Madame Nhu
From: Tuan Hoang <thoang1@nd.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Jan 19, 2006 7:23 PM
Subject: [Vsg] Madame Nhu
Dear all,
In Prof. Tai Van Ta's response to the "concubinage" thread, he made the
following passing comment on Madame Nhu.
This system of polygamy ended officially only in 1959 by both family laws in North Vietnam and in South Vietnam--the one in South Vietnam was pushed very hard by Mme Ngo Dinh Nhu, nicknamed Dragon Lady by the Western press, sister in law of President Diem: despite all other stupid acts such as describing the monks immolation as "barbecuing", she deserved praise in this fight for female equality.
Which prompted these questions of mine. In light of recent revisionist studies
on Diem, I would think that Madame Nhu will be re-examined in the near future,
if not already. She was just about the second or third most reviled person in
public perception in both the US and South Vietnam - and possibly the second or
third most misunderstood.
Are you aware of any new stuffs on her - in English or Vietnamese? In addition
to the family laws mentioned by Prof. Ta, were there other activities that
possibly point to her "progressive" or "modernizing" side?
Finally, a more "subjective" question. In light of what we've known about Diem
now, would you consider her something of a tragic figure as well?
Thanks ahead for your comments!
Tuan Hoang
From: Hue-Tam Ho Tai <hhtai@fas.harvard.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Jan 19, 2006 7:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu
In 1998, nha xuat ban cong an nhan dan published a biography of Mme Nhu entitled Tran Le Xuan, giac mong chinh truong.
It should be noted that despite laws outlawing concubinage, the practice endured on both sides of the 17th parallel. It was openly flouted in the South; it was driven underground in the North, but nonetheless, still practiced though perhaps not as widely as in the South. In 2002, one of my students even made a video of a North Vietnamese local official introducing his 4 wives and 11 children.
From: Gilbert <mgilbert@ngcsu.edu>
To: thoang1@nd.edu, vsg@u.washington.edu
Date: Jan 20, 2006 1:50 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
I look forward to the outcome of research into the Republic of Vietnam and the rexamination of its characteristics and leaders. Of course, one can hope that we can avoid the swings in judgements that have gone before us. During wartime, Ho Chi Minh was in too many liberal circles seen as the avuncular Bac Ho and Diem and his family seen as only puppets, parasites or self-interested autocrats. More recently, there is quite an audience among conservatives for a Ho portrayed as a cipher for the devil and for a Diem and his entourage to be regarded as having a tragic cast lent to them. Having conducted scores of interviews with those then on the ground and armed with my own poor memory, I do not recognize truth in any of these extreme characterizations. The same applies to well-meaning attempts to improve the image of ARVN's performance: they were not the Italian Army in North Africa (mio dio con me nondispiacere), but they were also not the Israeli army of 1948.
Any good scholar, and we now have many working on this subject, knows the difference between scholarship, demonization and hagiography. Yet, those who knew this period first hand may still find themselves surprised by the ways in which these necessary and welcome revisions will be simplified and regurgitated by the media, which is not interested in providing a more complex picture of the Republic, but is very interested in the cleansing of the public mind regarding America's _Vietnam_ years. For example, new scholarship may argue that ARVN's disfunctionality was not a result of the individual soldier, as most American veterans would argue, but a reflection of the elitist, autocratic and corrupt state (as in the selling of offices and political role of many disivisons) they served and the lack of staff officer training among even idealistic and patriotic officers. However, the merest whiff of such research will produce a paroxysm of commentary about ARVN's abused beauty and operational strength (deserved among its special forces, perhaps). Resurrecting the bravery of ARVN does not mean we have to whitewash the RVN's military establishment and the state they served (that is, unless evidence arises that compels such a revision).
The same must be said about reconsiderations of Diem, his brother and sister-in-law. Oddly enough, a revision of Madame Nhu that at first blush renders her a tragic, misunderstood reformer on the issue of concubinage, may well prove that her attack on concubinage was self-motivated, mere window-dressing or a form of post-colonialism! But the possible media spin will focus only on the heroism of this egalitarian (!) world leader. The woman who uttered the phrase barbequed Buddhists and who herself probably considered them communist dupes, deserves more understanding from us, but did those who knew her, yet were not dependent on her, see her as Eleanor Roosevelt? Fox News, whose talking heads on questions like social security reform are not experts on pensions, but pro-administration commentators, cannot be expected to see her as anything less than Joan of Arc (the omnipresent white gloves nothwithstanding).
There are consequences to such wide swings of views in the current poltical climate.
My own research indicates that the US was not prepared for any nation-building in Iraq because the outcome of Vietnam was seen as a loser from a conservative ideological perspective and that U. S. conservatives successfully worked with likeminded allies in the civil and military establishment to eradicate the presumed liberal conception of nation-building from the US crisis-resolution repertoire. They may have been right to do so, but this extreme swing removed any chance of reasoned debate over its (suddenly seen as necessary) application in Iraq and Afghanistan or even any chance the nation-building failures in Vietnam could be learned. So they were, and remain, to be repeated (Fatal Amnesia: American Nation Building in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, Journal of Third World Studies vol. 21, no. 2 pp. 13-44, written in 2003 but published in Fall 2004*a first blush, but validated by many returned veterans).
