1963
The worsening situation in South Vietnam during 1963 prompted measures to evacuate Americans in the event of a general emergency. Saigon street demonstrations by Buddhists and other Vietnamese disaffected with the Diem government occurred throughout the summer. The public self-immolation of several Buddhist monks drew world attention, as did the government's heavy-handed counteractions.

March 29 - Ngo Dinh Diem launches his successful campaign against the Binh Xuyen and the religious sects.US Ambassador Collins advises Washington to consider a change of leadership. Bao Dai, from Paris accuses President Diem of "selling the blood of Vietnamese". Diem is advised by the CIA to conduct a plebiscite and let the people decide. Ngo Dinh Diem is warned by the Edward Lansdale(CIA) "not to rig the elections", "... I don't want to suddenly read that you have won by 99.99%" Video - Riots in Saigon- - Duration 0:22 secs

January 1963
2 January - Battle of Ap Bac. ARVN forces with 51 US advisers are defeated by the 514th Viet Cong Battalion(400 men). With superior numbers and firepower 5 US helicopters are destroyed and 11 damaged. 65 ARVN are killed with 3 US Advisers.
This battle showed the unwillingness of ARVN troops to fight even when the advantage was on their side. This was mainly a result of Ngo Dinh Diem's policy of reprimanding senior officers who suffered heavy casualties in their units. Reports from the battle causes an angry outcry in the United States where the calls for reform by Diem are wanted. Diem ignores the controversy and allows events to continue as usual.
30 January - Adm. Harry D. Felt, Pacific commander, predicted today that the American-backed Government of Vietnam would win its war against communist guerrillas within three years. --The New York Times
Spring 1963: . . . barring greatly increased resupply and reinforcement of the Viet Cong by infiltration, the military phase of the war can be virtually won in 1963. --DIA
Spring 1963: We are winning, this we know. General Harkin tells us so. In the delta, things are rough. In the mountains, mighty tough. But we're winning, this we know. General Harkin tells us so. If you doubt that this is true, McNamara says so too.

AATTV Commander's Diary for the Period 1 Jan 1963 - 30 Jan 1963 937.33 Kb

Document Index

February 1963
AATTV Commander's Diary for the Period 1 Feb 1963 - 28 Feb 1963 851.25 Kb

March 1963
USAF - OPERATION PHI HOA II....Vietnamese paratroopers jump from U.S. Air Force C-123 transports in the initial air assault wave during Operation Phi Hoa II, a tactical air-ground envelopment strike during March 1963 against the Viet Cong in the Tay Ninh Province of South Viet Nam.

AATTV Commander's Diary for the Period 1 March 1963 - 30 March 1963 997.46 Kb

April 1963:
[At the Secretary of Defence's conference in Honolulu] General Harkin said the war would be over by Christmas.
April 1963: Briefing to President Kennedy by R.G.K Thompson (British Anti-Guerilla Expert)
10 April 1963: Summary Record of the 511th National Security Council Meeting Washington, April 10, 1963, noon
19 April 1963: Michael V. Forrestal memorandum for the record on April 1963 White House Presidential meeting on Laos
19 April 1963: CIA (Colby) Memo - Presidential Meeting on Laos

AATTV Commander's Diary for the Period 1 April 1963 - 29 April 1963 848.93 Kb

Document Index

May 1963

6 May - COMUSMACV General Paul Harkins tells Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara: "... we are continuing to make progress in the war".
Robert McNamara directs the military to prepare a plan for the phasing US forces beginning with the withdrawal of 1,000 advisers by years end.
6 May 1963: A Pentagon spokesman said today that "the corner has definitely been turned" toward victory in South Vietnam and Defence officials are hopeful that the 12,000 man U.S. force in Vietnam could be reduced in one to three years. --The New York Times
8  May - South Vietnamese troops, enforcing a ban on the Buddhist multi coloured flag, fire upon 20,000 Buddhists at Hue, killing nine and wounding fourteen. President Diem blames the incident on the Viet Cong. . The attack begins a series of intensifying protests by Buddhists against the government.
11 May - Admiral Harry D. Felt, Commander and Chief of U.S. Pacific forces, discusses what must happen for the U.S. to successfully withdraw the bulk of its forces from Vietnam by the end of 1965
23 May - Australian Advisor Ted Serong expressed doubt about the value of the Strategic Hamlet Program at a US counter Insurgency Group meeting in Washington on May 23, 1963, he drew a “violent challenge” from US Marine General Victor ‘Brute’ Krulak. Captain Barry Peterson’s work with raising an anti-communist Montagnard force in the central highlands between 1962 and 1964 highlighted another problem – South Vietnamese officials sometimes found sustained success by a foreigner difficult to accept.

