Also had had a daughter at 14. So all of those questions led me to pursue them. A very aristocratic family. We need to step back and say exactly who madam nhu was. He brotherinlaw, the brother of her husband became president of South Vietnam in 1956 or 55. 54 he becomes premier. So madam nhu was the de facto first lady, because the president of South Vietnam and theres a few titles before that, but for simplicity well calm him the president. He was a bachelor. That makes him sound like he was going to vegas on the weekends, but he was really very moral, he slept on a hardwooden cots. He signpersonally signed entry visas. Theres this kind of very catholic austere man who needs a first lady, someone to host the parties and go to the orphanages, host the flower shows. So madam nhu, his younger brothers wife becomes this woman and shes perfect for it. She looks great for the cameras, likes to be out there, and this sort of gives her a voice. All of her life i think she had been looking for this purpose. She was the second child. She had been overlooked as a child. I believe she always had a bit of a chip on her shoulder, so for her to be handed there, here you go, be first lady, the official hostess, she took it and ran with it. She bakley occupied this role up until 1963 when the government was upended by a coup. Her husband and her brotherinlaw were both executed. Thats right. One more thing. She wasnt just first lady. She was overwhelmingly elected by an unrealistic 99. 9 of the population to hold seats in congress in their legislature. So by doing so, she was still the first lady hosting parties, but she could also pass laws. So madam nhu passed what she called family and morality laws. Some of them were very wellintended perhaps they were all wellintended, but South Vietnamese women were not allowed to open Bank Accounts or own property before the laws, so madam nhu recognized what her husband and his brother did not, was that 50 of the population was being just ignored except by the communists who were doing a great job of recruiting women. So she thought, okay, lets give these women some rights and some power, and she did. And sort of took it upon herself to be the voice of the women. She wasnt like most vietnamese women. She came from a very aristocratic family. They spoke french at the dinner table. So for her to suddenly declare the voice of the vietnamese woman was an presumptuous. She was unto write in vietnamese. She didnt write. She could, but she expressed herself most fluently in french, which is what she studied in school and what they spoke at home. So the other laws that she passed were a little ridiculous. I mean, thinking about them in context, it seems to make sense. Vietnam was a country at war and the north vietnamese, the communists were doing a good job saying this is a war, we have to treat it seriously. Madam nhu was worried saigon was becoming a party. There were pizza stands and, you know, girly bars, all of that stuff starting in the 50s, and she said no, we have to take this seriously. She outlawed dancing along with prostitution, she outlaw hand holding and kissing. She outlawed underwire bras, but she wore them. The best was her sister had been married off young like madam nhu had, and she was married to a guy who worked for the ngo government, and they fell out of love, i guess, you know, it happened. She felt in love with a french guy, a big game hunter. Madam nhu thought you cant leave a good upstanding vietnamese guy for a french guy. This is looking sort of colonial. When her sister tried to divorce her husband, she outlawed divorce. The story goes theres no records of this, but the story goes her sister slashed her wrist and running through the palace, and it take their own mother to come down to saigon to break out the daughter who then goes to the United States and marries the french guy anyway. And theyre still alive. She lives in north carolina. Ive tried to reach out to her with letters, but theyve been unanswered. So her husband has published a couple memoirs, with a small press in canada or selfpublished. Quite interesting. Thats one of the things thats remarkable about your book. I should point on you, you mention, you no know, her looks. Shes a really striking figure. Its hard to characterize her, but this image on the cover says it all. The lei was with and high a high collar, a mandry collar. She was one of the first to say, show it if youve got it, flaunt it. So she cut the neck down so you could see her collarbone, and at the time it was really risque, so the president , her brotherinlaw says, dont you think thats a little too flashy, and she said Something Like its not your neck thats sticking out, its mine, so shut up. Thats a great line. What i was going to say its fascinating not vu,a gee rho political stepand historical standpoint, but it is a family saga as well. And one also where you see someone who was able to, whatever we think about her, and we can come back to that, but an incredible amount of gumption. She managed to, you know, create herself, and to really direct her own idea. It seems like when you made contact with her with advanced year, that sense of herself was very much intact. I love is the word gumption. I think thats a great description. Yes, madam nhu was going to tell her own story. So when i did find madam nhu, she was in her early 80s. She said to me, this is great, youre the angel that god sent to me. Were going to do my memoirs, youre going to get me bill clintons book deal, and it will be great. I thought, all right. I really wanted to hear what she had to say, but she had a spec way of seeing her past, which is understandable, but to madam nhu, she was vietnam was the center of the universe, and she was sort of the thing everything revolved around. So she was very much at the center of her story, but then again it was also understandable. Her husband and brotherinlaw were kill, you know, with the sanction of the americans, and she had gone through this life that