I have great faith that our scholars are too professional to fall victim such extreme views. But the society we live in has been taught not to expect or respect nuance, so the burden these scholars carry is a heavy one.
This is written with the firm belief that I am speaking to the choir. No member of VSG seeking to resurrect noble anti-communist Vietnamese would knowingly permit this effort to be politicized beyond recognition. However, with this post in the FAC or archives of VSG, I will sleep a little easier knowing that we are on record as aware of the political pitfalls that await our search for fairness and accuracy in assessing modern Vietnamese history.
Professor Marc Jason Gilbert
From: Tuan Hoang <thoang1@nd.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Jan 23, 2006 9:47 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
Dear all,
New to this listserv, I was pleasantly surprised to open my mailbox and see
Prof. Gilbert’s spirited comments to my querries about Mme Nhu. Two things came
to my mind while reading, the first being an anecdote from Walter LaFeber’s
preface to the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of _The New Empire_. There,
Prof. LaFeber recalls his dissertating days when he went to the Library of
Congress for research, only to encounter Ernest May, then already a
prominent scholar, who happened to sit across from the same table and who said
that he (May) was working on the same topic. LaFeber reports he felt not a
little fear.
The world has changed a lot since those late Fifties days, and now similar
encounters occur more often online than offline. Well, while reading Prof.
Gilbert’s email, the lowly graduate student that is I felt quite a stir, except
that the stir wasn’t fear but delight. It derived from my having unexpectedly
provoked a muscular commentary-cum-exhortation from a senior scholar in the
field, someone whose edited volumes I’ve enjoyed greatly and whose kindness to
members of the trade is evidenced in a recent VSG email regarding the next AHA.
Delighted too, is the chance to think more about my original questions, which,
looking back, I should have explained longer and phrased better.
Though not as long and thunderous as Robert Buzzanco’s article in the
fresh-off-the-press issue of "Passport" – no matter what one thinks about Prof.
Buzzanco's opinions, for my money, his feistiness deserves to be a
category of its own – Prof. Gilbert’s comments strike me just as mostly
concerned with potential politically motivated over-simplification of
historical research in regard to our times. I am not qualified to discuss the
world in general and Iraq in particular, and will concentrate on the original
topic, which is Mme Nhu. Hence the following thoughts, not so much a response
leave alone a rebuttal to Prof. Gilbert, but evolving opinions on a figure that
strikes me as very much deserving of serious historical reconsiderations.
To begin, I find much to agree in spirit with Prof. Gilbert's point on the
temptation to swing totally the other way from long-standing conventional
views. No question there. Moreover, as a largely non-political person, I have
little but distaste for any attempts to politicize the past, no
matter which side or group of people that such politicization may benefit.
(Needless to say, one hardly needs to be non-political to share such distaste,
but given the potential explosiveness of the topic, I might as well lay my cards
on the table.) Prof. Gilbert gave the example of politicizing new research on
Ho and Diem, and knowing little about the issue, I take his words on it. I
myself think of a more distant example, the politicization of the history of
plantation life in the pre-Civil War American South. The first major wave of
studies in the early twentieth century was done by conservative Southern
historians who portrayed plantations owners as imbued by a certain noble
mission of Christianizing and “civilizing” slaves – scholarship that was
made-to-order for the justification of segregation that was going on at the
time. Then came the revisionist studies after WWII that decried plantations as
barely better than Nazi concentration camps and their owners barely less inhuman
than the Nazis – studies that could be use to reinforce fears and revulsion not
only on defeated Nazism but also on still-growing Soviet communism. Any shift
in historical thinking carries the temptation of complete reversal as well as
serious political manipulations, and one needs not belong to the choir to agree
with its self-designated preacher on these counts.
Now, about the Dragon Lady herself, I think she deserves reconsiderations for
several reasons, not in the least because of the countless caricatures about
her, starting with the very nickname above. Previously I’d thought that she was
the second or third most reviled South Vietnamese; upon further reflection, I am
inclined to say that she was *the* most reviled person in the entirety of RVN
history – more than her brother-in-law, more than her husband, and certainly
more than Thieu or any other South Vietnamese public figure. The massive
revulsion has something to do with her visibility - she certainly wasn't shy
in courting attention and inviting controversies wherever she was, be it
Saigon, the provinces, the US, or Europe. One could say that she brought the
caricatures upon herself, and deservingly so. Yet, so numerous were the
caricatures – numerous to the point of numbing – that one couldn’t help but
wonder how much exaggeration there was to them. I'd like think that historians
- well, any reasonable person, really, but let us keep ourselves to historians
here - are trained to cast suspicions on caricatures like these, the way they
would normally cast suspicions on any official lines that emanated from the
White House, the Kremlin, Phu Tong Thong, and the Poliburos in Hanoi and
Beijing. And scholarly suspicions call - in due time, even cry out - for new
investigations. Especially when such caricatures come perilously close to be
only version that we've ever had of this admittedly difficult and unloveable
woman.
She’s worthy of reconsiderations also for the simple fact that, for her time,
she mattered a good deal. Asked why on earth did he try to climb Mt. Everest,
Edmund Hillary replied, “Because it is there.” Why reconsidering Mme Nhu?