AATTV Commander's Diary for the Period 3 May 1963 - 31 May 1963 AWM95, 1/2/12 - 3 - 31 May 1963, Narrative, Annexes (577.78Kb PDF file)

Document Index

June 1963

1 June - 36448 Sgt W.F. Hacking AATTV 30 RAINF - Killed accidentally. First Australian Casualty of the War. SAIGON, SOUTH VIETNAM. 1963-06. FUNERAL PARTY FOR SERGEANT W. F. HACKING, WHO WAS KILLED ON ACTIVE SERVICE WITH THE AUSTRALIAN ARMY TRAINING TEAM VIETNAM (AATTV). FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: SERGEANT R. WEIR; CAPTAIN C. MCDONOUGH; STAFF SERGEANT R. PHILLIPS; WARRANT OFFICER CLASS 2 J. VEZGOFF; CAPTAIN K. STICPEWITCH; MAJOR L. FITZPATRICK. (DONOR: AATTV ASSOCIATION)

June 3 - Buddhist monks protest  in Hue and the government responds by sending out troops. Nine Buddhists are killed. Rioting spreads from Hue to Saigon. Diems government blamed the incident on the Vietcong and never admitted responsibility. The Buddhist leadership quickly organized demonstrations that eventually led to seven monks burning themselves to death.After the riots in Hue, June 11 - Thích Quảng Đức burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on June 11, 1963. Thích Quảng Đức was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by South Vietnam's Ngô Đình Diệm administration. Video - Riots in Saigon - Video Duration: 04:15 mins

AATTV Commander's Diary for the Period 6 June 1963 - 29 June 1963 AWM95, 1/2/13 - 6 - 29 June 1963, Narrative, Annexes (704.62Kb PDF file)

Jul 1963
AATTV Commander's Diary for the Period 1 July 1963 - 31 July 1963 (1.23Mb PDF file)

August 1963
5 August - A second Buddhist monk commits suicide by fire in protest against Diem’s administration. Madame Ngo Nhu, the wife of Diem's brother, refers to the immolations as "barbecues".
The US Joint Chiefs of Staff have delayed the withdrawal plan until the current crisis has subsided.
When the political turmoil in the capital reached a peak at the end of August 1963, the Seventh Fleet deployed the Amphibious Ready Group and the Marine Special Landing Force to a point off Vung Tau, where they prepared to take out the 4,600 American non-combatants in the Saigon area. Although the crisis in the capital abated, the relief was only temporary.
21 August - Diem's brother Nhu orders an elite military unit to raid the Buddhists pagodas in the early hours. Several hundred are arrested(1,400). President Kennedy denounces the attacks.
22 August - Henry Cabot Lodge Jr, the new U.S. Ambassador, arrives in Saigon
23 August - Two South Vietnamese Generals contact the US Embassy in Saigon and 'feel out' what the US attitude would be in the event of a coup.
24 August - The US take this opportunity to move against the Diem Regime. 
A cable is drafted to the new US Ambassador in Saigon, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr: " ....Ambassador and country team should urgently examine all possible alternative leadership and make plans as to how we might bring about Diem's replacement if this should become necessary". US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Averell Harriman approves the cable.President Kennedy agrees provided his senior advisers concur. They concur and the cable is sent. General Maxwel Taylor the President's military adviser is shocked by the news knowing that this represented a major change in Vietnam policy. Later he is to state that the cable would never have been approved had not the anti-Diem faction in Washington made what he called an "egregious end run" during the absence of high-level officials". Bobby Kennedy recalls later that the President (his brother) regretted the decision and viewed the cable as a "major mistake". Cable 243. The authors of the Aug 24 cable are widely criticised in Washington for encouraging a coup. However, neither the White House or the State Department rescind the instructions to Lodge
25 August - Ambassador Lodge in Saigon having seen the cable as an order from the President Kennedy to encourage the South Vietnamese military to launch a coup, calls a meeting to consider how to organise a coup and puts the CIA in charge of the operation. The CIA contact General Tran Thiem and General Nguyen Khanh and tell them that the Nghu's (Diem's brother and sister-in-law) have to go and leave the question of retaining Diem up to them.
27 August - CIA Vietnam expert, William Colby, describes the situation in Saigon as quiet and said unrest had not spread to the countryside.
29 August - General Duong Van Minh tells the CIA's Lucien Conein that the U.S. should suspend aid to Diem's regime as a sign of U.S. support for the coup.The U.S. embassy had been aware of the coup planning, and the Central Intelligence Agency contact, Lucien Conein, between the U.S. embassy and the coup planners told them that the U.S. would not intervene to stop it. Conein did provide funds to the coup leaders.
31 August - [Secretary of State Dean Rusk added] that he believes we have good proof that we have been winning the war, particularly the contrast between the first six months of 1962 and the first six months of 1963. --Unidentified NSC principal.
31 August - The following telegram, written by Secretary of State Dean Rusk and read and approved by President Kennedy, instructs American Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge on how to bring pressure to bear on President Diem. Repressive actions on the part of the South Vietnamese government would have provided a perfect cover for U.S. withdrawal, had Kennedy wanted to withdraw. Instead he pressured Diem to reform, and noted that the U.S. "will support Vietnamese effort to change government."
31 August - This telegram, transmitted immediately after a companion telegram instructing Ambassador Lodge on dealing with the Diem government, laments the way in which the policies of the government of South Vietnam were harming the war effort both in South Vietnam, and internationally.
General Duong Van Minh unable to get sufficient forces to Saigon, calls off the coup.

