Ambassador to South Vietnam: Spelling/grammar/punctuation/typographical correction
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===Ambassador to South Vietnam===
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===Ambassador to South Vietnam===
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{{see also|Xa Loi Pagoda raids|Cable 243|Krulak Mendenhall mission|McNamara Taylor mission|Arrest and assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem}}
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{{see also|Xa Loi Pagoda raids|Cable 243|Krulak Mendenhall mission|McNamara Taylor mission|Arrest and assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem}}
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Kennedy appointed Lodge to the position of Ambassador to South Vietnam, which he held from 1963 to 1964. After the [[Battle of Ap Bac]] on 2 January 1963, Kennedy’s confidence in South Vietnam’s President [[Ngô Đình Diệm]] was shaken.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=260-262}} On 8 May 1963, the [[Buddhist crisis]]
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Kennedy appointed Lodge to the position of Ambassador to South Vietnam, which he held from 1963 to 1964. After the [[Battle of Ap Bac]] on 2 January 1963, Kennedy’s confidence in South Vietnam’s President [[Ngô Đình Diệm]] was shaken.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=260-262}} On 8 May 1963, the [[Buddhist crisis]] began when the police in [[Huế|Hue]] fired into a peaceful crowd celebrating Vesak (the birthday of the Buddha) killing nine people, eight of whom were children.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=279}} The killings in Hue provoked widespread outrage by Buddhists, who had long felt discriminated against by the Catholic Diệm, leading to a series of huge nationwide protests organized by the Buddhist clergy.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=279-280}} Kennedy, alarmed by a situation that was swirling out of control, sent a message to Diệm, urging him to apologize for the Hue incident, only to receive the absurd reply that the Hue incident was the work of the [[Viet Cong]].{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=280}} On 7 June 1963, [[Madame Nhu]], the wife of Diem’s younger brother and right-hand man [[Ngô Đình Nhu]], in a press conference accused the United States of being behind the Buddhist protests, a charge that deeply stung Kennedy.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=280}} As the current ambassador, [[Frederick Nolting]], was a partisan of Diệm, Kennedy felt it was time for a new ambassador who would be tough on Diệm in a way that Nolting never could be. Furthermore, Nolting had considered it his duty to silence unfavourable press coverage of Diệm, causing him to become embroiled in a feud with reporters such as [[Neil Sheehan]] of the United Press, [[Malcolm Browne]] of the Associated Press, and [[David Halberstam]] of the ”New York Times”, who all wrote that the Diem regime was corrupt and unpopular.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=296}} The heavy-handed efforts to silence the anti-Diem journalists reflected badly on the Kennedy administration, with the president complaining he was now being criticized for Nolting’s actions. On 27 June 1963, Kennedy named Lodge as his ambassador to South Vietnam.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=280-282}} Lodge had visited Vietnam as a newsman in the 1930s, and though he spoke no Vietnamese, he was fluent in French, a language widely used by the South Vietnamese elite.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=281-282}} More importantly, Kennedy was haunted by the way that the “[[loss of China]]” had badly damaged the Truman administration, and feeling that South Vietnam might likewise now be lost, wanted a well-known Republican politician as his ambassador in South Vietnam to shield him from Republican attacks that he “lost” South Vietnam.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=281-282}}
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Kennedy had chosen Lodge because he knew he would accept.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=217}} The Cabot Lodges were one of the most distinguished Boston Brahmin families with a long history of public service, and that given his pride in his family’s history, Lodge would never turn down an opportunity to serve the United States.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=217}} Lodge for his part was a man of dynamic energy and immense ambition who very much wanted to be president, and believed that if he was successful as an ambassador to an important American ally in the middle of a crisis, that would help his presidential ambitions.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=281-282 & 345}} After losing the 1960 election, Lodge had retired to private life, serving as the director-general of the Atlantic Institute in Paris that served to promote Atlanticism, a role that in political terms had side-lined to the margins of American life.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=217}} When Kennedy asked Lodge if he was willing to serve as an ambassador, Lodge replied: “If you need me, of course, I want to do it”.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=217}} But first, Lodge had to consult his wife and his friend, Eisenhower.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=217-218}} Emily Lodge was very supportive of her husband’s decision while Eisenhower warned against it.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=218}} Eisenhower told Lodge that Kennedy offered Republicans like C. Douglas Dillon and Robert McNamara only the more difficult jobs that might damage their reputations, and was convinced that Kennedy had offered the ambassadorship as a way of ruining his reputation.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=218}} Despite Eisenhower’s advice not to accept the ambassadorship, Lodge told him that he felt it was his patriotic duty to accept, saying that the Cabot Lodges had always served the United States regardless if the president was a Democrat or a Republican, and he was not going to break with his family’s traditions.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=218}}
