The Tears of Autumn - Charles McCarry [111]
Foley got to his feet, went to the bar, and made himself another drink. He took his glass to the window and stood there, looking into the quiet street.
“The truth is plain enough,” Christopher said. “Before I go into it, I want to ask you a question.”
Trumbull said, “Ask away.”
“What exactly was the role of the U.S. government in the coup that overthrew Ngo Dinh Diem?”
Trumbull stared for a moment at Foley’s rigid back. Then he said to Patchen, “Tell him.”
“I think you already know, Paul,” Patchen said. “In simple terms, we countenanced it. We knew it was being planned. We offered advice. We provided support. We encouraged the plot. We welcomed the results.”
“Who exactly is ‘we’?” Christopher asked.
“It was a White House project. They handled it, for the most part, with their staff and their communications. The foreign-policy establishment ran errands. There was no plan to kill Diem and Nhu.”
“No plan? What did you people imagine was going to happen to them?”
“There’s no point in arguing that now, Paul. What happened, happened.”
J. D. Trumbull had been gazing idly at Dennis Foley’s back. Now he turned his eyes, set in nests of wrinkles, on Christopher.
“Old Dennis told me you were upset about Diem and Nhu and how they died,” he said. “I think that speaks well of you, Paul. But it reminds me of what Harry Truman said about the bleeding hearts who kept on weeping and gnashing their teeth and crying shame and damnation after we dropped the A-Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. President Truman said he heard a lot about all those dead Japs, but damn little about the drowned American sailors at the bottom of Pearl Harbor. You’ve got to keep your eye on the whole balance sheet.”
“You just got through reading the balance sheet, Mr. Trumbull.”
“Well, maybe. What you’ve given us in this report is just bare bones, Paul. I’d still like to hear it from your own lips, if you think you’re ready to talk to us now.”
“This seems redundant,” Christopher said. “The facts are in my report. All the rest—how I operated and why, what people looked like when I spoke to them, how much money it cost —is background noise. If it helps you to understand, I can tell you all that.”
“Do that,” Trumbull said. “I’m just an old country lawyer. I’d like to hear how you fellows do the things you do.”
At that, Patchen smiled at last and picked up his glass of scotch. Trumbull had been sipping his own whiskey for some moments, and he rattled the ice in his empty glass and gave Patchen an inquiring look. Patchen fetched him another drink.
2
Christopher began to speak.
“The report deals with the main question—who assassinated President Kennedy and why—and with two incidental pieces of information,” he said. “These treat with the murder of Oswald, and with the possibility that heroin and other drugs will be used as weapons of war against U.S. troops in Vietnam. The Oswald murder—execution would be a better word—and the heroin just popped up in the course of the search for information about the assassination. There is no doubt about the truth of the matter where the assassinations of Kennedy and Oswald are concerned. As to the heroin, Patchen and the outfit can pursue it. It’s more important than the other two questions, because you can still do something about it. It’s intelligence. The rest of what I reported is just explanation.”
Trumbull leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I’m learning,” he said. “You fellows are a cold bunch.”
“I’ll deal first with the Kennedy assassination,” Christopher said. “This is the way it happened: Ngo Dinh Diem and Ngo Dinh Nhu, his brother, believed for some time that the Kennedy Administration wanted to overthrow their regime and replace it with a more pliant one. The Ngos knew that a coup was being plotted—they knew everything that went on in Saigon. There is collateral intelligence in the files on these two points. I reported some of it myself while the Ngo brothers were still alive.
“Around the beginning of September, Diem and Nhu gave up all hope that they could survive. They were realists; they knew