December 1964 South Vietnamese coup Before dawn on December 19 , 1964 , the ruling military junta of South Vietnam led by General Nguyen Khanh dissolved the High National Council ( HNC ) and arrested some of its members . The HNC was an unelected legislative - style civilian advisory body they had created at the request of the United States — South Vietnam ' s main sponsor — to give a veneer of civilian rule . This dismayed the Americans , particularly the ambassador , Maxwell D . Taylor , who engaged in an angry war of words with various generals including Khanh and threatened aid cuts . They were unable to do anything about the " fait accompli " that had been handed to them , because they strongly desired to win the Vietnam War and needed to support the Army of the Republic of Vietnam . Instead , Taylor ' s searing verbal attacks were counterproductive as they galvanized the Vietnamese officers around the embattled Khanh . At the time , Khanh ' s leadership was under threat from his fellow generals , as well as Taylor , who had fallen out with him and was seeking his removal . The genesis of the removal of the HNC was a power struggle within the ruling junta . Khanh , who had been saved from an earlier coup attempt in September 1964 by the intervention of some younger generals dubbed the Young Turks , was indebted to them and needed to satisfy their wishes to stay in power . 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 . As a result , they decided to hide their political motives by introducing a policy to compulsorily retire all general officers with more than 25 years of service . The chief of state Phan Khac Suu , an elderly figure appointed by the military to give a semblance of civilian rule , did not want to sign the decree without the agreement of the HNC , which mostly consisted of old men . The HNC recommended against the new policy , and the younger officers , led by I Corps commander General Nguyen Chanh Thi and Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky , disbanded the body and arrested some of its members along with other politicians . As a result of this event , Taylor summoned Khanh to his office . Khanh sent Thi , Ky , the commander of the Republic of Vietnam Navy Admiral Chung Tan Cang and IV Corps commander General Nguyen Van Thieu , and after beginning with " Do all of you understand English ? " , Taylor harshly berated them and threatened cuts in aid . While angered by Taylor ' s manner , the officers defended themselves in a restrained way . The next day Khanh met Taylor and the Vietnamese leader made oblique accusations that the US wanted a puppet ally ; he also criticized Taylor for his manner the previous day . When Taylor told Khanh he had lost confidence in his leadership , Taylor was threatened with expulsion , to which he responded with threats of total aid cuts . Later however , Khanh said he would leave Vietnam along with some other generals he named , and during a phone conversation , asked Taylor to help with travel arrangements . He then asked Taylor to repeat the names of the would - be exiles for confirmation , and Taylor complied , not knowing that Khanh was taping the dialogue . Khanh then showed the tape to his colleagues out of context , misleading them into thinking that Taylor wanted them expelled from their own country to raise the prestige of his embattled leadership . Over the next few days , Khanh embarked on a media offensive , criticizing US policy repeatedly and decrying what he saw as an undue influence and infringement on Vietnamese sovereignty , explicitly condemning Taylor and declaring the nation ' s independence from " foreign manipulation " . Khanh and the Young Turks began preparations to expel Taylor before changing their minds ; however , Khanh ' s misleading tactics had rallied the Young Turks around his fragile leadership for at least the short - term future . The Americans were forced to back down on their insistence that the HNC be restored and did not carry through on Taylor ' s threats to cut off aid , despite Saigon ' s defiance . Background . On September 26 , 1964 , Nguyen Khanh and the senior officers in his military junta created a semblance of civilian rule by forming the High National Council ( HNC ) , an appointed advisory body akin to a legislature . This came after lobbying by American officials — led by Ambassador Maxwell Taylor — in 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 . Khanh put his rival General Duong Van Minh — who he had deposed in a January 1964 coup — in charge of picking the 17 members of the HNC , and Minh filled it with figures sympathetic to him . The HNC then made a resolution to recommend a political model with a powerful head of state , which would likely be Minh , given their sympathy towards him . Khanh did not want his rival taking power , so he and the Americans convinced the HNC to dilute the powers of the position to make it unappealing to Minh , who was then sent on an overseas diplomatic goodwill tour to remove him from the political scene . However , Minh was back in South Vietnam after a few months and the power balance in the junta was still fragile . The HNC , which had representatives from a wide range of social groups , selected the aging civilian