Lucien Conein

Lucein E. Conein was a U.S. clandestine operations officer working both for the Office of Strategic Services and the Central Intelligence Agency. Anong his many assignments, he was the direct U.S. contact to the 1963 coup against Ngo Dinh Diem.

In the 1945 OSS missions to China and North Vietnam, he had been assigned, as an expert guerilla, fluent in French, and not in sympathy with French colonial policy, both to gather intelligence on French and Japanese positions, and to carry out sabotage in a program called COMORE. Edward Lansdale said "he'd gotten in with some of the French and some of the Vietnamese who were anti-communist in those days . So he was a guy with the long-term memory of things and he was very close to the Foreign Legion and very close to some of the Vietnamese.

1954 Saigon Military Mission
Conein, reporting to Lansdale in the Saigon Military Mission, arrived on July 1, 1945. In August, he went to Hanoi with the assignment of developing a paramilitary organization in the north.

1963 Coup
On July 9, 1963, when John McCone, Director of Central Intelligence briefed Kennedy on a coup being contemplated by the commander of the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam, Tran Van Don, who had discussed it with Conein. Don was repported to have said the generals felt they had to act before the Viet Cong made more propaganda from the Buddhist persecution; Don said that Buddhist leaders did not believe Diem would keep his agreements made in June, and Buddhists were planning more suicides and demonstrations.

In October, Conein "accidentally" met General Don, who tells him that a coup is nearly ready; the corps commander for the Saigon area had not yet committed. They scheduled another meeting for the 5th, at which, with Henry Cabot Lodge approval, Conein met with Gen. Duong Van Minh, the potential coup leader. Minh mentioned three possible plans; one involved assassination. When Conein reported back to Lodge, Lodge asked Washington that Conein "be authorized to say that the U.S. will not thwart a coup, that we are willing to review plans, and that we will continue support to a successor regime."