Oh, yes he did, right there in Viet Nam.
The story told here is another one of those you did NOT hear from the Kneepad Press. After all, the villain was a Democrat who was elevated to sainthood by those scribbling Reds. What did that villain, JFK, do to attract such love?
Killed a Catholic whose social (and military) programs were working to destroy the Communists.
Ngo Dinh Diem became the President of South Vietnam when the ChiComs took over the North. His strategy to defeat the Communists was simple: institute Catholic governance motifs, principally subsidiarity and solidarity. His 'hamlet-based' governments were armed and able to defend their territories.
It worked very well. Robert MacNamara and Robert Thompson, and expert on guerilla warfare, both told JFK that the South was 'winning the war.'
Then Cronkite, Huntley-Brinkley, and the rest of the Reds in the Press (witting or no) took over.
...Between 1961 and 1962, American policy toward Diem and the situation in Vietnam switched from “sink or swim with Diem” to what would prove to be “sinking without him” into the disaster of a war that could and should have been avoided. In 1963, heeding the advice of his anti-Diem associates, President Kennedy informed the South Vietnamese generals that they would continue to receive his support were they to overthrow the elected president of their own country in a military coup. Ironically, President Kennedy’s betrayal of Diem came at a time when Diem’s strategy was proving successful in the war against Marxist insurgency. ...
...Kennedy was more concerned about winning the following year’s presidential election and was mindful of the impact that his support for Diem might have on the election campaign. The media’s increasingly hostile reporting of Diem’s “autocratic” government meant that support for Diem was now a political liability. ...
Calling him an "autocrat" exposes the chutzpah of Media lying. One cannot both be an "autocrat" AND base one's Government on a hamlet-based subsidiarity mode.
...In a telegram sent on August 29, 1963, marked “Top Secret, Eyes Only,” President Kennedy authorized the violent overthrow of Diem’s civilian government, officially an ally of the United States, by the South Vietnamese military. This is surely one of the greatest acts of treachery by any American president.
The coup took place on All Saints’ Day, 1963. Having fled to the house of a friend, Diem and his brother attended Mass at the local church on the morning of All Souls’ Day. They then spent some time in prayer. They were in the Grotto of the Virgin Mary, outside the church, when the soldiers arrived with a couple of American jeeps and an armored personnel carrier. Once Diem and his brother were secured in the hold of the personnel carrier, the order to murder them was carried out immediately as the vehicle drove away. Their gallbladders were cut out while they were still alive, and then they were shot...,.
...Three days after the murders, Madame Nhu, the widowed wife of Diem’s brother, foresaw that the murder of her husband and brother-in-law would have catastrophic consequences. “Whoever has the Americans as allies does not need any enemies,” she said....
...A little over two years later, in February 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson was candid about the role of the American government in the coup and the murder of Diem: “[W]e killed him. We all got together and got a…bunch of thugs and we went in and assassinated him. Now, we’ve really had no political stability since then.”
This was an understatement. The war would drag on for almost a decade longer. By its end, almost 60,000 members of the U.S. military were killed, as well as around 300,000 South Vietnamese combatants and a similar number of South Vietnamese civilians. When the deaths of North Vietnamese troops and civilians are added, the final body count is likely to have been more than a million people....
...As the catastrophic consequences of Diem’s murder unfolded, even his political enemies in Vietnam came to see his assassination as a mistake of unparalleled proportions. As for the Catholics of Vietnam, they continue to venerate Diem as a martyr. Perhaps the Church should do so also. As Josef Cardinal Frings affirmed in 1965: “The greater part of the world has not given just recognition of this noble man.”
The primary source for this essay is Geoffrey Shaw’s excellent book, The Lost Mandate of Heaven: The American Betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam (Ignatius Press).
30 comments:
Diem can be classified as an "autocrat" because he was anti-liberal. That is all that is needed to classify someone as a villain. He attempted to impose a system of governance that eschewed the "democratic" principles defined by the CIA and the Western hegemony. That he could successfully defeat Marxism using Catholic ideas put into practice, as a backwater country, undermines the narrative of the existential threat of Marxism, and the need to defeat it militarily.