politician Phan Khac Suu as chief of state , and Suu chose Tran Van Huong as prime minister , a position that had greater power . However , Khanh and the senior generals retained the real power . At the same time , a group of Catholic officers were trying to replace Khanh with their co - religionist , General Nguyen Van Thieu , and the incumbent was under pressure . During 1964 , South Vietnam had suffered a succession of setbacks on the battlefield , in part due to disunity in the military and a focus on coup plotting . In the meantime , both Saigon and Washington were planning a large - scale bombing campaign against North Vietnam in an attempt to deter communist aggression , but were waiting for stability in the south before starting the air strikes . Compulsory retirement policy . Khanh and a group of younger officers called the Young Turks — led by chief of the Vietnam Air Force , Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky , commander of I Corps General Nguyen Chanh Thi and IV Corps commander Thieu — wanted to forcibly retire officers with more than 25 years of service , as they thought them to be lethargic and ineffective , but most importantly , rivals for power . Most of the older officers had more experience under the Vietnamese National Army during the French colonial era , and some of the younger men saw them as too detached from the modern situation . The Young Turks had quite a lot of influence over Khanh , as Thi and Ky had intervened militarily to save him from a coup attempt in September by Generals Lam Van Phat and Duong Van Duc . One of the specific and unspoken aims of this proposed policy was to remove Generals Minh , Tran Van Don , Le Van Kim and Mai Huu Xuan from the military . This quartet , along with Ton That Dinh , had been the leading members of a junta that overthrew President Ngo Dinh Diem in November 1963 . The generals who deposed Diem did not trust Khanh because of his habit of changing sides , and Khanh was angered by their snubs . Khanh put Don , Kim , Xuan and Dinh under arrest in Da Lat after his January coup , claiming they were about to make a deal with the communists , a falsehood to cover up his motive of revenge . These four thus became known as the " Da Lat Generals " . Khanh later released them and placed them into meaningless desk jobs with no work to do , although they were still being paid . Khanh did this as he thought the Young Turks had become too powerful and he hoped to use the Da Lat Generals as a counterweight . All this time , Minh had been allowed to continue as a figurehead chief of state due to his popularity , but Khanh was intent on sidelining him too . The Young Turks were fully aware of Khanh ' s motives for rehabilitating the Da Lat Generals , and wanted to marginalize them . In public , Khanh and the Young Turks claimed the Da Lat Generals and Minh , who had returned from his overseas tour , had been making plots with the Buddhist activists to regain power . Suu ' s signature was required to pass the ruling , but he referred the matter to the HNC to get their opinion . The HNC turned down the request . There was speculation the HNC did this as many of them were old , and therefore did not appreciate the generals ' negativity towards seniors — some South Vietnamese mockingly called the HNC the High National Museum . On December 19 , a Saturday , the generals moved to dissolve the HNC by arresting some of its members . The HNC had already ceased to function in any meaningful way , as only 9 of the 17 members were still occasionally attending its meetings , and few on a regular basis . Dissolution of the High National Council . Before dawn on December 19 , there were troop movements in the capital as the junta deposed the civilians . The operation was commanded by Thi — who had travelled into Saigon from I Corps in the far north — and Ky . The national police , which was under the control of the army , moved through the streets , arresting five HNC members , other politicians and student leaders they deemed to be an obstacle to their aims . Minh and the other aging generals were arrested and flown to Pleiku , a central highlands town in a Montagnard area , while other officers were simply imprisoned in Saigon . The junta ' s forces also arrested around 100 members of the National Salvation Council ( NSC ) of Le Khac Quyen ; the NSC was a new party active in central Vietnam in the I Corps region and opposed to the expansion of the war . It was aligned with Thi and the Buddhist activist monk Thich Tri Quang , but as Thi was active in the purge , it was believed he had fallen out with Quyen . At this point , Khanh had not spoken up and allowed the impression that the moves had been made without his consultation or against his will , and an attempt on the part of other officers to take power themselves . Huong had actually privately endorsed the dissolution of the HNC , as both he and the Young Turks thought it would allow them to gain more power and influence over Khanh . The infighting exasperated Taylor , the US Ambassador to South Vietnam and former Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff , who felt the disputes between the junta ' s senior officers were derailing the war effort . Only a few days