A woman who dominated my childhood perception of Asia, woman & politics is dead. Madame Nhu was 86. Or possibly 87. Like much what lay below the image she projected to the world, her date of birth is a bit murky.
Born Tran Le Xuan, to a family of privilege related to the last emperor of Vietnam, she married into a political family. In the 1960s her husband ran the secret police & her brother-in-law ran the country (South Vietnam, as it was then).
She was a Buddhist, but converted to Roman Catholicism when she married Ngo Dinh Nhu. As often happens with converts, she was exceptionally fervent & used her political connections to pass measures outlawing divorce, abortion & contraceptives. She also banned the Twist.
& yet her interference also improved the position of women in Vietnamese society. She closed brothels & outlawed polygamy & concubinage.
Madame Nhu had a mouth on her & she used it as both a club & a skinning knife. They didn’t call her the Dragon Lady for nothing. She enjoyed it, too—“Power is wonderful. Total power is totally wonderful,” was her watchword.
Actually, she was also known as “the Oriental Lucrezia Borgia”, but I don’t think that’s apt. Lucrezia was the pawn of the men in her family; Nhu definitely was no one’s pawn. She was the queen—the most powerful piece on the board.
She was petite & beautiful & had long fingernails. Somehow in my mind I linked her with Clare Boothe Luce, although she was much, much better looking.
She happened to be in LA as part of a US speaking tour in November 1963 when news broke that her husband & brother-in-law had been executed in the US-backed coup that shifted everything in Vietnam. After that she retreated to Paris & then Rome.
The obits don’t give a cause of death. I suppose at 86 you could just wear out. But I somehow don’t see the Dragon Lady wearing out. She decided to go.
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