Jews never will allow a Catholic country. Kennedy a stooge.
You got it all wrong, since you are totally uninformed. It was Dulles who ordered his assassination while JFK was out of town. And after the deed was done, when JFK found out he was furious.
You are guilty of calumny. Try reading a book.
https://aaambrosetti.wordpress.com/2023/11/01/book-review-president-diem-catholic-hero-of-vietnam/
You realize Dulles died in 1959…
You are getting the two brothers confused, Anonymous. But you are on the right track. Allen, the younger brother of John Foster, was Director of the CIA from 1953 to 1961, but resigned after the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion. So your point, I believe, is that Dulles was not around at the time of Diem's (and Kennedy's) assassinations, and that is correct. But if you are suggesting that JFK was innocent of the blood of the Ngo brothers, you are sadly mistaken. I wish it were otherwise, but it is true: JFK and RFK were both on the side of "removing" Diem, in whatever manner necessary. The well researched book, the Lost Mandate of Heaven, about which I posted above , demonstrates this beyond the shadow of a doubt. JFK out of town? No way! The Swamp elites, led by Averell Harriman and with the tacit (and sometimes explicit) approval of the Kennedy brothers, had been plotting this for months. JFK and RFK both knew exactly what was being planned. I need not point out that JFK himself was "removed" by the permanent government/deep state/swamp just 20 days after the brutal torture and murder of the Catholic Ngo brothers, abducted by the CIA's hand-picked general "Big" Minh, as they left the Church of St. Francis Xavier in Saigon on All Souls Day. RFK, also, departed this world under the most suspicious circumstances during his campaign for president 5 years later. May God grant both Kennedy brothers peace despite their treachery against the two great Catholic heroes of Vietnam.
Well said sir. What we know directly is infinitesimally small, so we chose to believe or dismiss in accounts of events, is based on our trust in the source and the comparison of the expressed statements against our personal beliefs developed over a lifetime.
From the referenced link: One of the great tragedies of our cancel culture is that our government, universities, and schools are intent on changing what they call the historical “narrative”.
Can people who pursue power over other people engage in and condone evil? I can believe that is true. Can good people fall victim to evil people? Again that seems true. Mark78
Dr. Geofrey D. T. Shaw, the author of the Lost Mandate of Heaven, which is cited as the source for the claim that President Kennedy ordered the assassination, is not that credible as a historian, as can be seen from his postings at the Alexandrian Defense Group, where he is a shill for Russian Propaganda.
In https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Real-Jack-Ryan-Together/dp/B08J5CQZ8H The Murder of the Real Jack Ryan, the investigative reporter Daniel Sullivan recounts exactly how the assassination of the S. Vietnamese leader happened. JFK was out of town and Harriman ordered the assassination.
Since JFK disagreed so strongly with CIA modus operandi, it is nefarious and calumnious to claim he ordered the assassination. And it is a non sequitur, that if JFK wanted a change in government that he necessarily wanted an assassination.
Feast of St. Oswald
February 29, MMXXiiii A. D.
The murder w malice charge against Kennedy is false. I invite your review of Triumph Forsaken, a 2006 history of the Vietnam War, by Mark Moyar of the U. S. Marine Corps University at Quantico to become acquainted with the facts.
Prof. Moyar unequivocally asserts in his preface--and proves in his book--that,
"President Kennedy did not consent to the coup that ousted Ngo Dinh Diem DM on November 1, 1963." (Preface, p. xvii.)
Was JFK guilty of weakness in tolerating Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge's insubordination...? Yes. But direct willful murder: absurd and false.
Moyar acknowledges the coup was tge worst American mistake in the war. Thereafter, he asserts, nonetheless the war still could've been won without major US troop escalations, but for President Lyndon Johnson's decision to rule out other "aggressive policy options" at his disposal based on faulty assumptions.
All sorts of "informed" books out there, eh?
