Oral history transcript, Frederick Flott, interview 1 (I), 7/22/1984, by Michael L. Gillette

Going to work for Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge; Paul Kattenburg; Ambassador Frederick Nolting; Flott’s job duties; conditions at the American Embassy in Vietnam upon Lodge’s arrival; interaction with the press; traveling from Washington D.C. to Vietnam for the first time; Victor Krulak-Joseph Mendenhall visit; Jocko [John] Richardson and John Mecklin; Rufus Phillips; General Paul Harkins; Mike Dunn; Bill Trueheart; security for Ambassador Lodge; Lou Conein; coup of 1963 and meeting Diem an hour before the coup; an offer to move Diem out of the country to safety; visiting the Presidential palace the day after the coup; flying with the Nhu children to Rome; JFK assassination; post-Diem conditions in Saigon; Georges Perruche; an explosion at the American Embassy in Saigon.