August 24, 1963: Presidential advisers Roger Hilsman, Averell Harriman, and Michael Forrestal draft a telegram to newly appointed Saigon ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge that conditionally authorizes U.S. support of a coup by rebel South Vietnamese generals. President Kennedy, who is in Hyannis Port, endorses the telegram. He soon regrets the hasty policy decision that puts the U.S. government on record in support of a coup.