AATTV Commander Diary for the Period 1 Feb 1963 - 28 Feb 1963

Document Index

September 1963
September: - This unclassified, undated cable, sent in early September 1963 to the American Embassy in Saigon, provides two examples of how the actions of the South Vietnamese government were undermining support for the war effort. Had Kennedy wished to withdraw from Vietnam, these repressive actions would have provided the perfect cover. But as another elegram shows, Kennedy pressured the Diem government, and was willing to accept a coup to end the repression.
September 3: The Battle of Go Cong was a small-scale battle of the Vietnam War. It took place on September 3, 1963, after the General Staff of the NLF called for "another Ap Bac" on South Vietnamese forces.The Viet Cong won the battle after inflicted heavy casualties on the ARVN.
9 September - President at a news conference, when asked about the domino theory states:  "...I beleive it. China is so large, looms so high just beyond the frontiers, that if South Vietnam went, it would not only give them an improved geographical position for a guerrilla assault on Malaya, but would also give the impression that the wave of the future in Southeast Asia was China and the Communists. So I believe it ".
TIM WEINER, "Kennedy Had Plan for Early Vietnam Exit," New York Times, December 23, 1997
10 September - General Krulak and Joseph Mendenhall return from a 4-day assessment trip to Vietnam. Krulack reports that the shooting war is going well and that the political crisis has had little impact. Disagreeing, Mendenhall argues that disaffection with Diem's regime threatens the breakdown of the government. After receiving the contradictory reports President Kennedy asks "You two did visit the same country, didn't you?".
17 September - President Kennedy sends Ambassador Lodge in Saigon, a 'conciliatory' cable outlining reforms under which the United States would accept continuing rule by Diem.
23 September - Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara and General Maxwell D. Taylor visit Vietnam on fact finding and discussions to assess the situation and report back to President Kennedy.
29 September - Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara and General Maxwell D. Taylormeet with Diem and express concern over South Vietnam's political unrest and that the unrest and repression it had triggered endangered the war effort and the US support. Therefore the repression must stop and the unrest be resolved. Diem flatly rejects these assertions blaming the press for attacking his government. A report is drafted for the President on the visit.

AATTV Commander Diary for the Period 1 Feb 1963 - 28 Feb 1963

Document Index

October 1963
2 October - White House Statement-
After visiting Vietnam to further assess the military and political situation, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and General Maxwell D. Taylor confirm the progress of the war. However, they recommend that some aid be suspended (but without formal announcement) to put pressure on Diem to reform. They also advise against a coup but state that alternative leadership should be identified and cultivated.

2 October -NSC Meeting 519 - Between President Kennedy, , Robert McNamara and Maxwell D. Taylor They brief the President on the trip to South Vietnam(SVN) and discuss the removal of 1,000 advisers from SVN. The President convenes the National Security Council on the matters contained in the report and stresses that the US needed to find effective ways of persuading Diem to change the political atmosphere in Siagon. The President endorses the withdrawal of 1,000 advisers from Vietnam by December 31, 1963.