Well, because she was there. We don’t quite know the extent of her involvement
and influence in the Diem regime, but I think that, until proven otherwise, we
can work on the assumption that it was extensive enough. Her role in leading
the women's paramilitary groups alone was significant enough, but also her
control of the Saigon press. Then, of course, her hand in passing those
morality laws. What exactly was the nature of her political relationship to
Diem? Did he delegate her those tasks, or did she take them upon herself? And
how did she coordinate her activities with those of her husband and
brother-in-law? Did she function as their anti-American mouthpiece, or did
they try to rein on her at times? According to Ellen Hammer, Diem did order
her silence at least once in the summer of 1963, but we know precious little
about the pattern of their dynamics.
Questions like these strike me as legitimate ones to ask about Mme Nhu, because
studies on the regime tend to place her on the side than closer to the
center. The orthodox literature is nearly uniformly dismissive in its treatment
of her, and even the best revisionist stuffs out there - Philip Catton's book,
Ed Miller's JSEAS article, Arthur Dommen's door-stopper of a volume - has
little on her. (A parallel example is Chinese communist history, where Jiang
Qing used to receive far less attention than other party members with close
access to Mao.) Also, I think that the answers to these questions may shed
light on the broader issues about the regime in particular and the RVN in
general - issues such as the categories and typologies of their exercises of
power in the immediately post-colonial setting, or the relationships of gender,
culture, and politics during a most chaotic time. How, for instance, did
Vietnamese think about women and power at the time? For that matter, what
constituted American thinking about elite women in a third-world country like
South Vietnam? Scholars need not rely on the single-biographical approach in
studying Mme Nhu; rather, she can serve as a starting point for a number of
topics for diplomatic history and Southeast Asian studies alike.
Then there is the issue of "tragic figure." A friend of mine in poetry once
told me that a rule of thumb about writing poems is: Nouns and verbs are
precise and good; adjectives are imprecise and bad. This isn't poetry, but
perhaps I should have known better than to throw out a possibly very imprecise
adjective like "tragic" in regard to Mme Nhu. But then, if it got Prof.
Gilbert going, then I am glad because his comments in turn got me going.
Prof. Gilbert's comment on this point - that attempts to render her as
a tragic and misunderstood figure may well end up showing her as something very
different - is something I wouldn't want to dispute. It's possible that further
evidences may well confirm that she possessed a power-grabbing,
manipulative, even pathological personality. But it's also possible that she
was also other things too, but we can't tell for sure either way since we know
little about her background, her education, her life with the Ngos before they
came to power. Find out more, then we can shed some light on her relationship
to the regime.
Moreover, given her vocal if shrill denunciations of American intervention at
the time, one can't help but ask what if there was some links between her
anti-Americanism and that of the Vietnamese public at large. Were there at
least some Vietnamese that privately applauded her on this regard, even if they
had been unjustly imprisoned by her husband? And if there were, what does that
say about social and political relations among Vietnamese, both communists and
non-communists. Then, what to make of her dealings about social morality? I
for one wouldn't consider her an Eleanor Roosevelt in any sense - indeed, the
only reference to her as Roosevelt that I am aware of, comes from neither
revisionists nor proto-revisionists, but from the journalist Robert Shaplen, who
was quite critical of the regime. Besides, she probably wouldn't care less for
Mrs. Roosevelt, since it was the Trung sisters than she seemed to take after.
But her records as moralizer and legislator can definitely use a critical
study. For every anti-polygymy law there were several against divorce and
dancing - well, was there a one-step-forward-two-steps-backward pattern going
on? Could her forays in law and legislative stuffs possibly point to larger
cultural tensions experienced by the elite if not also other groups, such as
the tension between the desire for modernization on the one hand and xenophobia
on the other? Perhaps she was a control freak on public morality, as the
caricatures have it, but perhaps she was also something else. In light of
subsequent lamentations among many South Vietnamese about the malaise of social
morality during the Americanization period, one can't help but ask whether this
shrill and unlikable woman might have more in common with many of the people
who had despised her.
My point is, the former Tran Le Xuan is worthy of our scholarly attention. And
people who would study her - or another RVN personality or organization - need
not come from revisionist camp at all. To return for a moment to the
historiography of the American South, the best - and sympathetic - treatment of
those hard-to-love plantation slave-holders came from no less a talent than
Eugene Genovese, Prof. Gilbert's fellow Georgian and a committed Marxist at
that. With sufficient curiosity, sensitivity, judiciousness, and linguistic
skills, anyone from just about any persuasion could engage in such a task, not
to "rescue" as to fill in some of the blanks out there. Certainly, the results
could be manipulated for political purposes - what else is new on this regard?
But, to jump quickly into the role of self-designated preacher, I doubt that
wariness of possible politicization is enough a reason to deter any of us from
asking important questions, even if some happen to be contrarian questions.
My thanks to Prof. Tai for her tip on the biography - and to another List member
who called my attention to a conference paper on the American perception of Mme
Nhu.
