Republic of Vietnam, 1964 — military coup attempt
Event Summary
Before dawn on 13 September 1964 Generals Lam Van Phat and Duong Van Duc sent dissident units into Saigon in a coup attempt against the ruling military junta of General Nguyen Khanh in South Vietnam. Phat, recently dismissed as interior minister, and Duc, about to be removed as IV Corps commander, both Catholics pushed out partly under Buddhist pressure, recruited some ten battalions and seized key points, and Phat announced over the radio that Khanh was a traitor to be arrested. But the coup was poorly planned and coordinated and won little support from other generals or the populace.
Khanh evaded capture, and with clear United States backing and the crucial support of the younger officers around air commander Nguyen Cao Ky and General Nguyen Chanh Thi, he rallied loyal forces. The coup collapsed by the next morning without casualties, though the crisis further weakened Khanh and strengthened the rising Young Turk generals.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Datasets agree. At least two of the three reference datasets we check against carry this event, and none of them disagrees about its date or its result.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
81709131964- Albrecht/Koehler/Schutz (CAM) id
CAM-817-1964-09-13-2
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: General Nguyen Khanh survived the coup attempt with U.S. and Young Turk support, though his position was weakened.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
Wikipedia
New York Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →