Washington was cautiously optimistic or was it optimistically cautious?about the military coup in South Viet Nam. Everyone agreed that it was, indeed, a pity that President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu had to get murdered in the process. After the U.S. conferred diplomatic recognition on the generals' government, Dean Rusk said: "We think the new regime will be able to resolve the internal problems and unify the people."
It had better work out that way for, as the Kennedy Administration knows so well, failure of the U.S.-encouraged generals' junta to...
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