She was nicknamed the “Dragon Lady” and seemed to revel in the title. When Buddhist monks set themselves on fire to protest against the regime of her brother-in-law, Ngo Dinh Diem, she laughed. “I would clap hands at seeing another monk barbecue show,” she wrote, promising to take mustard as a condiment at the next immolation.
Madame Nhu
She was born Tran Le Xuan in Hanoi on April 15 1924, the younger daughter of the princess Nam Tran Chuong, and Tran Van Choung, a powerful lawyer and businessman.
Aged 18 she married Ngo Dinh Nhu, who was 15 years her senior. He was from a wealthy Catholic family which rejected both French colonialism and Communist insurgents, and she rapidly shed her own beliefs (including the Buddhism with which she had been raised) to match his. If anything she espoused her new credos with greater zeal than he.
When the conflict to establish an independent Vietnam escalated after the Second World War, communists took control of Hue, Nhu’s native city, which lay near what was to become the front line between North and South Vietnam. Madame Nhu, as Tran Le Xuan had become, was taken prisoner along with her infant daughter and mother-in-law.
They were held for four months, and survived on two small bowls of rice per day. For Madame Nhu, however, the greatest deprivation seemed to be the forced separation from her extensive wardrobe. Fortunately, the one coat she was left with was “a very fashionable wasp-waisted number from Paris”.
After being freed by French troops she returned safely to her husband and enjoyed an unusually incident-free decade in her adult life. The quiet times came to an end in 1955, however, after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, when her brother-in-law issued a republican challenge to Bao Dai, who sought a restoration of his own imperial powers.
The referendum was rigged and Ngo Dinh Diem became president; Madame Nhu, exercising what the CIA considered wifely influence, advised him to crush his enemies. Within a year he had done so, and she had taken a seat in the National Assembly, her only official post .
Her influence was felt above all by women. On the one hand her fierce independence saw her branded an icon of women’s rights; on the other, her new-found Catholicism inspired her to ban contraception and abortions, and to demand a new morality.
This did not stop her wearing tightly-tailored ao dai tunics, in which she reviewed her 25,000-strong female paramilitary force, providing an irresistible spectacle to news photographers around the world. But as, urged on by her, Diem secured his rule with increasing brutality, global opinion soured. America, in particular, quickly reassessed. In 1962 two disaffected Vietnamese Air Force pilots bombed the presidential residence. Madame Nhu was unhurt until she fell two storeys through a hole which the bombs had ripped through the building.
Diem reacted in 1963 by interning huge numbers of Buddhists. In Washington, where he was ambassador, Madame Nhu’s father appealed to her to soften her approach. When she refused he resigned and went on a speaking tour to denounce his daughter. In response Madame Nhu travelled to America to do the same, but found herself pelted with eggs.
She was still there in November when she heard of the coup that had left both her brother-in-law and husband dead.
Her children, two girls and two boys, were allowed to join her, initially in Paris, then in Rome.
In 1986 her family was plunged into yet more drama when her parents, with whom she was partly reconciled, were smothered.
Her brother Tran Van Khiem was arrested but found to be mentally unwell, claiming to be the centre of an enormous Zionist conspiracy.
Madame Nhu did not disown him, maintaining: “They have decided to finish with him. He knows things about the US.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/politics-obituaries/8481685/Madame-Nhu.html
The referendum was rigged and Ngo Dinh Diem became president; Madame Nhu, exercising what the CIA considered wifely influence, advised him to crush his enemies. Within a year he had done so, and she had taken a seat in the National Assembly, her only official post .
Her influence was felt above all by women. On the one hand her fierce independence saw her branded an icon of women’s rights; on the other, her new-found Catholicism inspired her to ban contraception and abortions, and to demand a new morality.
This did not stop her wearing tightly-tailored ao dai tunics, in which she reviewed her 25,000-strong female paramilitary force, providing an irresistible spectacle to news photographers around the world. But as, urged on by her, Diem secured his rule with increasing brutality, global opinion soured. America, in particular, quickly reassessed. In 1962 two disaffected Vietnamese Air Force pilots bombed the presidential residence. Madame Nhu was unhurt until she fell two storeys through a hole which the bombs had ripped through the building.
Diem reacted in 1963 by interning huge numbers of Buddhists. In Washington, where he was ambassador, Madame Nhu’s father appealed to her to soften her approach. When she refused he resigned and went on a speaking tour to denounce his daughter. In response Madame Nhu travelled to America to do the same, but found herself pelted with eggs.
She was still there in November when she heard of the coup that had left both her brother-in-law and husband dead.
Her children, two girls and two boys, were allowed to join her, initially in Paris, then in Rome.
In 1986 her family was plunged into yet more drama when her parents, with whom she was partly reconciled, were smothered.
Her brother Tran Van Khiem was arrested but found to be mentally unwell, claiming to be the centre of an enormous Zionist conspiracy.
Madame Nhu did not disown him, maintaining: “They have decided to finish with him. He knows things about the US.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/politics-obituaries/8481685/Madame-Nhu.html
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