had been, you know, quite hard, and so i think to make sense of it she really turned to religion and mysticism, and that was the only way that she could make sense of things with kind of biblically ordained. A joan of arc idea crossed, i dont know, with a sort of survivor story. Do you think its the force of her personality gave her the presence she had in the government . The americans thought she was really the problem. Behind the problems that were very clear in the South Vietnamese government, that she was the one pulling the strings, and i think the way that you write about her, you know, shall does come across as someone who had an unbelievable amount of influence over what her brotherinlaw did. Do you think thats just a force of her personality . You write about, for example, when she was taken prisoner of war in 1946 by the communists, by the vietnam army, and that this figure emerges from that, who is so strong, is that your sense of it . Or do you think her role has been somewhat overrated in the government . I think its a bit of both, if thats possible. She had this story of when she was taken by the communists, and shes carrying her infant daughter walshing across this bridge, bullets are flying and she emerges unscathed. For scherr she was like, i got it, all ive got to do is be brave. That message, that sort of, you know, in the face of your enemy just stare him down and stand strong, no matter what you do, that was her motto. I think she tried to pass that on to the brothers. There was one point when the president had been negotiating to open up his government, and madam nhu thought that was awful, that he would dare to share power, so she convinced him to stand firm. So in some ways, yes, she had this power to convince the brothers that they didnt need to open up their government, they needed to lock all the doors, keep it more insular, but i think the other thing was just the appearance that it looked like the men were following what she said. Kennedy said Something Like she looks like shes leading the men around by her apron strings. I think that was just as dangerous as any real power. They sort of emasculated by her, and that was kennedys biggest fear, that it looked like american was following this little lady around, and that was not going to fly. So much of her criticism well, i should put it this way, so much of her reaction to what was taking place in vietnam, the modernization, its neocolonialization if you want to call it that, certainly the westernization that started to appear in South Vietnam in the late 50s that she rallied against was very much a criticism of america, because so much of that was made possible by the influx of Foreign Policy money from the United States which put her very quickly i think on the opposite side of the intentions of the government of the United States. She was happy for the money. I mean, lets be clear, that was how they were funding the fight, but what they wanted was the money, but then, you know, stay out of our business, let us run our government. The United States obviously wanted Strings Attached to that money, and when things werent going the right way, for example, the United States tried to send in Ground Troops a lot earlier, but the brothers said absolutely not, you know, we cant these have to be advisers only. It wasnt until much later that obviously the vietnam war escalated into what it became. There were several coup attempts against the government beginning in 1960, i believe. There was one famous assault where a couple of airmen flew and bombed the palace, and she narrowly survived. Right. There was a direct hit on madam nhus bedroom. Some rogue South Vietnamese air force pilot was tired of this bossy lady, one of the vietnamese i talked to, she talked too big. She was too much. So one of these air force pilots was upset about it, and did a direct hit of her suite, and so there was this gaping hole. Madam nhu fell through. She said three stories. Again this is another one of her survival, if she survived it, she was magical. She hurt her arm, but one of the childrens nannies was killed, but otherwise no one in the family was hurt. Then finally the protests against the government begin to escalate in 62 and 63, and there are for the first time very strong confrontationings with the buddhists in vietnam, when you describe very well. Why dont you tell us about how those protests started, and what i think this is when madam nhu seals her place as a bad figure in history around the buddhist protests. If youll remember, they were the famous pictures of the buddhist mompgs burning themselves at traffic stops. I think there were seven who protested that way. It started with a law that had been on the books since colonial times. No flag was allow to do fly higher than the state flag, but of course nobody really paid attention to that. There had just been a big catholic festival. White and gold flags had been flying all over. So for the buddhas birthday sometime in may, one of the brothers went, so theres ziem, the president , the brother, madam nhus brother, he was head of the secret police, in charge of the politics, the guy who did the dirty deeds. There were a for a other brothers, one of whom was an archbishop. He noticed that buddhas flag was flying too high, so he ordered people to take it down. There was this kind of backlash of why are you enforcing this random law now . Instead of backing down and saying youre right, were making sort of a mess out of this, they cracked down, and suddenly there was a protest by the buddhists. People started firing on them. People were killed, and so then instead of saying were sorry, things got out of hand, the ngo family blamed the communists. So it quickly turned into a mess, and basically the buddhist repression was less repression in the way that we think of now, that is a vehicle for elf grievance. No one had been allowed to say anything against the family, but 90 of the country was buddhist. So everybody jumped on to to