In South Vietnam's capital city of Saigon, all night the shells have fallen on or near the presidential palace,

where President Nodin Jem and his advisor brother, Nodin Yu, refused to surrender.

It's November 1, 1963, and a coup is underway.

It's not the first time dissident generals in the South Vietnamese army have tried to topple the DM regime,

but this time, with American help, they'll succeed.

From Public Radio International, this is LBJ's War, the story of how one of the most gifted political figures of his time lost his way in a war he didn't start and didn't end.

I'm your host David Brown, and this is episode one.

Monday, November 4th, 1963.

That's the voice of President Kennedy, dictating a private morning-after memo for the White House files.

At this point, Lyndon Johnson is still the vice president, but as we'll see, the coup will cast a long and fateful shadow over the Johnson presidency.

Over the weekend, the coup in Saigon took place.

It culminated three months of a conversation about a coup, conversation which divided the

government here and in Saigon. In Washington, the division is more or less between the State

Department and the Pentagon. State, under Dean Rusk, in favor of supporting the coup.

The military under Robert McNamara, opposed.

And if you're wondering where Vice President Johnson figures in this debate,

the answer is, at this point, he doesn't.

The problem for Johnson was by 1963, he had been more or less cut out of Vietnam policy and of foreign affairs in general by Kennedy.

That's Dartmouth College History Professor Ed Miller, who we recruited to help us parse this story.

Kennedy really didn't trust Johnson, and so therefore Johnson didn't have a major role in most of the meetings that took place on Vietnam in 1963.

JFK's dictated report is characteristically low-key, but the story's taken an ugly and unexpected turn.

The coup that Kennedy expected, simply to topple Diem and his brother from power has ended with

...