Oh, about the second thing that Prof. Gilbert's response reminded me... His
passing comment on the Italian Army brought to mind the old joke about the three
shortest books on Europe – you know, English cuisine, German humor, and Italian
war heroes. Conventional wisdom says that the book on ARVN war heroes is
pretty slim too, and I am interested to see if there will be any changes to that
book - be it longer or shorter - in another ten or twenty years.
Tuan Hoang
From: Gilbert <MGilbert@ngcsu.edu>
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
Date: Jan 23, 2006 6:40 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
My thanks to Tuan Hoan, who supplied me with the idea of a tragic Diem
regime, but who has far more advanced views.
One of my colleagues, Chris Jespersen (tcjespersen@ngcsu.edu) has done
some research on the concept of the Dragon Lady in American
[mis]representations of Asia and, as I hoped I indicated, I am
predisposed against the common ly held stereotyped view. My words were
directed at drawing the attention of younger scholars exploring
Vietnamese history to the responsibility we have when engaging issues of
revisionism. Occasionally, I have spoken with such scholars after a
panel to ask very politely "Did you really mean to say __ and is it not
true that much evidence contradicts what you said or that it is open to
a much different interpretation__ only to be told in answer, well, yes
of course, you are correct, and yes, there is much evidence to the
contrary, while remaining clearly unconcerned that they just made
remarks so fallacious that, on one occasion, even a former RVN official
rose to contradict the factual elements of the presentation and scold
his right wing Vietnamese colleagues present for applauding the
student's conclusions that flattered them but which they themselves knew
to be false. I used to cringe at some blanket assertions of the left
wing about Vietnam and agree to some extent with Keith Taylor that some
left wing polemics have distorted our view of past events in Southeast
Asia; however, if we replace these distortions with others of a
different ilk, we will not be serving well either our profession or, in
the long run, those countries whose pasts matter so much to us.
Voyna netrudnaya; historia trudnaya
War is easy; history is hard
Marc
From: Tuan Hoang <thoang1@nd.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Jan 24, 2006 6:51 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
Thanks to Prof. Gilbert for the lead on Jespersen. His topic seems to be China,
but there could be some connections to Vietnam.
Not working on the Diem era, I don't fancy of getting deeper into the notion of
"tragic regime." But in the hand of a good dramatist, it could make a
interesting movie or play.
From: Gilbert <MGilbert@ngcsu.edu>
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
Date: Jan 25, 2006 9:05 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
Jespersen included Mme Nhu among his subjects.
From: MARTINA T. NGUYEN <martina_nguyen@berkeley.edu>
Date: Jan 26, 2006 9:17 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
Dear VSG,
I gave a paper at Texas Tech's Vietnam Center conference on Madame Nhu a couple of years back.
Since we're on the subject, I just thought I'd share with the VSG some of my ideas on the Madame,
from the small bit of work I've done.
Firstly, much of Madame Nhu's bad press can be traced to the nature of American correspondence
journalism during the time. No American news organization stationed a full-time correspondent in
Vietnam until 1961, but not before relying heavily on "parachute journalists" from regional
bureaus. Not until the early 1960s did permanent journalists appear in Saigon, the most
well-known being David Halberstam, Malcolm Browne, et al. As these young whippersnappers
commanded a high level of control over "the news fit to print," it is arguable that they had a
hand in shaping/spinning the news in addition to just covering them. Gross exaggerations
abounded, such as the characterizations of Vietnam as "80% Buddhist with 1,500,000 Catholics"
(roughly 10%) as evidence of Catholic usurpation of political power. The Dragon Lady moniker,
taken from Milton Caniff's comic strip, "Terry and the Pirates," reflected American orientalist
imaginings of the Asian female, and served as a ready-made, familiar mold in which to place Tran
Le Xuan. Even the term "Madame" itself has Borgian implications--it was used not only for Tran Le
Xuan, but the wives of Chiang Kai-shek, and Mao Zedong as well. (The New York Times avoided
calling her "Madame," instead using the more neutral "Mrs. Ngo Dinh Nhu.")
Basically, what I'm saying is that Madame Nhu's image in the press also reflected American
perceptions and attitudes. A case in point: A large number of articles about Madame Nhu labelled
her as "Vietnam's First Lady," complete with all the official responsibilities implied--hostess at
state functions, greeting dignitaries, etc. However, to my knowledge, the only time Madame Nhu
was ever photographed in the capacity of "First Lady," was during the visit of the King and Queen
of Thailand. This does not mean, however, that Madame Nhu was not a prominent figure in the
regime, I am merely pointing out that her actual role in the Diem regime may or may not be the
equivalent of an American first lady. However, the American press associated her with the
American-style role of First Lady, perhaps because of its discomfort with--and need to
explain--Diem's bachelorhood. One thing remains certain: Tran Le Xuan served as the convenient
lightning rod for American grievances against the Diem regime.
This is not to say, however, that Madame Nhu's bad publicity was solely caused by the American
press. Madame Nhu herself had a penchant for shocking comments, worded in the most provocative
and seemingly-callous way. But before we write Madame Nhu off as insensitive and/or completely
loopy, we have to take her statements seriously to uncover any insight behind them. These
outrageous statements (especially the incendiary "barbecue" and "intoxicated" statements), need to
be placed in its proper social, religious, and political context--one incredibly more complicated
than the American reading public and journalists imagined. Given the complexity of the Buddhist
movement at the time (see Ed Miller's work on Buddhism in the Diem period) could Madame Nhu's
comments actually make sense?