earlier , General William Westmoreland — the commander of US forces in Vietnam — had invited him and the Vietnamese generals home to a dinner . There Taylor asked for an end to the persistent changes in leadership , and Khanh and his men assured him of stability . Westmoreland warned that persistent instability would turn the American political class and public against Saigon , as they would deem it useless to support such a regime . Taylor initially cabled the State Department back in the US to state a " naked military fist " had " crumpled [ the ] carefully woven fabric of civilian government " , and that the arrest of the civilians would be " immediately and understandably interpreted by all the world as another military coup , setting back all that had been accomplished " since the formation of the HNC and the creation of a veneer of civilian rule . He went on to say that an " inescapable conclusion that if a group of military officers could issue decisions abolishing one of the three fundamental organs of the governmental structure . . . and carry out military arrests of civilians , that group of military officers has clearly set themselves above and beyond the structure of government in Vietnam . " Taylor bemoaned the fact that the generals had shown no second thoughts about ignoring US policy recommendations , particularly in disregarding his explicit advice to maintain stable civilian rule , at least at a nominal level . Taylor issued a thinly disguised threat to cut aid , releasing a public statement saying Washington might reconsider its military funding if " the fabric of legal government " was not reinstated . Angry confrontations with Maxwell Taylor . Taylor summoned Khanh to his office , but the Vietnamese leader sent Thi , Ky , Thieu and Admiral Chung Tan Cang , the commander of the Republic of Vietnam Navy , instead . Taylor asked the four to sit down and then said " Do all of you understand English ? " The ambassador then angrily denounced the officers . According to Stanley Karnow , Taylor " launched into a tirade , scolding them as if he were still superintendent of West Point and they a group of cadets caught cheating " . He said " I told you all clearly at General Westmoreland ' s dinner we Americans were tired of coups . Apparently I wasted my words . " He decried the removal of the HNC as " totally illegal " , and said it had " destroyed the government - making process " , and that " I made it clear that all the military plans I know you would like to carry out are dependent on government stability " , something he felt had been lost with the dismissal of the HNC . He said " . . . you have made a real mess . We cannot carry you forever if you do things like this . " Taylor believed the HNC to be an essential part of the government , because as an American , he believed civilian legitimacy was a must . For him , the HNC was a necessary step in a progression towards an elected civilian legislature , which he regarded as critical for national and military morale . The historian Mark Moyar regarded Taylor ' s intervention as unnecessary , and noted that there had been many instances of fierce fighting in Vietnamese history despite the complete absence of democracy throughout the nation ' s history . Taylor also reminded them of an earlier meeting where he had discussed an American plan to expand the war , increase funding for the South Vietnamese military , and to go on the offensive against the communists at the request of Khanh . Taylor said the Americans would not be able to help Saigon pursue their desired military strategy if the political machinations did not stop . Taylor said that if the military did not transfer some powers or advisory capacity back to the HNC or another civilian institution , aid would be withheld , and some planned military operations against the Ho Chi Minh trail — which was being used to infiltrate communists into the south — would be suspended . The four officers were taken aback by Taylor ' s searing words and felt they had been humiliated . A decade after the incident , Ky described Taylor as " the sort of man who addressed people rather than talked to them " , referencing the confrontation . Karnow said " For the sake of their own pride , they [ the Vietnamese officers ] resented being treated in ways that reminded them of their almost total dependence on an alien power . How could they preserve a sense of sovereignty when Taylor , striving to push them into ' getting things done ' , behaved like a viceroy ? " However , Thi also took a perverse pleasure in riling Taylor . He was seen by a CIA officer soon after , grinning . When asked why he was happy , Thi said " Because this is one of the happiest days of my life . . . Today I told the American ambassador that he could not dictate to us . " Nevertheless , Taylor ' s conduct had rankled the officers , stirring their latent sense of nationalism and anti - Americanism ; Khanh would exploit this to strengthen his fragile position in the junta . Khanh ' s quartet of delegates responded to Taylor in a circumlocutory way . They remained calm and did not resort to direct confrontation . Ky said the change was necessary , as " the political situation is worse than it ever was under Diem " . Ky