum that emerges once the fraud is stripped off and just a little bit of sanity is allowed to rise to the surface:

There is no way in HELL Hunt and Colson actually would have allowed such self-incriminating evidence to sit in Hunt's White House safe for that long, when Colson's secretary, Joan Hall, and the Secret Service had the combination! If those forged cables ever had existed, they weren't "political dynamite" against the Kennedy administration at all, because Hunt himself says that his (never existant) forgeries could not stand any scrutiny. The only "dynamite" they ever could have been was against the Nixon administration, and they would have been nooses around the necks of Hunt and Colson if they had existed! It would have been hard evidence of attempting to frame actual people with names in the Kennedy administration with murder. That's exactly why I raised that point again and again in my articles above: that nobody ever says anything about these alleged forgeries except that it was "officials" of the Kennedy administration or "persons" within the Kennedy administration. They keep the whole thing completely anonymous and vague except the Kennedy name. And of course the Kennedy brothers were conveniently dead at all relevant times and unable to defend themselves against any of it. That's how these scum work

It's just a goddamned putrid lie from bow to stern. There isn't a smudge of truth anywhere in it. There were no "forged cables." There were no letters from JFK about his "peccadiloes." These people iinvolved in this are exactly what I said before: soul-less, lying scum, just empty golems absent the slightest integrity who will say anything, no matter how depraved, that serves their own purposes, and will happily swear on a Bible to tell their lies.

I'm also going to post a whole article on no other subject than the day Hunt's safe was "drilled open," and where who was throughout that day, including Hunt checking and inventorying the contents of his safe that morning! It's just beyond any kind of suspension of disbelief that after the Watergate arrests had taken place and his name was already linked, that he would go into the EOB very early that morning, inventory his safe contents—including the purported "forgeries" and the briefcase of electronic equipment—then close the safe back up leaving all this "incriminating evidence" there, with Joan Hall and the Secret Service crawling all over the place, having TOLD Joan Hall that "the safe is loaded," and saunter over to Mullen to be there when Bennett arrived.

And, sure enough, Dean comes along and gives Intel Cult Member Woodward and the press a big gratuitous sensationalistic story of having Hunt's safe DRILLED OPEN—when he knew damned well that Colson, Joan Hall, and Secret Service crawling all over the place could have just turned the knob at any time and opened the safe.

You just start spitting like a cat at the insanity!

It's just fraud, fraud, fraud, hoax, hoax, hoax, straight down the line, following an exact script, with John Dean and L. Patrick Gray working together with Richard Helms like the three stooges. I haven't even started posting Helms's flood of lies in testimony. Oh, but I will be.

Ashton

Edited July 5, 2006 by Ashton Gray

[Dawn Meredith]

I have never seen Pat so silent. I can only assume he's preparing his rebuttal.

He posted earlier on the JFK assassination debate.

Unless- gasp- you've convinced him, Ashton.

Lightbulb moment here ???

Just wondering.

Dawn

[Ashton Gray]

I have never seen Pat so silent. I can only assume he's preparing his rebuttal.

I sure hope he has a damn good one.

If not, I guess these words of his earlier in this thread are going to be haunting him for quite a long time to come:

If the cables did not exist, it means that everything we were told by Dean, Hunt, and Gray about the cables was some sort of set-up, by either the Democrats, the CIA, or both.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Ashton Gray

Edited July 5, 2006 by Ashton Gray

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Now I've demonstrated in this thread the extremely high probability that Hunt was willfully and knowingly and collusively involved with John Dean and with L. Patrick Gray in perpetrating yet another fraud on the courts, on Congress, and on the people of the United States in perjured testimony about forgery and destruction of evidence.

Did you leave Charles Colson out of this plot for a reason, or do you believe Colson was in collusion with Dean, Hunt & Gray in pretending that Hunt had committed forgery?