That said, I take Professor Gilbert's warning to heart--researchers should be careful of
pendulum-swing polemics. I believe that a sober examination of Madame Nhu should eschew these
prejudices and value judgments altogether, and focus on the nature of her involvement with the
Diem regime itself. I do think, however, that there is a difference between taking Madame Nhu
(and her statements) seriously and embarking on an all-out crusade to rehabilitate her.
Madame Nhu is still a topic of interest, even after Diem's downfall. The book which Professor Tai
mentioned, "Tran Le Xuan: Giac Mong Chien Truong," while useful, should be skeptically read, as
its sources are sketchy/skewed at best (i.e. Paris Match and anecdotal evidence). In the 1970s (I
believe), a multivolume fictional work loosely based on Madame Nhu titled "De Nhat Phu Nhan"
appeared in the South. Although fictional, this novel sheds interesting light on how Southerners
continued to view Madame Nhu. In the 1980s, Madame Nhu again made news when her brother Tran Van
Khiem allegedly strangled both their parents in their Washington home over his inheritance. Since
then, she's lived a reclusive life.
In the end, I agree with Tuan, that Madame Nhu should be properly examined. Last I heard, she is
still around, spending her time between Paris and Italy. Articles written about her post-Diem
life claim she is writing a memoir. Anyone know if this has been published?
Hope everyone has a happy Tet!
Best,
Martina Nguyen
From: Nhu Miller <trantnhu@gmail.com>
Date: Jan 27, 2006 3:59 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
This is Tran Tuong Nhu, no relation to Mme Nhu. I'm a little behind
on this conversation, but here's what I can tell you:
Tran Thi Le Xuan is the daughter of Tran Van Chuong, the former ambassador
to Washington during Ngo Dinh Diem's time. Her mother is from the Than Trong
family in Hue -- a clan of prominent courtiers. Her parents are interesting in
that Tran Van Chuong and his brother Tran Van Minh who
worked for years for the BBC in London were northerners. Tran Van
Minh's wife, a southerner, is the sister of Pham Ngoc Thao. Ah,
the convolutions of Vietnamese of a certain class.
One of Mme Nhu's primary motives in passing the stringent
anti-divorce law was that she wanted to prevent her sister -- whose
name escapes me for the moment -- from divorcing her husband.
Was this punishment, a power play, or was Le Xuan interested in
her brother-in-law herself and wanting to keep it all in the family?
I agree that it would be interesting to revisit Mme Nhu whose
short reign as the "first lady of Viet Nam" presaged intimations of
Mme Chiang and Imelda Marcos. She lives in
obscurity in Rome, having sufferered the loss of her husband
in 1963, and her beloved daughter -- killed in a car crash in 1964.
There are two children, a boy and a girl who survive.
Some Vietnamese think that it was just desserts -- and that she's
paying for all the reckless behavior & not being virtuous enough while she
had power.
From: Judith Stowe <judy@stowe43.fsnet.co.uk>
Date: Jan 27, 2006 8:18 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
Hi
In Nhu Miller's list of Mme Nhu's relatives, she omits to mention Tran
Van Do, former Foreign Minister of the RVN. He was her uncle.
As for Tran Van Minh of the BBC, he always considered himself a
southerner, hence his marriage to Marguerite , younger sister of Pham Ngoc
Thao and the rest of that clan. Incidentally Minh told me that when he went
to school in Hanoi, he was a classmate of Mme. Nhu because of the wide age
gaps between her father Tran Van Chuong and the rest of his younger
siblings.
Judy Stowe
From: Stephen Denney <sdenney@ocf.berkeley.edu>
Date: Jan 27, 2006 10:45 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
A few months ago, in helping a researcher, I photocopied from the UC
Berkeley Indochina Archive over 100 pages of English-language news
clippings about Mme Nhu and her family, many of them from Saigon
newspapers. Because the archive is presently closed it was necessary for
me to borrow a key to use the facility and I don't intend to do this
again. However, the entire biographical files of the archive were also
photocopied and sent to the Vietnam Center of Texas Tech in 1997 (under a
special arrangement related to Doug Pike's departure for TTU); and since
the TTU Vietnam Center is scanning in many of their documents into its
online archive, it is possible that much of this material on Mme Nhu, as
well as on other Vietnam and U.S. individuals, is now at their web site.
- Steve Denney
From: Tuan Hoang <thoang1@nd.edu>
Date: Jan 28, 2006 12:21 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
I am glad to hear from Martina Nguyen, since it was her conference paper on Mme
Nhu that I was told. Steve Denney's tip is most helpful, and a quick search at
the Vietnam Center showed also some letters she sent to LBJ and the UN after
the 1963 coup. I found the comments from Nhu Miller and Judith Stowe
illustrative of the complicated familial components that make the Vietnamese
sides of the war fascinating if not also frustrating to grasp at times. From
an article that I found (below), I've two small corrections to Nhu Miller's
references: Mme Nhu has three living children instead of two, and she has been
living Paris instead of Rome - albeit she probably has spent a good deal of time
in Italy too, since two of her children live there.
