The 1964 Laotian coups were two attempted coup d'etats against the Royal Lao Government. The 18 April 1964 coup was notable for being committed by the policemen of the Directorate of National Coordination. Although successful, it was overturned five days later by U.S. Ambassador Leonard Unger. In its wake, Neutralist Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma forged a fragile coalition with the Pathet Lao communists. On 4 August 1964, Defense Minister Phoumi Nosavan attempted to take over Vientiane with a training battalion. This coup was quickly crushed by the local Royal Lao Army troops, as the police sat out the conflict.
The Pathet Lao left the coalition and repudiated Souvanna Phouma. Perforce he was driven to cooperate with the rightist Royalist politicians and military officers. None of the events affected the North Vietnamese usage of the Ho Chi Minh Trail to send troops into battle in South Vietnam.
Overview
The United States began bankrolling France's First Indochina War in 1950. Charles Yost, the first U.S. ambassador to Laos took up his duties in September 1954. Four months after he arrived, the U.S. Operations Mission (USOM) set up shop. When USOM proved unable to track U.S. military aid, the Programs Evaluation Office was established in December 1955. Despite Yost's best efforts to curb the activities of the CIA and the anti-Communist stance of the Eisenhower administration, the American mission would continue to increasingly involve itself with both political and military operations within Laos. The U.S., which did not sign the Final Declaration, issued its own declaration making it easier for Eisenhower to state that the US would not be governed by agreements made at the 1954 Geneva Conference.
Background
General Siho Lamphouthacoul used his powers as the National Director of Coordination to build Laotian police forces into a national power. Siho gathered and trained two special battalions of paramilitary police during the latter part of 1960, dubbing them the Directorate of National Coordination. Siho's new battalions helped carry the day at the Battle of Vientiane, when General Phoumi Nosavan seized power in December 1960. Acquiring the National Police from the Ministry of the Interior, and co-opting local military police, Siho consolidated the Lao police into the DNC. Attaining a strength of 6,500 men, the DNC would be Siho's instrument for power.
By March 1964, the Vietnamese communists had begun forwarding combat units down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The increased activity in the southern Laotian panhandle threatened the neutrality of the Kingdom of Laos, as well as the very existence of South Vietnam. In mid-month, Lao Defense Minister Phoumi Nosavan flew to Dalat, Vietnam to confer with South Vietnamese senior officers. They agreed that the South Vietnamese could attack the Trail on Laotian territory with entire regiments and with air strikes. When Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma learned of the agreement that had been struck without his knowledge, he scaled back the South Vietnamese operations to forays by reconnaissance teams, with a hidden South Vietnamese liaison operating from Savannakhet, Laos.
Siho's coup
On 18 April 1964, Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma met with his brother Souphanouvong, leader of the Lao communists, on the Plain of Jars. The Pathet Lao demanded demilitarization of both Luang Prabang and Vientiane as the price of their participation in a national government. This discouraged Souvanna Phouma, who returned to Vientiane, having decided to resign as Prime Minister. However, King Sisavang Vatthana would not approve the resignation until the next day.
At this turn of events, Siho Lamphouthacoul inveigled Kouprasith Abhay into a coup, on the grounds that the United States would be forced by events to accept their new government. Beginning at 2200 hours on the night of 18/19 April 1964, Siho's police unit Bataillon Special 33 (Special Battalion 33) seized Vientiane's infrastructure. Minister of Defense Phoumi Nosavan was contacted at 0415 hours; he declined to join the coup. By 0430, another DNC unit, Bataillon Special 11 (Special Battalion 11) had arrested Souvanna Phouma and 15 leading officials of such opposed factions as the Royal Lao Army, Forces Army Neutraliste, and the French Embassy. The coup force emptied the safe in FAN's headquarters and looted Kong Le's home. Some 15 other FAN officials sought asylum from the coup in the Soviet Embassy. The Royal Lao Air Force was placed on alert, with its pilots bedded down in tents on the flight line.