Harry Truman had it right: the buck stops here. I hold Trump responsible for the damages of The Vaxx, although he is not culpable. As to a book written by a Marine officer.......well..........we've seen a lot of mis-mal-and dis-info from US military figures before, haven't we?
This combox' contents proves that the upper echelon of State, CIA, FBI, and the military, not to mention Cabinets and Presidents, are prime suspects in all sorts of mass murders, whether "in war" or not.
Disgusting.
Re: Cable 243; 24 August 1963
This Cable sent by the State Department to US Ambassador (Henry Cabot Lodge) to South Vietnam instructed Lodge to inform Diem that his brother must be removed from power.
The Cable was drafted over the weeked by three mid-level State officials: W. Averell Harriman, Roger Hilsman, and Michael Forrestal; while the senior figures of the Kennedy administration were out of Washington DC - many on vacation.
Senior figures such as Rusk, McNamara, McCone, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Maxwell Taylor, strongly denied authorizing the cable.
There is no evidence that JFK, RFK or any senior administrative officials wanted or ordered Diem or his brother killed.
It should be noted that JFK had already said that he intended to break the CIA into a "thousand pieces". He had also announced his intention to withdraw US ground troops from Vietnam.
JFK further had further fired both the CIA Director in 1961 (Allen Welsh Dulles) and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs who also wanted to pursue a war in Vietnam. Both were later implicated in JFK's assassination. Dulles was a member of the Warren Commission which investigated JFK's murder.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
As you're making the wild allegations, sir, you might try reading one.
While it might make you none the wiser, it would make you much better informed.
C. B.
P. S. Not to say cia involvement in Kennedy's murder is such. I'm referring to your sensationalist headline and murder charge as against him.
Good Lenting!
C.B.: you should have noticed that there is a LINK to the story I quoted. Happy Lent to you, too.
From the "LINK" Article by Joseph Pearce in Crisis Magazine
Pearce writes:
"President Kennedy informed the South Vietnamese generals that they would continue to receive his support were they to overthrow the elected president of their own country in a military coup."
"In a telegram sent on August 29, 1963, marked “Top Secret, Eyes Only,” President Kennedy authorized the violent overthrow of Diem’s civilian government, officially an ally of the United States, by the South Vietnamese military. This is surely one of the greatest acts of treachery by any American president."
1. There is no evidence that JFK communicated with "the South Vietnamese generals" on this or any other matter.
2. There is no evidence that a "telegram sent on August 29, 1963, marked “Top Secret, Eyes Only," was sent or exists.
3. There is no evidence that "President Kennedy authorized the violent overthrow of Diem’s civilian government" in a telegram, cable or any other communication.
However there is evidence that Diem was in direct peace talks with Ho Chi Minh and that JFK had signaled that he was withdrawing US Troops from South Vietnam.
Curiously both Catholic Presidents were then assassinated within 2-weeks of each other.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Also from the "LINK"
Pearce writes:
"It would not be appropriate to pass judgment on his eternal soul, but there’s no denying that he died with the blood of two innocent men on his hands."
There is not a single primary document available in the public record that shows that JFK ordered, wanted or wished for the deaths of Diem and his brother.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Also from the "LINK" Article by Joseph Pearce in Crisis Magazine
Pearce writes:
"Diem’s strategy in defeating communist guerilla insurgency in South Vietnam was the implementation of Catholic social teaching in the form of the Strategic Hamlet Program."
There is nothing in Catholic social teaching about strategic hamlets or concentration camps.
The Strategic Hamlet Program was used by the British in Malaysia. It was based on the British strategy from the Boer where civilians were herded into literal concentration camps to separate them from the guerrillas - at the cost of great human suffering.
Diem's strategy was simply to remove the VC cadres from the villages. No concentration camps. This worked. It was later called the Phoenix Program when the USA tried to continue it.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
There is nothing in Catholic social teaching about strategic hamlets
You've never heard of "subsidiarity"? My, my.
Further, YOU claim that this practice included concentration camps in Vietnam. Produce the documentation or fuggedaboutit.
There is not a single primary document available in the public record that shows that JFK ordered, wanted or wished for the deaths of Diem and his brother.
