Video: 'Vietnam a Television History Episode 3' (Jan. 30, 1964 at 5:53)

(Thursday, January 30, 1964, before dawn ICT; during the Vietnam War, part of the Indochina Wars and the Cold War) — Maj. Gen. Nguyen Khanh, a 37-year-old army corps commander, became a virtual dictator of South Vietnam today in a swift, bloodless coup, replacing the military junta led by General Duong Van Minh.

Khanh pledged to “smash the Communists and traitors who advocate neutralism.”

The coup came less than three months after Minh’s junta had themselves come to power in a bloody coup against then President Ngo Dinh Diem.