"if the Buddhists want to have another barbecue, I will be glad to supply the gasoline". May 1963 Honolulu conference; covert warfare a major issue At the May 6 Honolulu conference, the decision was made to increase, as the President had been pushing, covert operations against the North. A detailed plan for covert operations, Pacific Command Operations Plan 34A (OPPLAN 34A) went to GEN Taylor, now Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who did not approve it until September 9. Shultz suggests the delay had three aspects: Washington was preoccupied with the Buddhist crisis MACV had no established covert operations force, so even if he approved a plan, there was no one to execute it Taylor, although a distinguished Airborne (paratroopers once being believed special operators) officer, disagreed with Kennedy's emphasis on covert operations, did not have the appropriate resources in the Department of Defense, and he did not believe it was a proper job for soldiers. Diệm, fighting for survival, was not interested It is unclear if Taylor did not believe covert operations should not be attempted at all, or if he regarded it as a CIA mission. If the latter, Kennedy would have been unlikely to support him, given the President's loss of confidence after the Bay of Pigs invasion fiasco. Interim government Diệm was overthrown and killed on November 1. Secretary of State Dean Rusk counseled a delay in meeting with the coup leadership, which had started calling itself the "Revolutionary Committee", to avoid appearance of it being a U.S. coup. Apparently unknown to the U.S., the plotters had negotiated, beforehand, with vice-president Tho, who had been the chief government negotiator in the Buddhist crisis. In the immediate followup of the coup, Diệm's cabinet were told to resign, and there were no reprisals. Tho, however, was negotiating with the committee, especially the most powerful general, Dương Văn Minh knowing that the military leaders wanted him in the new civilian government. Generals Đôn, Chief of Staff, and Lê Văn Kim, his deputy, called at the US Embassy, Saigon, on November 3. Explaining that Minh was, as they spoke, with Tho, they said there would be a two-tiered government structure with a military committee presided over by General Dương Văn Minh overseeing a regular cabinet that would be mostly civilian with Tho as prime minister. On the 4th, ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge and his liaison to the coup