1964 South Vietnamese Coup - First Moves

First Moves

About a month before Minh's junta was overthrown, Khanh was approached by one of the principal tacticians in the removal of Diem, General Do Mau. A colonel at the time of the previous coup, Mau had been head of military security under Diem. Although he did not explicitly command troops, Mau had a thorough knowledge of the backgrounds of most of the senior ARVN officers and their strengths and weaknesses. This had allowed him to help engineer the previous coup. The MRC respected Mau, but their fears about his shrewdness led them to place him in the relatively powerless post of Minister of Information. Mau's closest aides were posted further away from any real power in an attempt to fragment his networks of influence. Mau began to search for officers to replace the junta, searching for exiles in Cambodia and France as well as those who had returned to Vietnam after the overthrow of Diem. The most important link in Mau's plan was Colonel Nguyen Chanh Thi, the former paratroop commander who had fled to Cambodia in the wake of the failed 1960 coup attempt against Diem. Mau persuaded the junta to install Thi as Khanh's deputy in I Corps. He tricked the junta into doing so by reasoning that as Khanh had largely been responsible for putting down the 1960 revolt, Thi would be an ideal mechanism for keeping Khanh in check, claiming that the two would be implacably opposed to one another. Privately, Mau predicted that Thi would be a bridge between him in Saigon and Khanh in Hue. He was correct in thinking that the 1960 conflict would be irrelevant in the shifting of allegiances over time and that the pair would work together for their current aims of advancement. Mau recruited a second figure in the form of General Tran Thien Khiem, who was one of Khanh's fellow cadets and had worked with Mau during the November coup. Khiem had assisted Diem in putting down the 1960 plot and had since been demoted from being Chief of Staff of the ARVN to the commander of the III Corps that surrounded Saigon. Khiem readily joined the plot and controlled the 5th and 7th Divisions of the ARVN, which were based in Bien Hoa and My Tho north and south of Saigon respectively. This brought the two division commanders subordinate to Khiem into the plot, as long as they would obey his orders. Khiem, Khanh and Mau kept in touch surreptitiously on a regular basis, supplementing their forces with an assortment of Marine, Air Force and Special Forces officers. Another was General Duong Van Duc, who had recently returned from exile in Paris and was an assistant to Kim, the chief of the junta's general staff. During this time, the plotters received encouragement from Harkins through their American advisers, something seen as crucial to the plot’s increasing momentum.

Among the notable recruits were several officers who had been prominent Diem loyalists and were then cashiered or demoted soon after Minh's junta took charge. Others loyal to Diem then became fearful that they would soon be removed too. Minh's junta proceeded slowly and gradually, hoping to avoid pre-emptive coups by officers fearing a demotion or sacking. However, their public drive against military corruption deeply worried Diem loyalists who had bad reputations. A CIA report on December 7, 1963, concluded that "however desirable and perhaps even necessary" such a "threatened purge of corrupt elements from the ranks of the military establishment from a long term point of view...in the short term" it could be anticipated to cause a "disruptive effect on the solidarity of the military establishment."

Among those who did join the coup was the chief of the Civil Guard, Duong Ngoc Lam, a Diem loyalist who had recently been promoted from colonel to brigadier general. He was under investigation by the junta for swindling military funds and was readily converted. Another coup participant under investigation for corruption was Major General Le Van Nghiem, who had become commander of the Special Forces following the assassination of Diem loyalist Colonel Le Quang Tung during the 1963 coup. According to a US military intelligence dossier, Nghiem was charged with corruption during his time as II Corps commander under Diem, and was due to be replaced as soon as the junta had settled down. It was noted by CIA reports in January 1964 that Nghiem traveled between Saigon and Hue to liaise between Khanh in the north and Khiem near the capital.

During Minh's brief rule, several changes were made to military units in the capital that played into the hands of Khanh's group. Following the removal of Diem, the protection for incumbent rulers in Saigon also decreased. The Presidential Guard that Diem used to protect Gia Long Palace against coups was dissolved and sent into the countryside, as were units of the ARVN Rangers, which had been kept in the capital for the same purpose. A significant boost to the plotter's scheme came on January 5, when Dinh relinquished command of the III Corps to Khiem following persistent pressure by the US military establishment that he needed to fully concentrate on his work as interior minister. Khiem took over and was now in accord with the subordinate 5th and 7th Division commanders Nguyen Van Thieu and Lam Van Phat, both of whom played a large part in the coup forces. Dinh later reflected that his replacement by Khiem was "a prelude to the coup" while Don said that it gave Khiem a concrete base from which to organize a putsch. Khiem had long been disgruntled with his position in the post-Diem regime, as was Thieu, and had been planning a coup of his own.

As the coup plot began to solidify, Khanh came to the fore of the group. It has been concluded by some analysts that Khiem—who went on to be Khanh's second in command in terms of real power after the coup was successful—was more pre-eminent during the early phases of the planning, but that as a Catholic who had been rapidly promoted by Diem after changing religion, he "did not dare to carry out a coup d'etat himself out of fear that the Buddhists would react strongly against him and accuse him of trying to reestablish the Ngo Regime." Another factor seen as vital in bringing Khanh to the forefront of the coup group was the fact that the US military leadership deemed Khanh more capable than Khiem and equally likely to work in accordance with US interests. Khanh was highly regarded by Harkins, who thought of him as "the strongest of all corps commanders." According to a CIA assessment, Khanh had been "consistently favorable to U.S. programs and advice".