explained that the situation mandated the dissolution of the council , saying " We know you want stability , but you cannot have stability until you have Unity . " He claimed some HNC members were disseminating coup rumors and creating doubt among the population , and that " both military and civilian leaders regard the presence of these people in the High National Council as divisive of the Armed Forces due to their influence " . Ky further accused some of the HNC members of being communist sympathizers and cowards who wanted to stop the military from strengthening . He promised to explain the decision at a media conference and vowed that he and his colleagues would return to purely military roles in the near future . Thieu added " I do not see how our action has hurt the Huong government . . . Huong now has the full support of the Army and has no worries from the High National Council , which we have eliminated . " Cang said " It seems . . . we are being treated as though we were guilty . What we did was only for the good of the country . " When Taylor said the moves detracted from Huong and Suu ' s powers , the officers disagreed and said they supported the pair in full and that Huong had approved of the HNC ' s dissolution . Taylor was unimpressed by the reassurances , concluding with " I don ' t know whether we will continue to support you after this . . . You people have broken a lot of dishes and now we have to see how we can straighten out this mess . " Taylor ' s deputy , U . Alexis Johnson felt the discussion had become counterproductive and was increasing the problem . He suggested that should the generals feel unwilling to alter their position immediately , they should refrain from actions that would preclude a later change of heart . He proposed they merely announce the removal of certain members of the HNC rather than the dissolution of the entire body , hoping the HNC could be reconstituted with figures they deemed to be more satisfactory . The four officers did not give a clear answer to Johnson ' s idea , indicating they had not made a concrete decision by saying " the door is not closed " . Taylor meets Huong . When Taylor met Huong afterwards , he urged the prime minister to reject the dissolution of the HNC . Huong said he and Suu had not been notified of the moves , but agreed to step in and take over the body ' s work . Taylor nevertheless asked Huong to publicly condemn the coup and call on the army to release those arrested . Huong also said he would be willing to reorganize his administration to meet the wishes of the military , and that retaining their support was essential in keeping a civilian government functional . Taylor said the US did not agree with military rule as a principle , and might reduce aid , but Huong was unmoved and said the Vietnamese people " take a more sentimental than legalistic approach " and that the existence of civilian procedure and the HNC was much less pressing than the " moral prestige of the leaders " . American military advisers and intelligence officers who liaised with senior junta members found they were unconcerned with any possible legal ramifications of their actions . Later , despite Taylor ' s pleas to keep the dissolution of the HNC secret in the hope it would be reversed , Ky , Thi , Thieu and Cang called a media conference , where they maintained the HNC had been dissolved in the nation ' s best interests . The quartet vowed to stand firm and not renege on their decision . They also proclaimed their ongoing confidence for Suu and Huong . Two days later , Khanh went public in support of the Young Turks ' coup against the HNC , condemning the advisory body and asserting the army ' s right to intervene if " disputes and differences create a situation favorable to the common enemies : Communism and colonialism " . The generals announced they had formed a new body called the Armed Forces Council ( AFC ) to succeed the current Military Revolutionary Council , and referred to the dissolution of the HNC as Decision No . 1 of the AFC . The American policymakers viewed the public moves by the Vietnamese generals as " throwing down the gauntlet " and challenging their counsel . Taylor meets Khanh . The day after the Young Turks ' press conference , Taylor privately met Khanh at the latter ' s office . He complained about the dissolution of the HNC and said it did not accord with the values of the alliance and the loyalty Washington expected of Saigon . He added that the US could not cooperate with two governments at once : a military regime that held power while a civilian body took the responsibility . Khanh testily replied that Vietnam was not a satellite of the US and compared the situation to the US support of the successful coup against Diem , saying that loyalty was meant to be reciprocated . Khanh had hinted that he felt the Americans were about to have him deposed like Diem , who was then assassinated , but this rankled Taylor , who had argued against the regime change . Taylor then bemoaned Khanh , saying he had lost confidence in the Vietnamese officer , recommending Khanh resign and go into exile . He also said military supplies currently being shipped to Vietnam would be withheld after arriving in Saigon and that