Not that I'd doubted Prof. Marc Gilbert before, but having browsed through some
of the popular links about Diem this past week, I agree with him that there
are many folks out there, both Vietnamese and Americans, who now swung the
other way when it comes to Diem, putting him on a pedestal. It is perhaps
understandable, if not excusable, as subsequent experiences often have a way to
play tricks on one's recollections and perspectives. Not long ago, I read that
during a conversation with a friend in California during the late 1980s, Duyen
Anh put in quite a few good words for Diem - yes, the same Duyen Anh who was
nearly as anti-Diem as he was anti-communist during the war. As for Ho Chi
Minh, my impression is that his status has shifted in popular revisionism too,
but not gravely. Even many former "re-educated" ARVN officers would allow, if
only grudgingly, that Ho was a nationalist to a swell degree. Admittedly, my
impressions were picked up in places like Seattle, Minneapolis, and Worcester,
MA - and not Houston, Orange County, or northern Virginia - so I could be well
way off. But going out on a limb, I'd wager that if there's going to be any
reputation that will suffer in popular revisionism in the long run, it isn't
that of Ho but Le Duan - reputation both during and after the war.
Back to Mme Nhu, two last comments, the first being her lasting image in popular
and political American culture. In the late 1960s, the cartoonist Al Capp went
to one of the "bed-ins" by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and putatively taunted Ono
by calling her both Madame Nhu *and* the Dragon Lady. Closer to our time,
Hillary Clinton has been painted along similar strokes at least twice, both
times during an election campaign. In 1992, the NYT opined that the Bush
campaign was trying to paint Mrs. Clinton as "an unwifely feminist with undue
influence on her husband's policy-making -- Gloria Steinem with the claws of
Madame Nhu." Then, when she was running for the Senate in 2000, Peggy Noonan
of the WSJ editorialized that during a debate, the then First Lady tried to be
"tough and assertive" but ended up looking "sarcastic and Madame Nhu-ish."
These instances strike me as revealing of American perception of Mme Nhu as
they are of that of Mrs. Clinton.
Second is an article of a visit of a Vietnamese Catholic (reporter?) to Mme Nhu
in 2002. It was first published in "Dan Chua" magazine in 2004, and seems to be
the latest piece available online about her. Google doesn't translate it into
English, and just in case you don't read Vietnamese, I'd like to highlight two
interesting bits. One is, recalling the Women's Solidarity movement, she said,
"Women must be liberated, women must be respected." I take this comment, made
some 40 years after the fact, with a grain of salt - well, actually, with
several grains of salt. But nonetheless I think that her involvement with that
movement might be of possible significance to a future history of Vietnamese
women during the war. The other is a remark she made on clothes, saying that
"Saigon was too hot that I wore my ao dai collar-off, but the President wasn't
pleased." The remark could be insightful to a study either on their familial
and political relationship; or, considering the relative "trendiness" of her
style and the subsequent controversy over it, on gender relationships that were
going on at large at the time. Finally, to Martina's question, the article
indicates that she was writing the memoirs in French and planned to have it
translated into English and Vietnamese too.
http://www.forums.vietcyber.net/forums/printthread.php?t=84627
This discussion has been a most pleasant diversion for me, but now it's back to
dissertation's grunt work. (Email doesn't convey expressions fully, so may I
add that I laughed out loud while saying that!) I am most appreciative of all
your comments, and wish you a happy Year of the Dog ahead.
Best,
From: Mike High <mike.high@earthlink.net>
Date: Jan 28, 2006 2:05 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
I was inspired to go through my collection of old clippings from the Raleigh News-Observer to see if I could find the other statements by Madame Nhu that contributed to her unpopular image--the ones criticizing American soldiers.
Her flippant comments about the monks who immolated themselves have stood the test of time, but in the fall of 1963 her “anti-U.S.” comments also had a strong effect. There were numerous media reports that Madame Nhu had said that “some American junior officers” were “adventurers and saboteurs” who were undermining the war effort, and that she even described them as “soldiers of fortune.” When Secretary McNamara and Ambassador Lodge met with Diem on September 29, they complained that “such outbursts were most offensive to American public opinion.”
McNamara and Lodge were reading newspaper clippings that may have been largely hearsay. The exact quotes are hard to pin down, but according to the State Department’s official history:
Madame Nhu is reported to have stated in late September 1963 that younger American officers in Vietnam "are acting like little soldiers of fortune. They do not know what is going on. With their irresponsible behavior, they have forced senior officers into following a confused policy." (As quoted in Sobel (ed.), South Vietnam, 1961-65, p. 75)
The full quotes don’t sound as bad as the snippets that were bandied about in editorial columns, and one can understand her frustration knowing that many of the American officials (and not solely junior officers) in Saigon were supporting the coup plotters. But her infamous “barbecue” comments had turned her into an easy target of opportunity for critics of the Diem regime. The political cartoonist Paul Conrad churned out a sketch of an American soldier with a knife in his back labeled “Madame Nhu,” captioned “It only hurts when I laugh.” Even the staid old News and Observer in Raleigh (where our family was on extended home leave, waiting to see if the “crisis” would subside) started editorializing about ending U.S. support for the Diem regime.