And if you still can't understand my position, and still have some delusion that I'm declaring Hunt "innocent," it's little wonder that you believe in the existence of invisible cables.

Ashton Gray

You certainly seem to be declaring Hunt innocent of the crime of forging the Diem cables, and that's the very crime of which he stands accused by Pat Speer.

[Pat Speer]

So everyone who testified is a treasonous xxxx conspiring to bring down their commander-in-chief in a time of wartime? So the head of the FBI is a CIA-minion? I guess this means that the whole FBI-being-concerned-about-CIA-involvement part of the story was simply part of the set-up, as Gray and Helms were hoping Nixon would send Haldeman or Ehrlichman over to Helms and tell him to shut off the investigation? Is that right? So everything bad that was done by Nixon was either-set up or brought into action by a HUGE conspiracy, including Dean, Nixon's personal attorney, Liddy, a man who spent years in prison rather than testify against his "Fuehrer," William Lambert of Life Magazine, and Pat Gray, the acting director of the FBI, who was by all accounts a Nixon pet? Man these guys were really treacherous! And WHY was it exactly that they all conspired against poor Richard Nixon in such a self-sacrificial manner? One can only assume that Ashton feels Nixon was so squeaky clean that there was no other way to get to him!

Ashton, if the cables never existed, why did Ehrlichman testify he discussed them with Dean and saw Dean give them to Gray? If this was simply staged, then why didn't they go to the trouble of actually making the props? After all, Ehrlichman might have wanted to take a look... Or was Ehrlichman part of this GIGANTIC plot as well?

Which reminds me... if the whole thing was made up, then why did NIXON TELL EHRLICHMAN he remembered them showing the cables to Life Magazine? Or are the Watergate tapes all fake and part of the conspiracy against Nixon as well?

I've given up hope on Ashton, but hope others reading this will learn from his errors. It's best to get as many facts and constantly change your interpretation of the facts as you learn more facts. Ashton has latched onto this idea that the cables never existed and in order to defend this illogical conclusion has systematically increased the ring of conspirators till it now amounts to virtually everyone in Washington, most of them Republicans, making up and sticking to a story that damaged Nixon and made Kennedy look like a victim. His PROOF for this seems to be that sometimes people remember things differently, something ANYONE who has actually studied memory and eyewitness testimony knows is to be expected. In Ashton's world, any two people who have slightly different recollections of an event are obvious conspirators working for the CIA. Postively bizarre.

Ashton, besides the fact that you wish it to be, please cite one piece of evidence that any of the following people would risk their careers to protect Richard Helms and the CIA.

1. William Lambert.

2. Charles Colson (who has never stated that the cables DID NOT exist, as far as I can tell.)

3. John Ehrlichman.

4. John Dean.

5. Fred Fielding.

6. L. Patrick Gray.

7. Gerald Ford.

One of the best books on Watergate is J. Anthony Lukas' Nightmare. On page 117, he deals with the issue of the cables and asserts that the cables were used to deceive the American public, not via Life Magazine as originally intended, but through a television interview with Hunt's friend Lucien Conein. Conein was shown the cables in the context of the other cables but not told they were fake. Here is the pertinent passage:

"Ultimately, Hunt did manage to foist the cables on someone--his friend Lucien Conein, who had been invited to appear on an NBC News White Paper: Vietnam Hindsight. When Hunt showed him the cables, Conein said, "Funny, the things you don't know when you're working in the field." By that time, he had already been interviewed for the show, but the White House persuaded the network that Conein had vital new information to provide and the interview was filmed over again. The documentary was shown in two parts on December 22 and 23, 1971. Reviewing the second part, "The Death of Diem," for the New York Times, Neil Sheehan remarked particularly on Conein's interview, saying that Conein "leaves the viewer with little doubt about the United States' implication in Diem's death."

