Coup
On the night of January 29, Mau and Khiem alerted the rebel troops to assume their positions around Saigon. These included many of those used in the first coup: armored cars and tanks and some elements from the 5th and 7th Divisions, two airborne battalions and one Marine battalion and an assortment of Special Forces, Ranger and Civil Guard units. A number of American officers and embassy officials were alerted to be in their officers at 02:00. Lodge was kept fully informed throughout the night. As the time approached, Khanh donned his paratrooper uniform and headed to the military headquarters at Tan Son Nhut, where he saw that the compound was empty apart from a few guards. When he telephoned Khiem, he found that his co-conspirator had overslept after having forgotten to set his alarm clock. Despite this, by daybreak, Khanh had taken over the government without a shot being fired.
Khanh used the coup to enact retribution against Minh’s leading generals. Khanh had Kim, Don, Dinh and Xuan arrested, claiming that they were part of a neutralist plot with the French. Khanh noted that they had served in the Vietnamese National Army in the early 1950s, under the French colonial administration, although he did as well. Lan was also arrested as a suspected French agent. The junta members were caught totally unaware. Minh, Don and Kim woke up to find hostile forces surrounding their houses and thought it to be a quixotic stunt by some disgruntled young officers.
Tho was apprehended during the coup and put under house arrest while the plotters consolidated their grip on power; he was then removed from the political scene. General Nguyen Van Vy, who had returned from France after Diem's deposal to serve as Deputy Chief of Staff for training, was put under house arrest before being released within a day of the coup's success.
Colonel Nghia showed his mixed feelings about the junta with the selective use of his armored troops. They supported Khanh's move against Dinh, Don, Kim and Xuan, but tried to protect Minh by using tanks to shield Minh's house from Lam's Civil Guard units, which were also used to arrest the four other leading junta members. Although Minh was taken away, this was claimed to be a protective measure to shield him from some of Khanh's more hawkish supporters, and he was never formally arrested and taken into detention. Throughout the morning the deposed officers were taken one by one to JGS headquarters by the plotters. The generals were then flown to My Khe beach, near Da Nang.
Wilson accompanied Khanh and reported the coup's progress at to Lodge roughly twice an hour. The US ambassador then relayed the information promptly to Washington. For 90 minutes up until 06:00, Wilson reported that matters were on track. During the early stages of the coup, the Airborne Brigade command post was used as the headquarters of the rebels, before they set up at JGS headquarters after matters were stabilized. At 06:10 Khiem arrived at the Airborne Brigade command post to join Khanh and 35 minutes later the IV Corps commander, General Nguyen Huu Co came to join the coup. Paratroopers and infantry cut off the roads into the city to prevent any would-be loyalist units from storming into the capital, but no such attempt was made. In total, 3,000 troops from eight battalions were involved in the coup and tanks were brought in from My Tho to the south.
General Nguyen Van Chuan was invited to the coup headquarters by Khiem after the takeover was complete. He recalled that there were 15–20 Vietnamese officers present along with Khanh and Khiem, and that many had been placed on leave without pay or removed after Diem's overthrow. Chuan said that Khanh chaired a meeting, and claimed that Minh's government was "neutralist, pro-Communist and pro-French", and incompetent. He said that the plotters "didn't know what to call the coup d'etat to make it sound all right; it was only a while later that they thought of the term 'rectification'". Wilson was present at the meeting and telephoned Harkins "every five minutes", and Khanh left the meeting early and left Khiem in charge, saying that he had to meet Harkins. During the meeting, Thieu and Mau turned up by 08:40 and the atmosphere of the meeting was likened to a triumphant election campaign function on vote-counting night. Before leaving and telling the others he was meeting Harkins, Khanh had announced to the officers in the room that he would be heavily dependent on US advice and support.
Chuan said that the obvious characteristic of the plotters assembled at the JGS headquarters was "the heavy involvement of the Harkins group...this action was not being carried out independently... was directed by foreigners." He concluded that Minh had been overthrown by the Americans for opposing their plan to expand the war and the US military presence. Bui Diem, the future South Vietnamese Ambassador to the US, reflected years later that many people knew of the coup and the lack of action on the part of American officials was a sure indication of encouragement for Khanh.
During the pre-dawn coup and throughout the day, there was little reaction by the public who went about their daily life as though nothing had happened. Many appeared unaware that a coup had occurred while they were still sleeping. There was no disruption to road traffic or the media, and although flights were halted in the morning, they resumed in the afternoon. There were plans to enact a curfew but this was abandoned.
Read more about this topic: 1964 South Vietnamese Coup