Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume I, Vietnam, 1964

20. Memorandum From the Deputy Director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (Denney) to the Acting Secretary of State¹

Washington, January 29, 1964—9:15 p.m.

SUBJECT

• The Coup in Saigon

According to our latest information the situation in Saigon is as follows:

A coup has taken place under the leadership of General Khanh, Commander of I Corps, which has the support of the generals in command of the other three corps areas (Generals Tri, II Corps; Khiem, III Corps; and Co, IV Corps) as well as other important officers. The coup is clearly directed at removing Premier Tho.² It appears that changes are also intended in the Military Revolutionary Council, the chairman and leading members of which, Generals Minh, Kim, and Dinh, are in custody. Minh will reportedly be offered a figurehead position if he agrees to align himself with Khanh’s group.

We have no reports of bloodshed or armed resistance.³ Such troop movements as have been reported appear to be in support of the coup.

General Khanh has expressed a desire to see the Ambassador later today (it is now Thursday, Saigon time).⁴ Khanh was reportedly to go on the air to announce the new government at 7 a.m. Saigon time but we have no indication that he actually did so.⁵ A late bulletin from Saigon states that Khanh and his group tentatively plan to institute military government with Khanh as Prime Minister and Khiem as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.⁶

We have had some recent indications of coup plotting in Saigon, but none of the available material gives us a clear picture of the motives and intentions of Khanh’s group. One or more of the following considerations were probably involved in the decision to stage a coup.

1. Growing concern with Minh-Tho leadership. There has been growing concern that Minh and his collaborators have moved too slowly in restoring the momentum of the counterinsurgency effort. Tho has been a particular target of criticism, many Vietnamese feeling that he is too identified with the former Diem regime, that he has appointed personal followers to key posts, and that generally he is incapable of providing dynamic and efficient civilian leadership. Minh, however, has resisted pressure to remove him.

2. Personal ambitions. A number of generals, particularly Khanh and Khiem, feel that they were not assigned sufficiently important positions since the ouster of the Diem regime. Khanh, for example, was in effect head of the armed forces under the Diem regime, and Khiem was Chief of Staff of the Joint General Staff for several months last year.

3. Concern over possible pro-neutralist or pro-French tendencies. Although General Minh and the other leading members of the MRC have shown no evidence of neutralist sentiments, during the past several weeks their French background has been commented upon with concern by Generals Khiem and Khanh, as well as by other military officers. Two arrests made during the coup, those of General Xuan and Colonel Lam, indicate a possible effort to counter neutralist activities. General Xuan, head of the National Police, was earlier reported to be planning a pro-neutralist, pro-French coup;⁷ Colonel Lam has just returned from France and is suspected by some Vietnamese of being a French agent.

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Vietnam Country File, Vol. II, Memos and Misc. Secret; Noforn. Rusk was en route from Japan. (Ibid., Rusk Appointment Book)
2. Lodge reported to the Department in telegram 1432 from Saigon, January 30, 3:15 a.m. Saigon time, that Khanh had informed him through Wilson that a coup would take place at 4 a.m. and that “Tho must go.” The telegram was received at the Department at 2:32 p.m. on June 29 and relayed to the White House at 2:40 p.m. (Department of State, Central Files, POL 15 VIET S)
3. At 6:25 a.m., when the coup was in progress and General Minh’s and Kim’s houses surrounded by rebel troops, Lodge instructed Wilson to tell Khanh and Khiem that he strongly advised that all possible efforts be made to avoid bloodshed. (Telegram 1437 from Saigon, January 30; ibid.; published in Declassified Documents, 1975, 213C)
4. January 30; reported in telegram 1437 from Saigon.
5. At 4:45 p.m. on January 30, Radio Saigon broadcast a resolution in the name of the Military Revolutionary Council dissolving the Executive Committee set up after the November 1, 1963, coup and naming General Khanh as the Council’s new chairman. (Telegram 1446 from Saigon, January 30; Department of State, HarVan Files, Vietnam Coup Two, January 30, 1964)
6. Reported in telegram 1442 from Saigon, January 30, 9:14 a.m. Also reported in this telegram, which was received at the Department at 8:56 a.m., January 29, was a conversation between Khanh and Wilson in which Khanh stated that he began planning for the coup 5 days earlier because he feared the corps commanders were to be arrested by pro-French neutralist elements. Because of his political inexperience, Khanh promised to rely heavily for political assistance” on Lodge.
7. See Document 18.