Lodge described the coup as a " remarkably able performance in all respects " and was disappointed that officials in Washington were not as enthusiastic as he had hoped . He was gratified and proud in spite of a cable requesting an explanation for the deaths of the Ngô brothers " that have caused shock here " . General Taylor noted that upon hearing of the death of Diệm , Kennedy rushed from the room where he was meeting with his advisers with " a look of shock and dismay ... which I had never seen before " . Arthur Schlesinger recalled that Kennedy was " sombre and shaken " . Kennedy penned in a memo that the assassination was " particularly abhorrent " and blamed himself for approving Cable 243 which authorized Lodge to explore coup options in the wake of Nhu 's attacks on the Buddhist pagodas . Kennedy 's reaction did not draw sympathy from his entire administration , some of whom believed he should not have supported the coup and that coups were uncontrollable , making assassinations a possibility . His national security adviser Michael Forrestal said that the deaths " troubled him deeply " " as a moral and religious matter "
attacks on the Buddhist pagodas
Xá Lợi Pagoda raids
Reaction to the 1963 South Vietnamese coup