Now I'm not sure how Lukas came to believe that the White House arranged for Conein's second interview, but assuming there was a second interview, would that not imply that Conein had been shown something? If not, why didn't Conein just tell the story to begin with? If there were no cables, then what was Conein's new information? Or was this another unnecessary part of the story? Or was Lukas, who never questions that the cables existed, part of Operation Mockingbird? Also, since Hunt had been successful in using these cables to influence Conein, does it not make sense that he would hold onto the cables, in hopes of influencing others?

Anyone who's studied politics or the CIA knows that their standard MO is deny, deny, deny, plausible deniability, obfuscate. In the case of the cables, we have a number of seemingly unconnected men admitting they were created, even though it makes them look very bad. Instead of embracing this event as one of the few moments of clarity, however, Ashton has sought to murk the waters and make us doubt the cables ever existed. The only one who benefits from such a theory is Richard Nixon. Ashton has now expounded about how the men suggesting these cables existed were part of a treasonous plot to remove a president from office during wartime. (Do we need to remind him that the Vietnam conflict was never technically a war?) This raises a number of questions about Ashton's attitudes towards our current regime.

Ashton, do you feel Joseph Wilson is a traitor?

Do you feel the "outing" of his wife was actually orchestrated by the CIA itself?

Since you're so all-fired-up to believe that a vast conspiracy between Nixon's own employees and the CIA brought down Nixon, I'm just wondering if you see any similarities between this event and Iran/Contra and/or the Plame incident?

In what other cases have you uncovered evidence of CIA wrongdoing?

Edited July 5, 2006 by Pat Speer

[Ashton Gray]

So everything bad that was done by Nixon was either-set up or brought into action by a HUGE conspiracy

It was the exact size of conspiracy that you already stipulate to. It was the exact same personnel who have already confessed to or been found guilty of conspiring: Liddy, Hunt, McCord, Baldwin, Dean, Gray, Colson, Young. Yeah, Pat: the same ones you have no choice but to agree were co-conpirators.

Same conspirators as in the conspiracy theory you try to peddle. You call that "HUGE"? You saying you try to peddle a "HUGE" conspiracy? It's your conspiracy theory, so if you want to call it "HUGE," go ahead.

To me, it's not even a decent sized platoon. How big was the CIA's Bay of Pigs operation?

And WHY was it exactly that they all conspired against poor Richard Nixon in such a self-sacrificial manner?

You know, I don't really feel any obligation at all to explain the insane acts of criminals. Why don't you kick your heels and hold your breath trying to make me.

Meanwhile, it's already a matter of inarguable record that they did conspire. I don't think even you would be stupid enough to try to argue that. (But, then...)

It was just a different conspiracy than the one they've already admitted to or been convicted of. Same crew. Bigger crimes. Ones without statutes of limitations.

William Lambert of Life Magazine

Only E. Howard Hunt says William Lambert ever saw any "forged cables." Hunt is impeached. Hunt is a xxxx. Hunt is a professional xxxx. Hunt is a really bad xxxx.

Ashton, if the cables never existed, why did Ehrlichman testify he discussed them with Dean and saw Dean give them to Gray?

Now you're lying. You heard me: you're lying. So now we've got you on record telling a flat-out lie, too. The testimony is that Ehrlichman saw Dean give TWO SEALED ENVELOPES to L. Patrick Gray, not any forged cables. And you could only have been talking about the purported "forged cables" when you ambiguously said "cables" above, because Dean didn't give the authentic cables to Gray. So now you're just making up your own malicious fictions to prop up the malicious fiction of the "forged cables."

You seem to have about the same level of integrity as the worms you're trying to be an apologist for. But then, how could it be any other way?

You are a real piece of work, boy.

why did NIXON TELL EHRLICHMAN he remembered them showing the cables to Life Magazine?

Cables aren't forged cables. Cables are cables. Nixon had ordered the authentic cables be researched to see what could be found. Nixon had been told the same thing Hunt said he told Colson in his book:

• E. HOWARD HUNT: "[A]nyone who read the cables as I have could never doubt the complicity of the Kennedy Administration in the death of the Vietnamese Premier."
  