bandwagon, and elderly monks were selfemulating, which means they were lighting themselves on fire. When madam nhu saw it, she sounds like ma reantoinette, great, lets have a barbecue. The most cruel response you could have. That just spread like wildfire around the world. People couldnt believe she could be so callous. From her perspective, the buddhists have been intoxicated, which doesnt mean drunk, it meansed poisoned. They were a very loose knit association organization. There were no sort of strict rules coming in, coming out. So madame nhu was sure they had already been infiltrated by communists. Turns out by 1968 the United States even agreed yes, they had been used as a cover by communists. In 1963 there was a shocking thing to say and then to be so like casual about suicide. It was unforgivable. Yeah. Its never, i dont think its ever a good tactic for a leader who depending on foreign aid to castigate Buddhist Monks protesting in the name of religious freedom and whatever else. That is really i think when at that point that the u. S. Government knows that it has a problem on its hands and it supports the coup that will come. Correct. In august president kennedy okays a change in government, and the new ambassador that is sent over to saigon goes with the understanding that he is there to go look for alternatives to diem and this family thats been in power now for nine years. And it takes there are some false starts but some real alternatives have finally been identified. And the brothers are killed november 1, 1963, which as many of you know thats just a few weeks before kennedy himself was assassinated. So madame nhu is a conspiracy figure in some of these who killed kennedy questions. People must think it has to do with madame nhu. I can assure you it doesnt. But it was terrible timing. So kennedy seemed really shocked that the brothers had been killed by all accounts he gets up when he hears and is visibly shaken and cant believe they killed the brothers. He was the one that sort of gave the okay to topple this allied country, this friendly regime and overthrow them. For him to think they could have gotten out any other way is a little naive. At that time she was on a tour of the United States, as she believed that if she came to the United States and convinced people that there was a grave threat, if her government was not supported that communists would topple South Vietnam quickly and she came to the United States on a speaking tour, and quite a spectacular tour. She went to a lot of colleges, did a lot of television. In a day that was probably a lot harder to, a time a lot harder to do that than it probably is today. What was her reception like when she came to the United States . It was very mixed. So as you say she came to the United States because she had been asked to leave vietnam. By now the buddhist thing had really escalated and the United States thought the only thing were going to only way were going to restore order is if madame nhu leaves. So this had been something that diem and his brother had not been willing to do. Finally they say okay, you got to get out of vietnam. Got to shut up, basically. Where does she go, to the United States and goes on this like press relations tour. And she doesnt understand the difference. Shes invited to come speak at harvard, at columbia, at georgetown. And shes invited by you know, meet the press and all of these press organizations. And she doesnt understand why she feels like the government hasnt rolled out the red carpet for her. Wasnt she invited. She doesnt get this separation between the press and the government because in her country, of course like the government the press can only say what the government wants them to say. So for her it was really totally befuddling to the end of her days. I cant understand why they invited me to come and say go home. She goes to new york, she goes to washington, d. C. , she comes to chicago, she stays in the blackstone hotel. And one of my favorite moments of the trip is she goes to dallas and theres a ranch there and she gets invited to go shooting. So her daughter dressed up in like western gear and apparently has her first kind of teenage romance with a texas guy. And her reception that madame nhu gets, her mother was worried about madame nhus visit. She pulls a state department guy aside and has a meeting and says you know, madame nhu really shouldnt come. I warned all of the vietnamese to throw tomatoes at her and if they see her to run her over with her car. This is her mother. She gets tomatoes thrown at her, eggs, but she gets Standing Ovations from fordham, a lot of Catholic Education she mapped out the Catholic College and university itinerary as part of her tour. Was she presented at that point as this her catholicism was you know, it was very important part of her political ideology if you want to call it that. Was she seen in that light in 1963 in the United States . I assume that to the extent that she was hitting you know, places like fordham, georgetown, they were very much self conscious of that. Was that part of her reception as well . I do think so. Part of the political philosophy of the South Vietnamese government was based on personalism, this philosophy that started in france in the 20s and was a catholic philosophy, alternative to pure capitalism and communism. This third way. So that really was a cornerstone of their government. No one could quite understand how that translated to South Vietnam, and so that was really the problem wasnt the marketing. But the regime had bought all of this property outside of rome, and property in postwar rome is pretty inexpensive. They bought up large tracts of land with the idea that then they would send these south veet ma niece functionaries to rome to get indoctrinated in their version of personalism and come back. So that didnt work out so well for them but it was a place that madame nhu after her family was fell from power she could go back to this land which was valuable and s