DEPTEL 243, also known as Telegram 243, the August 24 cable or most commonly Cable 243, was a high-profile message sent on 24 August 1963, by the United States Department of State in reply to Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the newly appointed US ambassador to South Vietnam who had arrived in the country two days earlier. The cable came in the wake of the midnight raids on 21 August by the regime of Ngô Đình Diệm against Buddhist pagodas across the country, in which hundreds were believed to have been killed. The raids were orchestrated by Diệm's brother Ngô Đình Nhu and precipitated a change in US policy. Lodge, who had arrived in Saigon on 22 August (the day after the raids), sent a cable to the State Department reporting that some generals of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and high civilian officials were telling CIA agents and diplomats at the embassy that the US should support Diệm's removal in the wake of the attacks, but Lodge cautioned that the most pivotal commanders around Saigon were still loyal to the Ngo brothers and the loyalties of other officers were unknown, which would make American support of a coup d'état a "shot in the dark." Lodge's cable reached Washington on Saturday morning, 24 August. Later that day, Cable 243 was sent back as a reply to Lodge's report, declaring that Washington would no longer tolerate Nhu remaining in a position of power and ordering Lodge to pressure Diệm to remove his brother. It said that if Diệm refused, the Americans would explore the possibility for alternative leadership in South Vietnam. In effect, the cable authorized Lodge to give the green light to ARVN officers to launch a coup against Diệm if he did not willingly remove Nhu from power. The cable marked a turning point in US-Diem relations and was described in the Pentagon Papers as "controversial". The historian John M. Newman described it as "the single most controversial cable of the Vietnam War".
The cable also highlighted an internal split in the Kennedy administration, with anti-Diệm officials in the State Department prevailing over generals and Department of Defense officials who remained optimistic that the Vietnam War was proceeding well under Diệm. That was underlined by the manner in which the cable was prepared before it was transmitted to Lodge.
Contents
Background
The cable came in the wake of the midnight raids of 21 August by the Catholic regime of Ngô Đình Diệm against Buddhist pagodas across the country in which hundreds were believed to have been killed and more than a thousand monks and nuns were arrested. The pagodas were also extensively vandalized. Initially, the raids coincided with the declaration of martial law on the day before. A group of generals of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam had asked Diệm to give them extra powers to fight the Viet Cong but secretly wanted to maneuver for a coup. Diệm agreed, so that Nhu's Special Forces could take advantage and attack the Buddhist pagoda while disguised as regular ARVN forces. The raids were instigated by Nhu's Special Forces and Secret Police.
At first, there was confusion as to what had occurred. Nhu had ordered the phone lines into the US embassy and the US Information Service to be cut. A curfew was imposed on the streets, and it was initially believed that the regular army had orchestrated the attacks. The Voice of America initially broadcast Nhu's version of the events, which held that the army was responsible. This infuriated the ARVN generals, since many Vietnamese listened to the program as their only source of non-government, non-propaganda news. Through CIA officer Lucien Conein, General Trần Văn Đôn communicated to the Americans that Nhu had created the impression that the ARVN were responsible in order to increase dissent among the lower ranks and to weaken support for and discredit the generals in case they were planning a coup.
Preparation
The message was drafted by W. Averell Harriman, Roger Hilsman, and Michael Forrestal who were the only senior State Department officials on duty on 24 August 1963, a Saturday afternoon, with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and CIA director John McCone on vacation.
President John F. Kennedy was on vacation at Hyannis Port, his family retreat, when Forrestal telephoned seeking to expedite the process with the commander-in-chief's verbal approval. Kennedy asked them to "wait until Monday" when all the key figures would be in Washington, but Forrestal said that Harriman and Hilsman wanted to get the cable "out right away". Kennedy thus told Forrestal to get another high-ranking official to "get it cleared".
Harriman and Hilsman then drove from their offices to a Maryland golf course where Under Secretary of State George Ball was playing with Alexis Johnson. Ball told the trio to meet him at his home after he and Johnson finished their round of golf. Having returned home, Ball read the message but, knowing that the telegram could raise the morale of the generals and prompt a coup, refused to authorize it until his three visitors had gained Secretary of State Dean Rusk's endorsement. Those present at Ball's home then phoned and read the important passages of the message to Rusk. They asked Rusk what he thought of the message if Kennedy was comfortable too. Rusk replied, "Well, go ahead. If the President understood the implications, [I] would give a green light".
Ball then discussed the matter with the President, who asked over the phone, "What do you think?" Ball said that Harriman and Hilsman were in strong support and that his "watered down" version "would certainly be taken as encouragement by the generals to a coup". Ball said that his group regarded Diệm as an embarrassment to Washington because of his "most unconscionable and cruel, uncivilized" actions. He further cited Nhu's violence against the Buddhists and Madame Nhu's verbal attacks as reasons for breaking with Diệm. According to Ball, Kennedy appeared to be broadly supportive of the cable but was apprehensive as to whether a new leader would do a better job. As McNamara was away, Kennedy told Ball that the message was acceptable if Rusk and Roswell Gilpatric endorsed it.
