Vietnam to prevent a revolution, not to encourage. one." This statement was made by New York Times correspondent Max Frankel in a special dispatch from Washington, October 26. A week later on Saturday November 2 Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge was scheduled to leave for Washington, his task accomplished.
on Friday he postponed his trip, Harly in the afternoon Vietnamese troops under the command of. fourteen generals and ten colonels had opened siege of the palace held by President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Nhu.
The following morning, the day Lodge was to have left, the surrender and subsequent suicide or execution of the two brothers was announced.
In. Washington on Friday the State Department categorically denied any involvement of the U.S. government in the coup dtétat. State Department spokesmen indicated that while there was "no surprise" in Washington over the event, it had been sprung without their knowledge.
The State Department's denial was accepted at its true value, No one _ gave it credence, least of all the officials in Washington celebrating the - success of the sudden surprise.
General Le Van Kim, a spokesman of the military junta that took over, _ said in his first statement that. the sobe program of the conspirators was - to continue the "war against communism." He guaranteed maintenance of all previous pacts and agreements, especially those involving the private property of foreigners.
“With the coup at état, the Kennedy administration is rid of a puppet regime whose obscene corruption and brazen espousal of the most reaction-=. ary views had become hopelessly embarrassing, Still worse, their way of conducting the dirty war being waged against the Vietnamese people gave Prise to more and more fear that it would touch off a revolutionary struggle in which the Diem government might go down, dragging with it the capitalist structure which Washington is seeking to save in Vietnam,
A new set of puppets, along with a few reforms, opens up the possibility of putting a fresh front on the counterrevolutionary imperialist venture, The Kennedy administration also obviously hopes that a refure bished puppet government will inspire fresh energy in the military campaign against the Vietcong guerrilla fighters.
The question remains to be answered, however, whether the maneuver is not too late, Continuation of the dirty war under the guidance of. the. Pentagon, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency can quickly tarnish the generals who ousted the hated Diem family.
The Vietnamese want an end to the fighting, an end to the concentration camps set up for the entire country in the form of "strategic hamlets," an end to the oppressive feudal~capitalist structure, an end to the support from abroad that has become uhe main pillar. of the reactionary Saigon — regime,
They want freedom now. They will be satisfied with nothing less.