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Kennedy had chosen Lodge because he knew he would accept.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=217}} The Cabot Lodges were one of the most distinguished Boston Brahmin families with a long history of public service, and that given his pride in his family’s history, Lodge would never turn down an opportunity to serve the United States.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=217}} Lodge for his part was a man of dynamic energy and immense ambition who very much wanted to be president, and believed that if he was successful as an ambassador to an important American ally in the middle of a crisis, that would help his presidential ambitions.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=281-282 & 345}} After losing the 1960 election, Lodge had retired to private life, serving as the director-general of the Atlantic Institute in Paris that served to promote Atlanticism, a role that in political terms had side-lined to the margins of American life.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=217}} When Kennedy asked Lodge if he was willing to serve as an ambassador, Lodge replied: “If you need me, of course, I want to do it”.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=217}} But first, Lodge had to consult his wife and his friend, Eisenhower.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=217-218}} Emily Lodge was very supportive of her husband’s decision while Eisenhower warned against it.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=218}} Eisenhower told Lodge that Kennedy offered Republicans like C. Douglas Dillon and Robert McNamara only the more difficult jobs that might damage their reputations, and was convinced that Kennedy had offered the ambassadorship as a way of ruining his reputation.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=218}} Despite Eisenhower’s advice not to accept the ambassadorship, Lodge told him that he felt it was his patriotic duty to accept, saying that the Cabot Lodges had always served the United States regardless if the president was a Democrat or a Republican, and he was not going to break with his family’s traditions.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=218}}
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On 22 August 1963, Lodge landed in Saigon, a city that was in turmoil with
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On 22 August 1963, Lodge landed in Saigon, a city that was in turmoil with much of the population marching in protests demanding Diem’s resignation as the previous night, Nhu had ordered his Special Forces to raid and sack Buddhist temples all over South Vietnam.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=285-286}} In Saigon, the Xa Loi Temple, the largest Buddhist temple in Saigon, was stormed shortly after midnight by the Special Forces, who proceeded to smash up and loot the temple while arresting 400 monks and nuns.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=285}} The news that the all–Catholic Special Forces had desecrated Buddhist temples and assaulted and sometimes killed monks and nuns outraged the Buddhist majority and noticeably, many of the young people participating in the marches came from the middle and upper-class families that previously formed the bedrock of support for Diem.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=285}} Thrust into the crisis, Lodge received a cable from Kennedy demanding to know what was going on, and in his reply Lodge wrote that Nhu had ordered the raids “probably” with the “full support” of his older brother.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=286}} In his first press conference, Lodge gave a roistering talk about the freedom of the press, earning cheers from the reporters who resented Nolting’s attempts to silence them.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=220}} Many of the journalists described the tall, handsome and urbane Lodge, speaking in an authoritative manner with an upper-class New England accent, as the perfect embodiment of what an American ambassador should be.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=220}} Knowing that Lodge had been sent to Saigon to be tough with Diem, some of the reporters taunted South Vietnamese officials present by saying: “Our new mandarin is going to lick your old mandarin”.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=220}} One of Lodge’s first acts as ambassador was to visit the Agency for International Development (AID) office in Saigon, where two Buddhist monks had taken refuge, and whom he agreed to grant asylum to.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=221}} When Lodge learned that the two monks were vegetarians, following the precepts of the Buddha who proclaimed all killing was immoral, the ambassador ordered the AID workers to bring them only vegetables and fruits.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=221}}
