Book offers theory about 1963 coup

Published 12:00 am Friday, October 3, 2003

The book is due out next month: Triangle Of Death: The Shocking Truth About The Role Of South Vietnam And The French Mafia In The Assassi-nation Of JFK!

The authors are Brad O'Leary and L. E. Seymour.

Fox News White House correspondent James Rosen writes in The Weekly Standard that the Kennedy White House did not merely tolerate or encourage the murder of its ally South Vietna-mese President Ngo Dinh Diem on November 2, 1963, but organized and executed it.

Diem was born in 1901 into an aristocratic Roman Catholic family. (John F. Kennedy was also a Roman Catholic.) During and after World War II, Diem opposed both French colonial rule and the communist-led national independence movement in Vietnam. He became prime minister of South Vietnam in 1954 just as the defeated (by the communist Viet Minh) French left. The peace accord called for elections in 1956 and unification of a divided Vietnam. With American support, Diem cancelled the election knowing that Ho Chi Minh - the nationalist, communist leader who defeated the French in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu - would have easily won the presidency.

From the start Diem was an embarrassment to the USA. He persecuted Buddist monks unmercifully leading many of them to barbeque themselves - pour gasoline on and set themselves afire. Some ninety percent of the Republic of Vietnam people were Buddhists. Less than 10 percent were Roman Catholic. On November 2, 1963, in a coup d'etat supposedly organized and staged by South Vietnamese military generals, Diem was murdered and South Vietnam then flounded in a complete state of anarchy.

Now, I unknowingly participated in a bit of this complex web as did other pilots and crew chiefs of my helicopter unit, the 120th Aviation Company. In 1963 we lived on the large Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon, Vietnam. I arrived in Vietnam in September, 1963. From the time I arrived there were rumors of a coup d'etat - but only rumors. About two weeks prior to November 2, 1963, we were called upon to fly an unusual mission. We flew north of Saigon and ferried elite South Vietnamese troops from the country side to Tan Son Nhut Air Base. This was very unusual because we normally took South Vietnamese troops from Saigon to the jungles and rice paddies.

Being curious I asked a South Vietnamese lieutenant who spoke broken English why his unit was going to Saigon. He said "Diem" and drew his finger across his neck so as to indicate a head being chopped off.

Well, Diem's head wasn't chopped off on November 2, 1963, but he was murdered and was dead regardless of the method. For years the powers that be in Washington, D.C. denied U. S. involvement, but members of the 120th Aviation Company knew better because American helicopters flew South Vietnam troops into Saigon to help stage the coup d'etat.

Only twenty days later on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Supposedly, Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin.

However, Triangle authors present compelling evidence that President Kennedy was killed as the result of a mass conspiracy between the CIA installed government of South Vietnam, the French global heroin syndicate and the New Orleans mafia.

Should be an interesting read. Makes sense to me.