  

That's reference to the AUTHENTIC cables only. That's what had been told to Nixon. That's the reason Nixon was told the cables were going to be shown to the press. And of course nothing ever came of it at all. No article. Nothing.

And that's exactly what you got: nothing. That's why you're making up lies now in long-winded spin sessions that don't mean crap. Just yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap. Fill the vacuum. Fill the vacuum. Fill the vacuum. My own personal little ankle-biter.

That's why I'm not answering you right now for your sake: I already know exactly what you're doing. I'm just trying to help others keep from getting sucked into your vortex of spin, and now even knowing, willful lies.

Not that it isn't totally see-through right now for exactly what it is.

Reviewing the second part, "The Death of Diem," for the New York Times, Neil Sheehan remarked particularly on Conein's interview, saying that Conein "leaves the viewer with little doubt about the United States' implication in Diem's death."

And as I've already proven, Conein said not one syllable that would support the existence of any "forged cables," and Hunt is already on record saying someone could come to the same conclusion without any forged cables.

And of course Conein is a CIA water-carrier, and Conein and Hunt go all the way back to 1943, OSS training on Catalina Island, and would wipe each others rear ends, anyway.

You got nothing.

But I was simply praying you'd jump in here and spew out that the Conein TV op got promoted by the CIA whore Neil Sheehan, who Conein and Landsdale had hooked up with Ellsberg, and who did their Pentagon Papers scam for them.

You're so predictable.

You're a real piece of work.

Go tell your handlers that they aren't going to get any of this KY Jelly back into the tube.

Then come back here and flail some more. Make up some more lies. I'm enjoying watching you twitch.

Ashton Gray

Edited July 6, 2006 by Ashton Gray

[Pat Speer]

Ashton, you're trying to pull the same malarkey on me that you pulled on Caddy. Anytime I say something that disagrees with your world view I'm a piece of work, a xxxx, whatever. I called the envelope purportedly holding the cables "the cables" and that makes me some evil person? Are you really this daft? I call you Ashton even though I don't believe for one second that's your real name. Does that make me a xxxx as well?

So you're saying that Dean, Nixon's personal attorney with no known connections to the CIA, orchestrated the transfer of empty envelopes to fool Ehrlichman? How big a hole are you willing to dig?

As far as my conspiracy vs. your conspiracy, blah blah blah, your conspiracy drags in Dean, Ehrlichman, Hunt, Liddy, Fielding, Gray, etc all conspiring against their mentor Nixon. You have not one bit of proof of this. You made it up and now you're sticking to it, all the way to lala land.

Edited July 5, 2006 by Pat Speer

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

One of the best books on Watergate is J. Anthony Lukas' Nightmare. On page 117, he deals with the issue of the cables and asserts that the cables were used to deceive the American public, not via Life Magazine as originally intended, but through a television interview with Hunt's friend Lucien Conein. Conein was shown the cables in the context of the other cables but not told they were fake. Here is the pertinent passage:

Assuming that Conein was shown any such thing, a few points to bear in mind, Pat.

Since Lucien Conein spent much of WWII on the ground in Viet Nam organizing resistance against the Japanese, and hence knew personally many, if not most, of the generals involved in the Diem coup; and, further, since Conein was in Viet Nam at the time and was the bagman who personally provided the funds required to execute the coup; and, further, since Conein was the one responsible for generating most of the coup-related cable traffic from Saigon regarding the imminent coup; one wonders about your final sentence: "Conein was shown the cables in the context of the other cables but not told they were fake."

It would be akin to showing Lennon and McCartney counterfeit words to "She Loves You," but not telling them the lyrics had been fudged. Like John and Paul wouldn't have known there was something amiss? He wasn't told they were fake because it was known he needed no such crib-sheet prompting.