Please. Democrats know that telephone conversations are not recorded. Ask Joe Biden. Don't try to flim-flam us with "nothing on the record" crapola, friend.
Kindly read my post.
I did not write as you falsely claim:
"YOU claim that this practice included concentration camps in Vietnam."
I wrote the exact opposite:
"The Strategic Hamlet Program was used by the British in Malaysia. It was based on the British strategy from the Boer where civilians were herded into literal concentration camps to separate them from the guerrillas - at the cost of great human suffering.
Diem's strategy was simply to remove the VC cadres from the villages. No concentration camps. This worked. It was later called the Phoenix Program when the USA tried to continue it."
Please note the sentance : "No concentration camps."
And we are not friends.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
"Democrats know that telephone conversations are not recorded."
You are incredibly uninformed. Since Woodrow Wilson all telegraph and later telephone conversations in the USA are not only recorded but archived.
At the end of WWII the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia banded together under what is sometimes known as the "Echelon Program" to record and archive ALL electronic communications in the world.
No historian has found even a hint of telephone conversations between Kennedy, his senior staff and the South Vietnamese Generals.
And we are not friends.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
"You've never heard of "subsidiarity"? My, my."
The relevant principal in subsidiarity calls for decentralization.
The British strategic hamlet program called for extreme centralization.
And we are not friends.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
To Anonymous, poster on 2/28 at 11:41:
You asserted "Dr. Geoffrey D. T. Shaw, the author of the Lost Mandate of Heaven, which is cited as the source for the claim that President Kennedy ordered the assassination, is not that credible as a historian, as can be seen from his postings at the Alexandrian Defense Group, where he is a shill for Russian Propaganda."
First, it is incredible that your criterion for whether or not someone is a credible historian is based on that individual's opinion of Russia. A "shill," a Russophile? This is the wide brush that is used to paint all of us who try to get to the real heart of the problems that erupted in 2014 and ultimately resulted in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I suppose that any of us who reject material and monetary support for the Ukraine are Russophiles? Sure, we're all Fifth Columnist Russian propagandists. . .Perhaps you should evaluate what it means to be an American First!
Second, the late Dr. Shaw is not even close to being the original "source" for the evidence that the Kennedy brothers gave at least tacit approval to the murder of the Ngo brothers. I first read of these allegations in National Review magazine in the early 1980s, in an article by Fr. Francis X. Winters entitled, "They Shoot Allies, Don't They?"
If you take the time to read the late Dr. Shaw's book, you will see that it is packed with abundant footnotes and an impressive listing of sources. In fact, the book itself is 273 pages long, followed by 23 pages of primary and secondary sources. Just his labors at the USAF Special Ops School at Hurlburt Field, Florida, took untold months of research. Not a credible historian? That is certainly not the judgment of those peers who have gone on record in support of not just the historian, but the man. Fr. Fessio's team at Ignatius Press were so impressed with Dr. Shaw's work that, even though the author is not Catholic, they gladly broke with their general rule of trying to publishing only Catholic authors.
It is always difficult for "heroes" to fall in the eyes of those who worship them. As a first grade student in a Catholic parochial school in 1960, I clearly remember when, just after the election in November of 1960, Sister Camillus decided to hang a picture of the first Catholic president even before he was inaugurated. We school kids had the greatest respect for JFK, and we lived through those days of "Camelot". But we were to learn that there was a darker side to those years.
Finally, I am not sure where Mr. Comerford found any credible report that JFK was planning to withdraw American ground forces from Vietnam. This is the contention at the heart of the Oliver Stone "JFK" movie theory that the military industrial complex had the president assassinated to keep a profitable war going with American participation. I have never seen any actual quote from JFK that he intended to do that, only speculation and reports from those who wanted to polish his image by making their hopes turn into facts. I have watched the Walter Cronkite interview of Labor Day weekend, 1963, over and over, and the President is quite clear that he would not allow South Vietnam to be the first domino to fall. His words to Mr. Cronkite made it clear that he would do whatever it took to keep the South free. This of course is completely consonant with his solemn words at his inauguration address when he vowed that "we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty."