Remarkably, Madame Nhu managed to win some grudging admiration in a fence-mending visit to the U.S. in October of 1963. One suspects that she was well-coached, and there were certainly many people in the conservative media who wanted to present her in the best light. In any event, her witty, idiosyncratic, and sometimes even mildly malaprop comments were treated much more seriously when the journalists had to deal with her face-to-face.
In the end, though, we tend to remember the caricatures of Madame Nhu from the Herblock and Mauldin political cartoons of September and October 1963, Art Buchwald’s satirical column in which Madame Nhu appeared to him in a dream (Oct. 15), and the scandalous hi-jinks of the Princeton marching band, which dedicated the song “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” to her (October 12).
From: Nhu Miller <trantnhu@gmail.com>
Date: Jan 29, 2006 6:12 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
I forgot to mention Pham Ngoc THACH -- another brother of Marguerite's
-- in addition to Pham Ngoc Thao. Two revolutionaries with streets
named after them in one family! And there's also Mme Nhu's brother,
Tran Van Khiem who murdered his parents in Washington D.C. This
family deserves to be a book of some kind.
From: David Marr <dgm405@coombs.anu.edu.au>
Date: Jan 29, 2006 8:22 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
When they tote up Mme.Nhu's loss of husband, daughter and parents, all in
violent circumstances, many Vietnamese have told me this is a perfect
confirmation of karma. I don't believe such things, and I also doubt that
Mme.Nhu played an important role in the history of the First Republic. She
certainly did have an aura, however. I remember her descending the steps
of a military plane at Da Nang airport in early 1963, wearing one of her
famous low-cut ao dai, and a bevy of local officials practically grovelling
at her feet. A few weeks later I was called in to interpret for an
American colonel in talks with a representative of Ngo Dinh Can (younger
brother of Diem, allegedly in charge of Trung Bo), where one of the items
on the table was a Vietnamese proposal that a brothel compound be
established for the rapidly increasing number of Yanks coming in. The
colonel said he'd lose his chickens (I had a hard time translating this)
if word got back to Washington that he'd agreed to this, and nothing came
of it. I always wondered if Mme.Nhu was the source of this proposal.
From: MARTINA T. NGUYEN <martina_nguyen@berkeley.edu>
Date: Jan 29, 2006 10:41 PM
Subject: [Vsg] Re: Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
Dear VSG,
I agree with Professor Marr--from what I've seen, Madame Nhu did not play a large role in the
regime, at least in an official capacity. However, I must respectfully point out that just
because she had no official role, she could (and very well may have) influence the decisions from
behind the scenes. As the wife of Diem's chief advisor, Madame Nhu was in the position to conduct
"pillowtalk politics." This reminds me of studies of the American presidency as a team or
partnership, highlighting the unofficial capacity of the first lady to influence policy decisions.
I don't see why this effect would not apply to Madame Nhu, albeit to a lesser extent, considering
she was a few steps removed from the Presidency itself. This remains speculation on my part--a
careful examination of archival/primary materials would shed more light.
On a different note: from the press coverage I've seen, Madame Nhu's "Morality Laws" banned the
following in various combinations: concubinage, adultery, divorce, nightclubs, bars, dancing, etc.
Has anyone actually seen a copy of this law? I am very curious to see what Madame Nhu actually
legislated, and in what way did she actually author these laws.
The book "Tran Le Xuan: Giac Mong Chien Truong," also mentions the anecdote of Madame Nhu banning
divorce to prevent her sister, Tran Le Chi, from divorcing her wealthy husband for her French
lover. The reason--to keep the husband's wealth in the family. A number of newspaper and
magazine articles also mentions this. However, I am skeptical about this anecdote, along with a
lot of similar stories (i.e. her screaming matches with Diem). To me, this sounds exactly like
something that the American press (and Diem opponents, for that matter ) would use to justify "the
Dragon Lady" image. Given the widespread nature of the laws, is there a possibility that the laws
could be traced to Madame Nhu's fervent Catholicism, as opposed to self-serving, high-handed
political maneuvers? Also, Tran Van Chuong's family was wealthy and powerful in its own right,
would the additional wealth warrant such intrigue from Madame Nhu, who was already part of the
most powerful family at the time? In the end, I believe that this story, like similar ones,
remains in the realm of hearsay.
I guess in a long-winded way, I am reiterating my previous assertion that Madame Nhu's role in the
Diem regime should be properly examined--to consider the preexisting labels but avoid the biases
they embody.
Regards,
Martina Nguyen
From: Judith Stowe <judy@stowe43.fsnet.co.uk>
Date: Jan 30, 2006 8:48 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
With due deference to Nhu Miller, Pham Ngoc Thach & Pham Ngoc Thao who have
streets named after them were not directly related, according to family
sources.
The history of Dr.(med). Pham Ngoc Thach and his involvement with theDRV
until his death in the 1960's during a US bombing raid, is fairly well
documented. But the story of of Albert Pham Ngoc Thao & his nunerous
siblings is far more complex. If anybody wants to look at this extensive
southern catholic family, they could start by consulting an article by Tran
Thi Lien published in Naissance d'un Etat Parti (Les Indes Savantes, Paris
2004) which outlines the Party history of Gaston Pham Ngoc Thuan, elder
brother to Albert & Marguerite.
