"
  I actually think it would be disrespectful of Whitlam's memory not to mention that he thought his dismissal was a coup. I know enough about how the word is used in Wikipedia (never for a government the USG suupports) from the Ukrainian articles, which call the February coup in Kiev a ""revolution"", and a democratic one at that. (I just looked up the word ""coup"" in the Concise OED, and HiLo48 is right, the OED says ""violent"". My recollection was that it said ""especially a violent one"".) It is unfortunate that that article from The Australian doesn't give a direct quote of a full sentence in which Whitlam says that his dismissal was a coup. So I guess his is going nowhere unless I can find a source that does that. –   "