American help in planning and advising military operations would be suspended . Khanh bristled and said " You should keep to your place as Ambassador . . . as Ambassador , it is really not appropriate for you to be dealing in this way with the commander - in - chief of the armed forces on a political matter , nor was it appropriate for you to have summoned some of my generals to the Embassy yesterday . " He threatened to expel Taylor , who responded by saying a forced departure would mean the end of US support . However , Khanh later said he was open to the possibility of going abroad and asked Taylor if he thought this would be good for the country , to which the ambassador replied in the affirmative . Khanh also said he took responsibility for his generals ' actions , and expressed regret at what they had done . Khanh then ended the meeting , saying he would think about his future . Later , Khanh phoned Taylor from his office and expressed his desire to resign and go abroad along with several other generals , asking for the Americans to fund the travel costs . He then read Taylor the list of generals for whom arrangements needed to be made , and asked the ambassador to repeat the names for confirmation . Taylor did so , unaware Khanh was taping the dialogue . Afterwards , Khanh played the tape out of context to his colleagues , giving them the impression Taylor was calling for their expulsion from their own country . Khanh then asked his colleagues to participate in a campaign of fomenting anti - American street protests and to give the impression the country did not need Washington ' s aid . A CIA informant reported the recent arguments with Taylor had incensed the volatile Thi so much that he had privately vowed to " blow up everything " and " kill Phan Khac Suu , Tran Van Huong and Nguyen Khanh and put an end to all this . Then we will see what happens . " Public media campaign by Khanh . On the morning of December 22 , as part of his Order of the Day , a regular message to the armed forces over Radio Vietnam , Khanh went back on his promise to leave the country and announced that " We make sacrifices for the country ' s independence and the Vietnamese people ' s liberty , but not to carry out the policy of any foreign country . " He said it was " better to live poor but proud as free citizens of an independent country rather than in ease and shame as slaves of the foreigners and Communists . " Khanh pledged support for both Huong and Suu ' s civilian rule , and condemned colonialism in a thinly veiled reference to the US . Khanh explicitly denounced Taylor in an exclusive interview with Beverly Deepe published in the " New York Herald Tribune " on December 23 , saying " if Taylor did not act more intelligently , Southeast Asia would be lost " and that the US could not expect to succeed by modelling South Vietnam on American norms . Khanh said Taylor and the US would need to be " more practical and not have a dream of having Vietnam be an image of the United States , because the way of life and people are entirely different . " He added that Taylor ' s " attitude during the last 48 hours — as far as my small head is concerned — has been beyond imagination " . Justifying the removal of the HNC , Khanh said they were " exploited by counter - revolutionary elements who placed partisan considerations above the homeland ' s sacred interest . " Khanh also threatened to divulge the content of his discussion with Taylor , saying " One day I hope to tell the Vietnamese people and the American people about this . . . It is a pity because Gen . Taylor is not serving his country well . " Khanh had not divulged that angry discussions had occurred in private , so Deepe was unsure what had happened between Taylor and Khanh to provoke such an outburst . She contacted the US Embassy to ask what the dispute was about . At first , the Americans defended Taylor without referring to what the problem was , stating : " Ambassador Taylor has undertaken no activities which can be considered improper in any way . . . All his activities are designed to serve the best interests of both Vietnam and the United States . " The State Department issued a statement later in the day in more robust terms , saying " Ambassador Taylor has been acting throughout with the full support of the U . S . government . . . a duly constituted government exercising full power . . . without improper interference . . . is the essential condition for the successful prosecution of the effort to defeat the Viet Cong . " The following day , Secretary of State Dean Rusk said aid would have to be cut , as the programs being funded needed an effective government to be useful . Taylor later responded by calling the generals ' actions an " improper interference " into the purview of civilian government . Khanh ' s defiance of Taylor earned him heightened approval among his junta colleagues , as the ambassador ' s actions were seen as an insult to the nation . On the night of December 23 , Khanh convinced his fellow officers to join him in lobbying Huong to declare Taylor " persona non grata " and expel him from South Vietnam . They were confident Huong could not reject them and side with a foreign power at the expense of the military that had