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Ever since July 1963, a group of senior South Vietnamese generals had been in contact with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), asking for American support for a coup d’état. Lodge advised caution, saying a coup would be a “shot in the dark”.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=286}} On 26 August, Lodge arrived at the [[Gia Long Palace]] to present his credentials to President Diem.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=288}} As Lodge spoke no Vietnamese and Diem no English, they talked in French. Lodge, a patrician and wealthy scion of a distinguished Boston Brahmin family, had a very poor working relationship with Diem, an equally patrician and wealthy scion of a distinguished mandarin family as both men were too used to having others defer to them to accept an equal.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=288}} Lodge gave Diem a list of reforms to carry out such as his dismissing Nhu; silencing his abrasive and bombastic wife, Madame Nhu; bring to trial the officials responsible for the massacre in Hue on 8 May; and provide for greater religious tolerance, all of which were anathema to him.{{sfn|Jacobs|2006|p=157-158}} Lodge later told the journalist [[Stanley Karnow]] in an interview about his first meeting with Diem: <blockquote>”I could see a cloud pass across his face when I suggested that he get rid of Nhu and improve his government. He absolutely refused to discuss any of the topics that President Kennedy had instructed me to raise, and that frankly jolted me. He looked up at the ceiling and talked about irrelevant subjects. I thought it was deplorable.”{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=288-289}} </blockquote> In an attempt to pressure Diem, Lodge had the Vietnamese channel of the Voice of America radio station run a program absolving the South Vietnamese Army of any responsibility for the raids on the Buddhist temples, stating the raids were the work only of the Special Forces, which were another branch of the armed forces.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=288}} Kennedy believed that the principal problem was not Diem, but Nhu, who had emerged as the leader of a hardline, ultra-Catholic faction that was spoiling for a fight with the Buddhists. At one point, to get Nhu out of South Vietnam, a plan emerged to offer Nhu (who fancied himself an intellectual, being very committed to a Catholic philosophy called Personalism) a professorship of philosophy at Harvard, which however was foiled when the Harvard professor of economics serving with the Kennedy administration, [[John Kenneth Galbraith]], warned that Nhu’s murky writings on his Personalist philosophy would not make the grade at Harvard.{{sfn|Young|1990|p=99}}
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Ever since July 1963, a group of senior South Vietnamese generals had been in contact with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), asking for American support for a coup d’état. Lodge advised caution, saying a coup would be a “shot in the dark”.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=286}} On 26 August, Lodge arrived at the [[Gia Long Palace]] to present his credentials to President Diem.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=288}} As Lodge spoke no Vietnamese and Diem no English, they talked in French. Lodge, a patrician and wealthy scion of a distinguished Boston Brahmin family, had a very poor working relationship with Diem, an equally patrician and wealthy scion of a distinguished mandarin family as both men were too used to having others defer to them to accept an equal.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=288}} Lodge gave Diem a list of reforms to carry out such as his dismissing Nhu; silencing his abrasive and bombastic wife, Madame Nhu; bring to trial the officials responsible for the massacre in Hue on 8 May; and provide for greater religious tolerance, all of which were anathema to him.{{sfn|Jacobs|2006|p=157-158}} Lodge later told the journalist [[Stanley Karnow]] in an interview about his first meeting with Diem: <blockquote>”I could see a cloud pass across his face when I suggested that he get rid of Nhu and improve his government. He absolutely refused to discuss any of the topics that President Kennedy had instructed me to raise, and that frankly jolted me. He looked up at the ceiling and talked about irrelevant subjects. I thought it was deplorable.”{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=288-289}} </blockquote> In an attempt to pressure Diem, Lodge had the Vietnamese channel of the Voice of America radio station run a program absolving the South Vietnamese Army of any responsibility for the raids on the Buddhist temples, stating the raids were the work only of the Special Forces, which were another branch of the armed forces.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=288}} Kennedy believed that the principal problem was not Diem, but Nhu, who had emerged as the leader of a hardline, ultra-Catholic faction that was spoiling for a fight with the Buddhists. At one point, to get Nhu out of South Vietnam, a plan emerged to offer Nhu (who fancied himself an intellectual, being very committed to a Catholic philosophy called Personalism) a professorship of philosophy at Harvard, which however was foiled when the Harvard professor of economics serving with the Kennedy administration, [[John Kenneth Galbraith]], warned that Nhu’s murky writings on his Personalist philosophy would not make the grade at Harvard.{{sfn|Young|1990|p=99}}
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