Tony Ambrosetti
Lieutenant Commander, USN-Ret.
Tony Ambrosetti Lieutenant Commander
"r. Shaw is not even close to being the original "source" for the evidence that the Kennedy brothers gave at least tacit approval to the murder of the Ngo brothers. I first read of these allegations in National Review magazine in the early 1980s, in an article by Fr. Francis X. Winters entitled, "They Shoot Allies, Don't They?"
And where are the primary documents that show the Kennedy brothers murdered the Ngo brothers?
60-years on and no one has produced a single telegram, letter, transcript or recording wherein the Kennedy brothers ordered, inferred, hinted or hoped for the murder of the Ngo brothers.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Tony Ambrosetti Lieutenant Commander
"I am not sure where Mr. Comerford found any credible report that JFK was planning to withdraw American ground forces from Vietnam."
Conference Honolulu July 1962 wherein JFK ordered his Defense Secretary to reduce US Troops in South Vietnam from 16,000 1,500.
Interesting commentary at https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/3446
God bless
Richard W Comerford
"John F. Kennedy had formally decided to withdraw from Vietnam, whether we were winning or not. Robert McNamara, who did not believe we were winning, supported this decision.10 The first stage of withdrawal had been ordered. The final date, two years later, had been specified. These decisions were taken, and even placed, in an oblique and carefully limited way, before the public."
https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/galbraith-exit-strategy-vietnam/
lengthy but interesting.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
60-years on and no one has produced a single telegram, letter, transcript or recording wherein the Kennedy brothers ordered, inferred, hinted or hoped for the murder of the Ngo brothers.
No one "produces" what one does not want to be "produced." Military, CIA, FBI, and the Vaseline-equipped "press" have buried lots of information which would be inconvenient to the Deep State.
But go on with your delusions about the sanctity of JFK and his government. It makes you feel good, so.....
Regrets about mis-reading your concentration camp statement.
We are not friends, pal. That was an attempt at civil address.
"No one "produces" what one does not want to be "produced." Military, CIA, FBI, and the Vaseline-equipped "press" have buried lots of information which would be inconvenient to the Deep State."
Are you Pearce and Shaw claiming that official communications exist wherein the Kennedy brothers ordered the murders of the Ngo brothers? But said communications have been hidden or buried and somehow you Pearce and Shaw have un-buried the aforementioned and now possess credible information in the form of primary documents implicating the Kennedy brothers in the murders of the Ngo brothers?
Would you Pearce and Shaw care to share the above cited and now unearthed communications with the rest of the world?
And we are enemies.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
"But go on with your delusions about the sanctity of JFK and his government. It makes you feel good, so....."
Contrary to the claims of Shaw, Pearce and yourself the Kennedy Administration, at the explicit written order of JFK, planned to withdraw US Forces in Vietnam reducing Troop Strength from @16,000 to @1,500. The Defense Department issued a plan to carry out JFK's order.
Said order and plans have been available in the public domain for the last 50 to 60- years.
In two posts above I have provided links for the documentation of the above order and plans as well as relevant discussion.
And we are enemies.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
we are enemies.
You didn't have to sell me on your Deep State love life.
"You didn't have to sell me on your Deep State love life."
You, Pearce and Shaw have defamed two dead men who cannot defend themselves. An act of cowards. There is not an iota of credible evidence to support your defamation. Your defamation is based on malicious gossip, innuendo and groundless speculation. OTH there is an incredible amount of documented, archived evidence that has been in the public record for at least half a century that exonerates the Kennedy brothers from your defamation but you insist on ignoring it.
In all probability the Kennedy and Ngo brothers were murdered by what you call the Deep State. In specific the CIA. The Kennedy and Ngo brothers were pro-peace, Catholic and anti-establishment which made them enemies of the your Deep State in general and the CIA in particular.
Your defamation of the Kennedy brothers makes you a servant of the Deep State. Youa re a truly evil man.
And we are enemies.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
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