However, Conein could certainly then go on TV and assert that he had seen cables indicating the extent of JFK's perfidy in arranging the coup. It would be a further 30 years before the pertinent documents and tapes demonstrating the falsity of this assertion were finally made public. For more on the same topic, allow me to recommend the ever-helpful National Security Archives:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB101/index.htm

"Ultimately, Hunt did manage to foist the cables on someone--his friend Lucien Conein, who had been invited to appear on an NBC News White Paper: Vietnam Hindsight. When Hunt showed him the cables, Conein said, "Funny, the things you don't know when you're working in the field." By that time, he had already been interviewed for the show, but the White House persuaded the network that Conein had vital new information to provide and the interview was filmed over again. The documentary was shown in two parts on December 22 and 23, 1971. Reviewing the second part, "The Death of Diem," for the New York Times, Neil Sheehan remarked particularly on Conein's interview, saying that Conein "leaves the viewer with little doubt about the United States' implication in Diem's death."

"Funny, the things you don't know when you're working in the field?" Puh-leez! Hunt's attribution is about as honest as anything else the man has ever claimed.

That may have been the intent of the broadcast, but the Church Committee, to whom Conein testified, reached a different conclusion, as noted on the National Security Archives page cited above:

Records of the Kennedy national security meetings, both here and in our larger collection, show that none of JFK's conversations about a coup in Saigon featured consideration of what might physically happen to Ngo Dinh Diem or Ngo Dinh Nhu. The audio record of the October 29th meeting which we cite below also reveals no discussion of this issue. That meeting, the last held at the White House to consider a coup before this actually took place, would have been the key moment for such a conversation. The conclusion of the Church Committee agrees that Washington gave no consideration to killing Diem. (Note 12) The weight of evidence therefore supports the view that President Kennedy did not conspire in the death of Diem. However, there is also the exceedingly strange transcript of Diem's final phone conversation with Ambassador Lodge on the afternoon of the coup (Document 23), which carries the distinct impression that Diem is being abandoned by the U.S. Whether this represents Lodge's contribution, or JFK's wishes, is not apparent from the evidence available today.

Why the disparity in views? Partly, no doubt, because the South Vietnamese generals had given their word to Conein that safe passage to a third country of exile would give given to Diem. If Conein had reason to suspect anything different, I've seen no indication that he communicated this fact the US Ambassador to Viet Nam [who was elsewhere when it happened], or the State Department, or anyone else. If there is a critical failure in assessing the situation, the man closest to the failure was Conein. Little wonder he'd have a motive to distort the record, on TV, for it made it appear that his role was sanctioned by the White House, rather than in direct contravention to what had been agreed upon between Washington and the Saigon generals. How accommodating of Hunt to help his old friend pull this piece of wool over the eyes of the gullible and credulous. How astonishing that, in light of all the above, that wool still has currency.

More to the point, still, is the notion that Conein may have played a double game and deliberately withheld information from others above him in the food chain:

"The majority of the officers, including General Minh, desired President Diem to have honorable retirement from the political scene in South Vietnam and exile. As to Ngo Dinh Nhu and Ngo Dinh Can, there was never dissention. The attitude was that their deaths, along with Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu, would be welcomed." (Coneln After-Action Report, 11/l/63, p. 10.)

and yet... the Church Committee detailed something else:

Conein, the CIA official who dealt directly with the Generals, testified that he was first told of McCone's response to the assassination alternative by ambassador Lodge around October 20. (Conein,6/20/75, p. 35) Conein testified (but did not so indicate in his detailed After-Action Report) that he then told General Don that the United States opposed assassination, and that the General responded, "Alright, you don't like it, we won't talk about it anymore." (Conein,6/20/75, p. 36)

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. ;-)

Now I'm not sure how Lukas came to believe that the White House arranged for Conein's second interview, but assuming there was a second interview, would that not imply that Conein had been shown something? If not, why didn't Conein just tell the story to begin with? If there were no cables, then what was Conein's new information? Or was this another unnecessary part of the story? Or was Lukas, who never questions that the cables existed, part of Operation Mockingbird? Also, since Hunt had been successful in using these cables to influence Conein, does it not make sense that he would hold onto the cables, in hopes of influencing others?

