The December 1964 coup took place before dawn on December 19, 1964, when the ruling military junta of South Vietnam led by General Nguyễn Khánh dissolved the High National Council. The HNC was an unelected legislative-style civilian advisory body they had created at the request of the United States to give a veneer of civilian rule. The younger officers, led by I Corps commander General N Guyan Chánh Thi, disbanded the body and arrested some of its members along with other politicians. The Young Turks disliked a group of older officers who had been in high leadership positions but were now in powerless posts.
About December 1964 South Vietnamese coup in brief
The December 1964 South Vietnamese coup took place before dawn on December 19, 1964, when the ruling military junta of South Vietnam led by General Nguyễn Khánh dissolved the High National Council. The HNC was an unelected legislative-style civilian advisory body they had created at the request of the United States to give a veneer of civilian rule. The dissolution dismayed the Americans, particularly the ambassador, Maxwell D. Taylor, who engaged in an angry war of words with various generals and threatened aid cuts. The genesis of the removal of the H NC was a power struggle within the ruling junta. The younger officers, led by I Corps commander General N Guyan Chánh Thi, disbanded the body and arrested some of its members along with other politicians. The Young Turks disliked a group of older officers who had been in high leadership positions but were now in powerless posts, and wanted to sideline them completely. They decided to hide their political motives by introducing a policy to compulsorily retire all general officers with more than 25 years of service. In September 1964, Nguyên Khánh and the senior officers in his junta created a semblance of civilianRule. On September 26, Nguyèn Khành deposed his rival General Dơng Văn Minh—who he had deposed in a coup in January 1964—and took charge of the government. This came after lobbying by American officials led by Ambassador Maxwell Taylor—in charge of Vietnam, as they placed great value in the appearance of civilian legitimacy, which they saw as vital to building a popular base for any government.
The next day, Khánnh met Taylor and the Vietnamese leader made oblique accusations that the U.S. wanted a puppet ally; he also criticized Taylor for his manner the previous day. When Taylor told Khánanh he had lost confidence in his leadership, Taylor was threatened with expulsion, to which he responded with threats of total aid cuts, but Khananh refused to leave Vietnam. The Americans were forced to back down on their insistence that the HNC be restored and Taylor’s threats to cut off aid were restored despite Saigon’s defiance. In the short-term future, Saigon did not carry out Taylor’s threat to restore aid, but in the long-term, the HND was restored and Saigon was able to hold on to its independence from “foreign manipulation”; the Vietnam War was continuing to be fought and won with the help of the United Safeguards of the United S.A. The coup was a success for the Young Turks, who had rallied the fragile leadership for at least at the time of the coup, but it was a setback for the Vietnamese Army. The Young Turks had been saved from an earlier coup attempt in September 1964 by the intervention of some younger generals dubbed the Young Turkey, and needed to satisfy their wishes to stay in power.
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This page is based on the article December 1964 South Vietnamese coup published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 16, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