installed him , and made preparations to meet him the next day . Khanh also told Huong that if Taylor was not ejected , he and the other generals would hold a media conference and release " detailed accounts " of the ambassador ' s confrontation with the quartet and his " ultimatum to General Khanh " the day after . However , someone in the junta was a CIA informant and reported the incident , allowing American officials to individually lobby the officers to change their stance . At the same time , the Americans informed Huong if Taylor was expelled , US funding would stop . The next day , the generals changed their mind and when they met Huong at his office , only asked him to formally denounce Taylor ' s behavior in his meetings with Khanh and his quartet and to " take appropriate measures to preserve the honor of all the Vietnamese armed forces and to keep national prestige intact " . On December 24 , Khanh issued a declaration of independence from " foreign manipulation " , and condemned " colonialism " , explicitly accusing Taylor of abusing his power . At the time , Khanh was also secretly negotiating with the communists , hoping to put together a peace deal so he could expel the Americans from Vietnam , although this effort did not lead anywhere in the two months before he was forced out of power . For his part , Taylor privately told Americans journalists that Khanh was expressing opposition to the US merely because he knew he had lost Washington ' s confidence . Taylor said Khanh was completely unprincipled and was stirring up anti - American sentiment purely to try to shore up his political prospects , not because he thought US policy was harmful to South Vietnam . The US media were generally very critical of Khanh ' s actions and did not blame Taylor for the disharmony . Peter Grose of " The New York Times " said " It almost seems as if Viet Cong insurgents and the Saigon government conspired to make the United States feel unwelcome . " The " Chicago Tribune " lampooned Khanh ' s junta , calling it a " parody of a government " and saying it would not survive for a week without US support and describing the generals as " remittance men on the United States ' payroll " . However , the " New York Herald Tribune " said it was dangerous to pressure South Vietnam too much , citing the instability that followed the American support for the coup against Diem , who had resisted US advice so often . It said " The issue is not General Khanh versus General Taylor . It is whether the Vietnamese still have the will to exist as an independent state . " The newspaper said if the answer was yes , then both Washington and Saigon would have to look beyond personalities . Angry with Deepe for airing Khanh ' s grievances against him , Taylor invited every other US journalist in Saigon to this private briefing . Taylor gave the journalists his account of the dispute and discussions with the generals , and hoped it would be useful background information for the media , so they would understand what he had done and not reach negative conclusions about his conduct in their writing . Due to the sensitivity of the situation , he asked them to keep the remarks off the record . However , someone at the briefing informed Deepe of what Taylor had said , and she published the remarks on December 25 under the title " Taylor Rips Mask Off Khanh " . In this article , comments were also attributed to Taylor describing some South Vietnamese officers as borderline " nuts " and accusing many generals of staying in Saigon and allowing their junior officers to run the war as they saw fit . Deepe ' s article caused an uproar due to the tension between Taylor and the Vietnamese generals . Brinks Hotel bombing . At the same time , Westmoreland became concerned with the growing antipathy towards the US and requested the United States Pacific Command ( CINCPAC ) : " In view of the current unstable political situation . . . and the possibility that this situation could lead to anti - American activities of the unknown intensity , request Marine Landing Force now off Cap Varella be positioned out of sight of land off Cap St . Jacques soonest . " Better known as Vung Tau , Cap St . Jacques was a coastal city at the mouth of the Saigon River around 80 km southeast of the capital . Westmoreland also put American marines based at Subic Bay in the Philippines on notice . On the same day , the Vietcong bombed the Brinks Hotel , where US officers were billeted , killing two Americans and injuring around 50 people , civilian bystanders and military personnel . As a result , there was a suspicion among a minority that Khanh ' s junta had been behind the attack , even though the Vietcong had claimed responsibility through a radio broadcast . When the Americans started making plans to retaliate against North Vietnam , they did not tell Khanh and his junta . Westmoreland , Taylor , and other senior US officers in Saigon and Washington urged President Lyndon Baines Johnson to authorize reprisal bombings against North Vietnam , Taylor predicting : " Some of our local squabbles will probably disappear in enthusiasm which our action would generate . " Johnson refused and one reason was the political instability in Saigon . Johnson reasoned