Charges in a military court against generals Dương Văn Đức and Lâm Văn Phát of leading a coup attempt against South Vietnamese leader Nguyễn Khánh, were dropped..

Lieutenant General Dương Văn Đức was a Vietnamese army officer. He is best known for leading a coup attempt against General Nguyễn Khánh on 14 September 1964. He was a supporter of the Đại Việt Quốc Dân Đảng, a Roman Catholic political movement.

Lâm Văn Phát was a Major general in the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). He is best known for leading two coup attempts against General Nguyễn Khánh in September 1964 and February 1965. Although both failed to result in his taking power, the latter caused enough instability that it forced Khánh to resign and go into exile.

The September 1964 South Vietnamese coup attempt took place before dawn on September 13, 1964, when the ruling military junta of South Vietnam, led by General Nguyễn Khánh, was threatened by a coup attempt headed by Generals Lâm Văn Phát and Dương Văn Đức, who sent dissident units into the capital Saigon. They captured various key points and announced over national radio the overthrow of the incumbent regime. With the help of the Americans, Khánh was able to rally support and the coup collapsed the next morning without any casualties.

South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam, was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975. It first garnered international recognition in 1949 as the associated State of Vietnam within the French Union, with its capital at Saigon. Since 1950, it was a member of the Western Bloc during the Cold War. Following the 1954 partition of Vietnam, it became known as South Vietnam and was established as a republic in 1955. South Vietnam was bordered by North Vietnam to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and Thailand across the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest. Its sovereignty was recognized by the United States and 87 other nations, though it failed to gain admission into the United Nations as a result of a Soviet veto in 1957. It was succeeded by the Republic of South Vietnam in 1975. In 1976, the Republic of South Vietnam and North Vietnam merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.