Lucien Emile "Lou" Conein was a French-American citizen, noted U.S. Army officer and OSS/CIA operative. Conein is best known for his instrumental role in the November 1963 coup against Ngô Đình Diệm and Diệm's assassination by serving as Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.'s liaison officer with the coup plotters and delivering $42,000 of the known cash disbursements.

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. was an American diplomat and politician who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate and served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations in the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1960, he was the Republican nominee for Vice President on a ticket with Richard Nixon, who had served two terms as Eisenhower's vice president. The Republican ticket narrowly lost to Democrats John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson; Lodge later served as a diplomat in the administrations of Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Gerald Ford and was a presidential contender in 1964.