the international community and the American public were unlikely to believe the Vietcong were behind the attack , feeling they would instead blame local infighting for the violence . Johnson administration officials did not conclude that the communists were responsible until four days after the attack . The State Department cabled Taylor , saying " In view of the overall confusion in Saigon " , public US and international opinion towards an American air strike would be that the Johnson administration was " trying to shoot its way out of an internal [ South Vietnamese ] political crisis " . Fall out . As a result of the tension in late - December , the standoff remained . The US hoped the generals would relent because they could not survive and be able to repel the communists or rival officers without aid from Washington . On the other hand , Khanh and the Young Turks expected the Americans would become more worried about the communist gains first and acquiesce to their " fait accompli " against the HNC . The generals were correct . The South Vietnamese eventually had their way . As the generals and Huong were unwilling to reinstate the HNC , Taylor sent General John L . Throckmorton to meet them and mend relations . Throckmorton told the Vietnamese generals they had read too much into Taylor ' s comments and that the US had no intention of pressuring them out of power with aid cuts . Cang appeared unimpressed , while Thieu and Ky made indirect and vague comments about what they perceived to be misleading tactics during the talks . Khanh appeared reassured by Throckmorton ' s overtures and made a public statement on December 30 , saying he was not as hostile to the Americans as reported , and he wanted Thieu and Cang to meet the Americans to relieve any remaining tension . He also claimed privately that the statements attributed to him by Deepe were false and set up a bilateral committee to discuss tensions . The generals eventually won out , as the Americans did not move against them in any way for their refusal to reinstate the HNC . The South Vietnamese won in large part because the Americans had spent so much on the country , and could not afford to abandon it and lose to the communists over the matter of military rule , as a communist takeover would be a big public relations coup for the Soviet bloc . According to Karnow , for Khanh and his officers , " their weakness was their strength " . An anonymous South Vietnamese government official said " Our big advantage over the Americans is that they want to win the war more than we do . " The only concession the AFC made was on January 6 , 1965 , when they made a charade move of officially renouncing all their power to Huong , who was asked to organize elections . They also agreed to appoint a civilian body and release those arrested in December . Khanh had proposed to reinstate civilian rule if a military " organ of control " was created to keep control of them , but Taylor quashed the idea . This resulted in an official announcement by Huong and Khanh three days later , in which the military again reiterated their commitment to civilian rule through an elected legislature and a new constitution , and that " all genuine patriots " would be " earnestly assembled " to collaborate in making a plan to defeat the communists . The Americans were not impressed with the statement , which was shown to Taylor before it was made public ; the State Department dourly announced that " it appears to represent some improvement to the situation " . Nevertheless , Khanh and Taylor were both signatories to this January 9 announcement . Although the coup was a political success for Khanh , it was not enough to stabilize his leadership in the long run . During the dispute over the HNC , Khanh had tried to frame the dispute in nationalistic terms against what he saw as overbearing US influence . In the long run , this failed , as South Vietnam and the senior officers ' careers and advancement were dependent on US aid . Taylor hoped Khanh ' s appeals to nationalism might backfire by causing his colleagues to fear a future without US funding . The Americans were aware of Khanh ' s tactics and exploited it by persistently trying to scare his colleagues with the prospect of a military heavily restricted by the absence of US funding . After the December coup , Taylor felt the fear of US abandonment " raised the courage level of the other generals to the point of sacking " Khanh , as many were seen as beholden above all to their desire for personal advancement . In January and February 1965 , Khanh sensed he could no longer work with Taylor and the Americans , and that his support in the junta was unreliable , so he began to try to set up secret peace talks with the communists . Planning for discussions were only beginning , but this was unacceptable to the Americans and hardline anti - communists in the junta , as it meant the bombing campaign against North Vietnam would not be possible . When Khanh ' s plans were discovered , US - encouraged plotting intensified . On February 19 – 20 , a coup occurred , and after the original plot was put down by the Young Turks , they forced Khanh into exile as well . With Khanh out of the way , the bombing campaign started .