The cables, assuming they existed and were shown to Conein, helped Hunt exonerate his friend's own shoddy performance, whilst sticking another pin into the voodoo doll of Camelot that Nixon and his cronies kept for such purposes. Anthony Lukas may have been uncritical of all that was provided him, and Neil Sheehan may have swallowed the televised result hook, line and sinker, as intended, but given the distinct advantage we have of more disclosure of pertinent details in the interim, if we follow their credulous example, we are far bigger fools than they, and cannot claim to have been deceived.

[Pat Speer]

Robert, your input, as always, is welcome. My take on Conein, at least in this instance, is less sinister. I read an excellent book on the Diem assassination entitled A Death in November. As I remember Conein was a prime source. Conein's impression, as I remember, was that the Kennedy Administration was unsure how to handle the situation, but that Lodge basically made the call and signed Diem's death warrant through his actions. McNamara came to the same conclusion in his book In Retrospect, if memory serves. If that was Conein's impression, and if Hunt showed him cables from the Kennedy Adminstration telling Lodge NOT to offer Diem asylum or assist in his escape, then Conein's comment that "the things you don't know when you're working in the field," makes perfect sense.

Those skeptical that Nixon or Colson would order the creation of these cables should reflect that they were multi-purpose: not only did they place the responsibility for Diem's death squarely on Kennedy's shoulders, they also got Nixon's running mate against Kennedy, Henry Cabot Lodge, off the hook.

[John Simkin]

David Kaiser covers the issue of JFK’s involvement in the assassination of Diem in his brilliant book, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War (2000). On page 275 Kaiser explains that Nixon, during his presidency, made several “unsuccessful attempts to prove – wrongly – that Kennedy had ordered Diem’s assassination.”

Kaiser is a member of this Forum and I will ask him to comment on how Nixon tried to leak this false story.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

"Ultimately, Hunt did manage to foist the cables on someone--his friend Lucien Conein, who had been invited to appear on an NBC News White Paper: Vietnam Hindsight. When Hunt showed him the cables, Conein said, "Funny, the things you don't know when you're working in the field." By that time, he had already been interviewed for the show, but the White House persuaded the network that Conein had vital new information to provide and the interview was filmed over again. The documentary was shown in two parts on December 22 and 23, 1971. Reviewing the second part, "The Death of Diem," for the New York Times, Neil Sheehan remarked particularly on Conein's interview, saying that Conein "leaves the viewer with little doubt about the United States' implication in Diem's death."

There are now two charges pending against Hunt, both of which Mr. Gray will have to disprove before his theory can get to first base. In addition to the count of forgery, there is now the separate count of Uttering a Forged Document.

It seems that Hunt's little forgeries were quite a smashing success. First they air on national television to edify the masses, then they are relied on by the New York Times to edify the intelligentsia. From Howard Hunt's point of view, it doesn't get much better than that.

Edited July 6, 2006 by J. Raymond Carroll

[David Kaiser]

David Kaiser covers the issue of JFK’s involvement in the assassination of Diem in his brilliant book, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War (2000). On page 275 Kaiser explains that Nixon, during his presidency, made several “unsuccessful attempts to prove – wrongly – that Kennedy had ordered Diem’s assassination.”

Kaiser is a member of this Forum and I will ask him to comment on how Nixon tried to leak this false story.

Yes, E. Howard Hunt had been asked - I'm not sure by whom, probably Chuck Colson - to fabricate cables directly linking JFK to Diem's assassination, and he did so. L Patrick Gray testified about reading, and then destroying, one of them after John Dean gave him the documents in Hunt's safe. That is the main episode I remember.