Ignoring Nosey Charlie

Abstract

This chapter surveys transformations in the international system from the summer of 1962 to Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963. In Vietnam, the Diem regime’s bloody repression of Buddhists and student protesters in mid-1963 sparked American revulsion and widespread distaste for the Kennedy administration’s wayward client state. As the situation in South Vietnam grew increasingly tumultuous, American embassy telegraphs out of Saigon revealed a profound distrust of French motives. The administration fixated on the notion that Roger Lalouette, the French ambassador, was plotting with the president’s brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, to arrange a cease-fire with the Viet Cong and potentially secure a reunification deal with the North in exchange for the removal of American forces. Lalouette was indeed working with Nhu, but he was trying to hammer out a deal that would give the Kennedy administration a “peace with honor” and an opportunity to exit the country before the situation spiraled out of control. The Kennedy administration was unable to accept that French efforts to foster North-South dialogue were the logical byproduct of a long-standing regional peace policy, interpreting Lalouette’s actions instead as part of a sinister Gaullist conspiracy to drive Americans out of Southeast Asia.