Rusk then approved the message. In the 1980s, Rusk said, "If Ball, Harriman, and President Kennedy were going to send it out, I wasn't going to raise any questions". Forrestal then phoned Gilpatric's farm in the evening and told him that both Kennedy and Rusk had already approved. Gilpatric later recalled, "If Rusk went along with it and the President went along with it, I wasn't going to oppose it". He washed his hands of the matter since it was between Kennedy and the State Department: "In McNamara's absence I felt I should not hold it up, so I went along with it just like you countersign a voucher". Marine General Victor Krulak also signed off without showing his superior, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Maxwell Taylor. Richard Helms of the CIA also endorsed the message without notifying Director John McCone and later said that he believed that Forrestal was only advising of a resolution that had already been made. Forrestal then told Kennedy that he had gained the support of Kennedy's inner circle, so the president told him to send the message. Cable 243 was thus sent to Lodge at 21:36.
Content
The opening paragraphs of the cable stated:
It is now clear that whether military proposed martial law or whether Nhu tricked them into it, Nhu took advantage of its imposition to smash pagodas with police and Tung's Special Forces loyal to him, thus placing onus on military in eyes of world and Vietnamese people. Also clear that Nhu has maneuvered himself into commanding position.
US Government cannot tolerate situation in which power lies in Nhu's hands. Diệm must be given chance to rid himself of Nhu and his coterie and replace them with best military and political personalities available.
If, in spite of all your efforts, Diệm remains obdurate and refuses, then we must face the possibility that Diệm himself cannot be preserved.
The cable went on to instruct Lodge to inform Diệm that the US could not accept the raids and to call for strong action to address the Buddhist crisis. Lodge was told to tell the South Vietnamese military officers that:
[The] US would find it impossible to continue support GVN militarily and economically unless [the] above steps are taken immediately which we recognize requires [the] removal of the Nhus from the scene. We wish [to] give Diệm reasonable opportunity to remove [the] Nhus, but if he remains obdurate, then we are prepared to accept the obvious implication that we can no longer support Diệm. You may also tell [the] appropriate military commanders [that] we will give them direct support in any interim period of breakdown [of the] central government mechanism.
The cable also informed Lodge of the need to exonerate the ARVN from responsibility of the pagoda raids. It asked Lodge to approve a broadcast by the Voice of America placing the responsibility on Nhu. Lodge was further requested to examine and search for alternative leadership to replace Diệm.
Lodge's response
Lodge replied the next day and endorsed the strong position but proposed to refrain from approaching Diệm to suggest that Nhu be removed. Lodge advocated only stating the US position to the generals, which would effectively encourage the ARVN to stage a coup. Lodge's cable stated:
Believe that [the] chances of Diệm's meeting our demands are virtually nil. At the same time, by making them we give Nhu [a] chance to forestall or block action by [the] military. [The] Risk, we believe, is not worth taking, with Nhu in control [of] combat forces Saigon. Therefore, [we] propose we go straight to [the] Generals with our demands, without informing Diệm. [We] Would tell them [that] we [are] prepared have Diệm without [the] Nhus but it is in effect up to them whether to keep him. . . . Request immediate modification instructions.
"Agree to modification proposed," Ball and Hillsman assented.
Infighting
The decision to authorize the cable prompted significant infighting in the Kennedy administration, which began on a Monday morning meeting at the White House on August 26. Kennedy was met with angry comments by US Secretary of State Dean Rusk, McNamara, McCone, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Maxwell Taylor, all of whom denied authorizing the cable. Kennedy was reported to have said, "My God! My government's coming apart".
Taylor felt insulted by the final line of the cable, which asserted that only the "minimum essential people" had seen its contents. During an acrimonious exchange at a midday meeting, he condemned the cable as an "egregious end run" by an anti-Diệm faction. Hilsman rebutted Taylor by asserting that Kennedy and representatives of departments and agencies had approved the message. Years afterward, Taylor declared:
The anti-Diệm group centered in State [department] had taken advantage of the absence of the principal officials to get out instructions which would never have been approved as written under normal circumstances.
Taylor claimed that the message was reflective of Forrestal and Hilsman's "well-known compulsion" to remove Diem and accused them of pulling "a fast one".
Kennedy could no longer stand the arguing among his officials and shouted, "This shit has got to stop!" Kennedy was angry at Forrestal and Harriman, Forrestal for what Kennedy deemed to be incompetence and Harriman for indiscretion. When Kennedy angrily criticised Forrestal for proceeding without gaining the explicit approval of McCone, Forrestal offered to resign. Kennedy acerbically replied, "You're not worth firing. You owe me something, so you stick around".
In the end, despite the bitter disagreement, the cable was not retracted. Ball refused to back down and maintained that "the evil influence of the Nhus" overrode all other factors. Ball later described Diệm as "an offense to America" and said that his government should not tolerate "such brutality and crass disregard of world sensitivities". However, he also admitted that he did not know much about the leading figures in South Vietnam.