Vietnam. The authoritarian South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem and his powerful brother are assassinated in a coup approved by US President John Kennedy. Johnson considers it a mistake, knowing Diem personally and appreciating his political skills. In Johnson’s opinion, he should have been given more time to reform the country. Johnson would later lament that during his years as Kennedy’s deputy, Johnson was not a co-pilot of anything, being almost always left on the sidelines by those he called “the Catholics”—namely, in addition to President John Kennedy, his brother Bob, John Cormack, and Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield.
