Washington, DC (AP) -- Newly released White House tapes from the Vietnam War era show President Kennedy wrestling over the fate of South Vietnam's strongman in a situation similar to the one President Obama is dealing with today in Afghanistan.
Audio tapes and transcripts of four days of White House meetings in 1963 have been released this week by the JFK Presidental Library in Boston. They show uncertainty over what steps to take to try to bolster a Saigon government that was riddled with corruption and out of touch with citizns as it battled Communist insurgents.
Forty-six years ago this week, Vietnamese generals overthrew the government of President Ngo Dinh Diem (goh dihn dee-EHM'), killing him and his brother.
The State Department had given a green light to the generals' coup but later Kennedy questioned it. The tapes don't show if Kennedy tried to stop it. Kennedy library archivist Maura Porter says the assassinations in Saigon were not discussed in the White House meetings on the tapes.
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