5 October - The President states his approval for the section of the report relating to coup planning. In essence is says, "Our policy should be to seek urgently to identify and build contacts with an alternative leadership if and when it appears". The CIA in Saigon are cabled instructions to that effect. President Kennedy tells Ambassador Lodge, the U.S. doesn’t want to stimulate a coup against Diem, but does not wish to thwart one either.
In a meeting with the CIA's Lucien Conein, General Duong Van Minh ask for clarification of the U.S. position with respect to a change of government in South Vietnam.

Passers-by stop to watch as flames envelope a young Buddhist monk, Saigon, October 5th, 1963. The man sits impassively in the central market square, he has set himself on fire performing a ritual suicide in protest against governmental anti-Buddhist policies. Despite the shock of the Western public, the practice of Vietnamese monks self-immolating was not uncommon. Instances of self-immolations in Vietnam had been recorded for centuries, usually carried out to honor Gautama Buddha. The most recently recorded case had been in North Vietnam in 1950. The French colonial authorities had tried to eradicate the practice after their conquest of Vietnam in the 19th century, but had not been totally successful. They did manage to prevent one monk from setting fire to himself in Hue in the 1920s, but he managed to starve himself to death instead.

25 October - Ambassador Lodge cables Washington that plotting amongst SVN Generals  was now far advanced, "we should not thwart the coup" .
27 October - Diem meets with Ambassador Lodge, but is unwilling to discuss changes to his administration . Lodge tells Washington that he is powerless to stop the coup, the matter is entirely in Vietnamese hands.

AATTV Commander Diary for the Period 1 Feb 1963 - 28 Feb 1963

Document Index

November 1963
1 November - With the coup that would topple his government and result in his death having begun, Ngo Dinh Diem calls U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge and asks what the view of the U.S. government is.
General Duong Van Minh was the second highest ranking general at the time, and he led the coup to overthrow Diệm on November 1 of 1963. In a letter that United States Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., wrote to Secretary of State Dean Rusk:

"This is for you, the President, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and whoever else you think needs to know. It is definitely not a subject which should get into the cable traffic ... General Nguyễn Khánh told me on May 25, that when President Ngô Đình Diệm was shot he had in his hand a briefcase containing 1 million U.S. currency 'in the highest denominations.' He said that General Dương Văn Minh took possession of the briefcase and has never yet surrendered it. He added that General Minh at the same time had taken possession of 40 kilograms of gold bars ... I advised General Khánh not to make this public lest it shake public confidence here in all generals. He hopes that General Minh will make his exit quietly."

2 November- South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem is assassinated. Diem and his brother are reported to have "committed suicide". Diem and his brother were placed in an APC with their hands tied behind their backs for transport to Joint General Staff HQ in Saigon. When the carriers arrived at the HQ both Diem and his brother Nhu were dead. Both had been shot and Nhu had been stabbed several times. Diem's killing shocked the US President. Diem is Assassinated. - Video Duration: 4:15 mins

In response to the overthrow of the Diem government, U.S. naval forces again concentrated off South Vietnam and prepared to ferry evacuees by helicopter from Saigon to transport them by boat from the nearby Vung Tau Peninsula. When the political unrest in the capital once again quickly subsided, the fleet steamed from the South Vietnamese coast and resumed normal operations.
6 November -General Duong Van Minh emerges as the new President and takes over the leadership of South Vietnam.
6 November - Cable - Henry Cabot Lodge, U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam, Kennedy expresses the hope that the new government will be better able to defend itself against the Communist insurgency. Kennedy tells Lodge that "we must all intensify our efforts to help it deal with its many hard problems."
8 November - The U.S. recognizes the new GVN .
13 November - Cable outlines plans for Honolulu Conference on the Vietnam situation
13 November - Kennedy's Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, apparently feared that a New York Times editorial would be interpreted by the South Vietnamese government as signalling U.S. willingness to negotiate a settlement to the conflict with the Communists. Rusk insists that the conflict will be ended when the North Vietnamese cease their subversion, and that U.S. forces will be withdrawn because their mission has been accomplished.
14 November - President Kennedy, when asked; "Are we going to give up in Vietnam ?", states, "The most important program of course, is our national security, but I don't want the United States to have to put troops there".
16 November - In Kennedy's last press conference, the issue of Vietnam got considerable attention. The President made it clear that his key objective was to bring Americans home, but also to maintain South Vietnam as a "free and independent country." He expressed the hope that the recent coup would lead to "an increased effort in the war."
20 November - Honolulu Conference on Vietnam - There is no doubt that U.S. policy makers, including President Kennedy, wanted to reduce U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and hoped that the U.S. could be have the majority of troops removed by the end of 1965. The issue, however, is whether the Kennedy administration was intent on withdrawal regardless of the consequences, or whether the withdrawal was contingent on the South Vietnamese ability to defend themselves against communist agression.
NATIONAL SECURITY ACTION MEMORANDUM NO.263
NATIONAL SECURITY ACTION MEMORANDUM NO.273a, November 21, 1963
22 November: The Battle of Hiep Hoa was a minor battle of the Vietnam War. On the night of November 22, 1963, an estimated 500 Viet Cong soldiers overrun the Hiep Hoa Special Forces Camp, resulting in four American personnel MIA. It was the first CIDG camp to be overrun during the war. Isaac Camacho, one of the four missing Americans, would later become the first American to escape from a VC POW camp.
22 November - .President Kennedy is assassinated at Dallas, Texas. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson becomes President. Johnson announced that the US will continue support of South Vietnam. By the end of 1963, 15,000 US advisors are serving in Vietnam; the US gave $500m in aid to Vietnam that year.

