By Mark Jacob, Chicago Tribune
What if the U.S. gave military support to a beleaguered foreign government and the country’s first lady insulted the Americans as “little soldiers of fortune”? What if protesters starting setting themselves on fire in the streets and the first lady declared that she was hoping for “another barbecue”? And what if that first lady became a leading legislator and passed bills that banned divorce, contraception, dancing and even underwire bras?
Vietnamese first lady Tran Le Xuan, popularly known as Madame Nhu, at a press conference in Paris in 1963. She is the subject of “Finding the Dragon Lady” by Monique Brinson Demery. (AFP, AFPGetty Images)
If all that had happened — and indeed it did — the first lady would be Tran Le Xuan, also known as Madame Nhu, the Dragon Lady of Vietnam.
A fascinating portrait of this polarizing figure is now available in Chicago author Monique Brinson Demery’s new book, “Finding the Dragon Lady: The Mystery of Vietnam’s Madame Nhu.”
It’s a fair-minded and readable look at Madame Nhu and her prominent role in the early years of the Vietnam War, before the commitment of half a million U.S. troops, before the Tet Offensive, before the Americans fled by helicopter from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.
Because the early period of the war has been poorly understood by many Americans (including this reviewer), this book performs an especially valuable service to readers who want to understand why the U.S. sometimes stumbles in foreign affairs.
Madame Nhu was the wife of Ngo Dinh Nhu, who helped rule South Vietnam from 1954 to 1963 with his brother, President Ngo Dinh Diem. Because Diem was a bachelor, Madame Nhu served as the country’s first lady and created an audacious, intelligent, glamorous presence in office.
But she refused to mask her ambitions, placate her critics or keep her mouth shut, making legions of enemies from Saigon to the White House. Ultimately, the Kennedy administration engineered a coup that led to the Ngo brothers’ murder while Madame Nhu was on a speaking tour in the U.S.
Some have blamed her reckless behavior for the downfall of the Diem regime, and some have viewed the fall of Diem as a leading contributor to America’s ultimate disaster in Southeast Asia.
Read the full review by Mark Jacob from Chicago Tribune.
