Gore Vidal Quotes
It is ironic that a nation that has never experienced a coup d'etat should be so obsessed with the idea of conspiracy.
Vidal, Gore. United States: Essays 1952-1992. Random House, 1993.
He had just assumed his post 6 days earlier. At this point he did not have enough knowledge to favor or oppose the regime change, but he did realize that the decision was a serious one and there would be no turning back. Diem was a creature of the Central Intelligence Agency. An anti-Communist Christian in a Buddhist county, the CIA engineered his rise to power, created his political party, provided him with cash to bribe other Vietnamese politicians, and paid for all the propaganda so he would “win” the Presidential elections. However, he abused the Buddhists, was thoroughly corrupt and ran a corrupt administration, but worst of all from the American point of view, he was unable to motivate the South Vietnamese population to fight the Communists. He reached the point where he was more of a liability, and the Central Intelligence Agency engineered a coup d’etat to remove him from power and replace him with a President more to our liking. (See {634540}.)
President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam Diem was a creature of the Central Intelligence Agency. An anti-Communist Christian in a Buddhist county, the CIA engineered his rise to power, created his political party, provided him with cash to bribe other Vietnamese politicians, and paid for all the propaganda so he would “win” the Presidential elections. However, he abused the Buddhists, was thoroughly corrupt and ran a corrupt administration, but worst of all from the American point of view, he was unable to motivate the South Vietnamese population to fight the Communists. He reached the point where he was more of a liability, and the Central Intelligence Agency engineered a coup d’etat to remove him from power and replace him with a President more to our liking. (See {634540}.) Another reason this quotation is important is that it demonstrates the involvement that the Attorney General had with foreign and defense policy. Normally the Attorney General has nothing to do in these areas and is not even in the loop. But Robert F. Kennedy was also the President’s brother, and his advice was sought by President Kennedy on almost all matters. He was probably the most influential attorney general in American history.
1st Earl of Beaconsfield
See {71716}, {59589}, {55885} for more of Lee’s criticisms of Washington.
The CIA had attempted to employ the Mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro, the strongman of Cuba, and Castro found out about it. He then warned that U. S. leaders could be assassinated in retaliation. Although LBJ appointed the Warren Commission to investigate the JFK assassination and the commission concluded that Castro and Cuba had nothing to do with it—Oswald was a gunman acting alone. Johnson privately never believed that but only confided his believes to his closest confidants lest there would be public pressure to retaliate against Cuba and Johnson had no hard proof—just a suspicion.
20th century Africa and South America were particularly good examples.
This statement was made more than 1/2 a year after he was pushed out of his job of WHite House Cheif of Stafff by President Donald Trump
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal was an American writer and public intellectual known for his epigrammatic wit, patrician manner, and polished style of writing. Vidal was openly bisexual and his novels often dealt with LGBT characters, which was unusual at the time. Beyond literature, Vidal was heavily involved in politics. He twice sought office—unsuccessfully—as a Democratic Party candidate, first in 1960 to the United States House of Representatives (for New York), and later in 1982 to the U.S. Senate (for California).