22 November - .President Kennedy is assassinated at Dallas, Texas. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson becomes President. Kennedy is Assassinated. - Video Duration: 2:29 mins

Robert McNamara reflects in his book, 'In Retrospect'; "Having reviewed the record in detail, and with the advantage of hindsight, I think it highly probable that, had President Kennedy lived, he would have pulled us out of Vietnam. He would have concluded that the South Vietnamese were incapable of defending themselves, and that Siagon's grave political weakness made it unwise to offset the limitations of of South Vietnamese forces by sending US combat troops on a large scale".
24 November - President Lyndon B. Johnson makes it clear that he wants to win the war and wanted priority given to military operations, over 'so called' social reforms.
NATIONAL SECURITY ACTION MEMORANDUM NO.273, November 26, 1963, NSAM 273 maked a radical change in U.S. policy as compared to NATIONAL SECURITY ACTION MEMORANDUM NO.263. NSAM 263 was supposedly a document that showed John Kennedy's resolve to extract the U.S. from Vietnam, while NSAM 273 is a document that signalled Lyndon Johnson's resolve to commit the U.S. to a massive intervention.
A policy was to emerge, "to assist the people and Government of South Vietnam to win their contest against directed and supported conspiracy' through training support and without the application of overt US military force".
The Battle of Chan La was a battle of the Vietnam War. The assault by Viet Cong forces was one in a series of attacks since the battle of Ap Bac back in January.The Viet Cong attacked what it called an "extermination camp" in Chan La, Ca Mau Province. The ARVN defenders suffered more than four-hundred casualties. The US lost 18 aircraft.

AATTV Commander Diary for the Period 1 Feb 1963 - 28 Feb 1963

Document Index

December 1963
6 December - A USOM report on Long An province in the Mekong Delta describes the near collapse of the Strategic Hamlet program.
13 December - Reports from the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) state that the Viet Cong had not scored spectacular gains over the past year, however they had sustained and even improved their combat capabilities.
21 December- Robert McNamara reports to the President Lyndon B. Johnson; "The situation is very disturbing, current trends, unless reversed in the next 2-3 months, will lead to ".
US Advisers total 16,300 - US KIA 78. Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, Memorandum for the President, "Vietnam Situation," 21 December 1963
Throughout 1963 and 1964, detachments from SEAL Team 1 (the Pacific Fleet unit) deployed to South Vietnam and instructed American advisors, South Vietnamese "frogmen," or LDNN (Lien Doi Nguoi Nhai), and Coastal Force Biet Hai commandos in related skills.
General Tran Van Don, South Vietnamese Army;
"I feel that we shall achieve victory in 1964" .

AATTV Commander Diary for the Period 1 Feb 1963 - 28 Feb 1963

Document Index

In 1963 Air Mobile operations in Vietnam were so revolutionary the US Army made this introductory film to explain the concept and to introduce the UH-1A Armed Helicopter, the UH-1B Armed Helicopter and the H-21 Troop Carrier. Part B shows how an actual strike operation - including some surprises along the way.. Video Duration 23:51 mins

Copyright © 1997 AUSVETS
Last modified: December 1, 2008