the US Government. On 26 September 1963, in Saigon, Vietnam, at the invitation of the 5th US Ambassador to the State of Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., P.J. Honey briefed the 8th US Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara. Introduced to McNamara by Lodge as Professor Smith from an American University, P.J. Honey's influence upon McNamara can be seen throughout McNamara's report on his encounter with Honey; an aide to McNamara – William P. Bundy – later reported that he thought that "Smith's" testimony had carried "considerable weight with McNamara" (See footnote 2). Here is a condensed version of what McNamara wrote after his briefing by P.J. Honey: "2. (Ngo Dinh) Diem has aged terribly since 1960. He is slow mentally. ... 4. (Ngo Dinh) Diem would not last 24 hours without (Ngo Dinh) Nhu who handles the bribes and manipulates the power base necessary for his survival. ... 8. ... Only a military coup or an assassination will be effective and one or the other is likely to occur soon. In such circumstances we have a 50% chance of getting something better. ... 14. The American government cannot do anything other than to either publicly support (Ngo Dinh) Diem or keep our mouths shut. If we follow the latter policy, a coup will probably take place within four weeks." By the end of the sixth week after this report was written, both Ngo Dinh Diem and Ngo Dinh Nhu are dead. In 1964 Cornell University invited P.J. Honey as a visiting professor. In 1965 Honey was promoted to Reader in Vietnamese Studies in the University of London, a post he held until 1985. After 1975, when Saigon fell, as the boat people flooded the outside world, his language skills were called upon to brief both officials and refugees from Vietnam. From 1982 to 1985 he was head of the Department of South-East Asia, after which he retired and moved to Devon. In 1991 he remarried, wedding Isabelle Boyer. Published works From the 1950s Honey wrote many articles about Vietnamese language, history, and politics. His major research interest was the communist regime in North Vietnam. His books included: Introduction to Hoàng Văn Chí's From Colonialism to Communism. 1962 Communism in North Vietnam: Its Role in the Sino-Soviet Dispute. Hardcover, Greenwood Press, 1963. (0-8371-6791-4) Genesis of a Tragedy: The Historical Background to the Vietnam War. Hardcover, Benn, 1968. (0-510-27305-X) Voyage to