My first thought upon seeing the words, "Silent Coup" goes to a thought provoking book.
Silent Coup is a book written by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin, in which they contend that former Nixon White House counsel John Dean orchestrated the 1972 Watergate Break-in.
That’s what I thought too (great book!) Link to one of the author’s website: http://www.watergate.com/
This is more like “Noisy unsuccessful coup”.