Everything about Madame Nhu totally explained
Trần Lệ Xuân (born 1924 in
Hanoi,
Vietnam), popularly known as
Madame Nhu but more properly
Madame Ngô Đình Nhu, was considered the
First Lady of
South Vietnam from 1955 to 1963. She was the wife of
Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother and chief adviser to
President Ngo Dinh Diem. Since Diem was a bachelor, she was considered to be the First Lady and lived with her
husband in the
Independence Palace.
Early years
Trần Lệ Xuân was born into a wealthy aristocratic family in
Hanoi. Her paternal grandfather was close to the French colonial administration, while her father,
Tran Van Chuong, studied law in France, Madame Nhu's mother was widely reputed to have had a series of lovers, among them her future son-in-law
Ngo Dinh Nhu. She gained a reputation in her youth as a tomboy who loved ballet and piano, once dancing solo at Hanoi's National Theatre. She had an older sister and a younger brother and was known for beating him up in their childhood.
When she became an adult, her mother introduced her to a series of eligible young men, but she insisted on Nhu. In
1943, she married Nhu and converted from
Mahayana Buddhism to
Roman Catholicism, her husband's religion. After an uprising by the
Vietminh in December 1946, her brother-in-law
Ngo Dinh Khoi was buried alive, and Nhu and another brother,
Ngo Dinh Can, were forced to flee. Madame Nhu, her mother-in-law and her eldest daughter, at the time a baby, were captured. Thinking that her piano was a radio for communicating with French colonialists, the Vietminh blew it up and then exiled her to a remote village for four months, where she was forced to live on two bowls of rice a day.
A referendum was scheduled for
October 23,
1955 to determine the future direction of the south. It was contested by
Bao Dai, the Emperor, advocating the restoration of the monarchy, while Diem ran on a republican platform. The elections were held, with Nhu and the family's
Can Lao Party, which supplied Diem's electoral base, organising and supervising the elections. Campaigning for Bao Dai was prohibited, and the result was rigged, with Bao Dai's supporters attacked by Nhu's workers. Diem recorded 98.2% of the vote, including 605,025 votes in Saigon, where only 450,000 voters were registered. Diem's tally also exceeded the registration numbers in other districts.
Post-elections
After the election, the couple moved into the Presidential Palace. Madame Nhu was influential on government policy and, since her brother-in-law Ngô Đình Diệm was unmarried, was regarded as the "
First Lady" of Vietnam. Madame Nhu attempted to combine Catholicism with herself as a modern reincarnation of Vietnam's fabled
Trưng Sisters, who temporarily defeated the invading
Han Dynasty Chinese troops in
40 CE. Madame Nhu's parents resigned their posts in 1963, in protest over the treatment of
Buddhists under the regime of President Diem.
Advocacy
During her brother-in-law's presidency Madame Nhu pushed for the passing of '
morality laws'. These included such things as outlawing
abortion,
adultery,
divorce,
contraceptives,
dance halls,
beauty pageants,
boxing matches, and
animal fighting, and closed down the
brothels and
opium dens. Many people didn't appreciate the imposition of Madame Nhu's values on their lives. She was also widely mocked by the public who regarded her as hypocritical, with older Vietnamese believing her décolleté gowns to be sexually suggestive, as well as widespread rumours of her own infidelity. She had a message to Diem opponents, noting that "We will track down, neutralize and extirpate all these scabby sheep."
Buddhist crisis
She often caused controversy because of her strong anti-Buddhist, pro-Catholic ideology. When she heard that Diem was to sign a statement offering compensation to the families of Buddhist protestors shot by the police of his brother
Ngo Dinh Can, Madame Nhu was reported to have thrown a bowl of soup at him. Notably she mocked the protest by
Thích Quảng Đức, who performed a
self-immolation in a crowded
Saigon street in response to the shooting of Buddhists by Diem's regime. Madame Nhu called it a "barbecue" and stating "let them burn and we'll clap our hands". This occurred after special forces loyal to Nhu raided the
Xa Loi Pagoda in Saigon in August. The pagoda was vandalised, monks beaten, the cremated remains of
Thích Quảng Đức, which included a heart which hadn't disintegrated, were confiscated. Simultaneous raids were carried out across the country, with the
Tu Dam Pagoda in
Huế being looted, the statue of
Gautama Buddha demolished, and a body of a deceased monk stolen. When
William Trueheart warned that aid might be withheld if the repression orchestrated by the Nhus continued, Madame Nhu denounced it as "blackmail". Nhu and Diem, fearing a cut in aid, sent Madame Nhu to the United States on a speaking tour. She denounced American liberals as "worse than communists" and Buddhists as "hooligans in robes". Her father didn't share the same beliefs and followed her around the country, denouncing the "injustice and oppression" and stating that his daughter had "become unwittingly the greatest asset to the communists." Madame Nhu also defiantly predicted that Buddhism would become extinct in Vietnam.
In the wake of the tumultuous events, Madame Nhu appeared on NBC-TV's "Meet the Press" on
October 13,
1963, defending her actions and those of the South Vietnamese government. "I don't know why you Americans dislike us," she said. "Is it because the world is under a spell called liberalism? Your own public, here in America, isn't as anti-Communistic as ours is in Vietnam. Americans talk about my husband and I leaving our native land permanently. Why should we do this? Where would we go? To say that 70 percent of my country's population is Buddhistic is absolutely true. My father, who was our Ambassador to the United States until two months ago, has been against me since my childhood."
Downfall
On
November 1,
1963 her brother-in-law, President Ngô Đình Diệm, and her husband, Ngô Đình Nhu, were assassinated in a
coup d'état led by General
Dương Văn Minh with the understanding that the
United States wouldn't intervene. At the time of the assassinations, Madame Nhu had been in
Beverly Hills, California since October, with her daughter
Ngô Le Thuy.
"I may shock some by saying 'I would beat such provocateurs ten times more if they wore monks robes,' and 'I would clap hands at seeing another monk barbecue show, for one can not be responsible for the madness of others.'"
"Whoever has the Americans as allies doesn't need enemies."
"My family has been treacherously killed with either official or unofficial blessing of the American Government, I can predict to you now that the story is only at its beginning."
"Judas has sold the Christ for 30 pieces of silver. The Ngo brothers have been sold for a few dollars."
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