From: Quang Phu Van <quang.van@yale.edu>
Date: Jan 30, 2006 10:39 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
Dear all,
Mr. Tran Van Lang wrote a memoir, "Nhan Chung Mot
Che Do". He studied in France and the U.S. in
1953 or so and then was asked to return to VN to
work for President Ngo Dinh Diem. He now lives in
New Canaan, CT. You can order the memoir by
contacting the author at 203-972-7058.
From: Vinh-The Lam <vinhthe.lam@usask.ca>
Date: Jan 30, 2006 11:04 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
Hi Quang:
I believe the author's last name is Huynh, not Tran.
From: Quang Phu Van <quang.van@yale.edu>
Date: Jan 30, 2006 12:28 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
Dear Vinh,
Thanks for making the correction. Quang
From: Tuan Hoang <thoang1@nd.edu>
Date: Jan 30, 2006 4:25 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
Well, one more into the fray... Mike High and Martina Nguyen said plenty about
American attitudes towards Mme Nhu, but Prof. Marr's comment brought to mind
native attitudes towards the Americans.
> A few weeks later I was called in to interpret for an
> American colonel in talks with a representative of Ngo Dinh Can (younger
> brother of Diem, allegedly in charge of Trung Bo), where one of the items
> on the table was a Vietnamese proposal that a brothel compound be
> established for the rapidly increasing number of Yanks coming in. The
> colonel said he'd lose his chickens (I had a hard time translating this)
> if word got back to Washington that he'd agreed to this, and nothing came
> of it. I always wondered if Mme.Nhu was the source of this proposal.
Whether or not Mme Nhu was behind the proposal, the question is, Why such a
proposal in the first place? I can't help speculate that, like the Brits
during WWII, the Vietnamese then thought of American men as "oversexed,
overpaid, and over here." Can't keep 'em from sex so might as well try to
contain 'em, so to speak.
Of course, similar issues occurred in other countries too - South Korea, Japan,
the Philippines, etc. A sociological study of the Korean case is Katharine
Moon, Sex among allies:military prostitution in U.S.-Korea relations (1997),
and in this case, Washington was implicated.
From: Mike High <mike.high@earthlink.net> Mailed-By: mailman1.u.washington.edu
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Jan 30, 2006 7:45 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
Apropos of Madame Nhu as a cultural icon, I've posted a few photos from the
old family archives to the Web that may be of interest:
http://home.earthlink.net/~viet-past/parade.html
As I recall, the formation of women paramilitary units was attributed to
Madame Nhu. She also had a memorable photo-op where she was show firing a
pistol, dressed in an ao dai, with several women in camouflage arrayed
behind her.
It would be interesting to compare Madame Nhu's image of women-at-arms with
the North Vietnamese versions. Did the North Vietnamese parades also include
squads of women soldiers? When it came to actual combat, it seems the SRV
liked to portray women as nurses and porters, but sometimes fighting along
with the men, and sometimes acting quite independently, as in the scenes of
going off "on patrol."
I don't know if Madame Nhu's influence was also seen in the parade groups of
women in white ao dais. And I certainly can't explain the giant
papier-maché Mme Nhu behind the choo-choo!
How much power did she have, beyond "pillow talk" politics? It seems
unlikely that she was able to project her cultural vision very far into the
highlands and the lowlands; how widely did it resonate in the cities of
Saigon and Hue?
When I was trying out my first camera, a Brownie Hawkeye, I happened to take
a picture of the statue of the Trung Sisters on the riverfront:
http://home.earthlink.net/~viet-past/vn-trungsisters.gif
Stanley Karnow says that "the statue that she had erected in their [the
Trung Sisters'] honor was plainly a monument to herself." (Vietnam, page
265) I don't know for a fact that Madame Nhu actually commissioned this
sculpture or modeled for it--Martina Nguyen rightly reminds us to be
skeptical of such undocumented statements--but that's what I always heard in
the American community.
³Customs and Culture of Vietnam² by Ann Cadell Crawford, 1966 adds a bit to
the image:
> An interesting monument stood at the foot of Hai-Ba-Trung Street in Saigon on
> the waterfront commemorating the two sisters. Many people said the face of one
> the sisters was that of Madame Nhu, the disliked sister-in-law of President
> Ngo Dinh Diem. According to a Vietnamese writer, on this holiday Madame Nhu
> once rode in a parade atop an elephant, as one of the Trung sisters. On the
> successful coup d¹etat of November 1, 1963, jubilant mob tore the statue
> apart. They did this because of their dislike for Madam Nhu, not because of
> the Trung sister¹s history.
And, in fact, the statue did come down rather quickly, though it might have
been on the orders of the new regime, rather than a "jubilant mob." We
didn't get about much on the weekend of the coup, as you might imagine, but
when we did it seemed to me that people were mainly relieved it was over.
From: Gilbert <mgilbert@ngcsu.edu>
Date: Jan 31, 2006 11:43 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Madame Nhu and RVN Revisionism
I have an excellent photo of the Nhu founded ARVN female Tiger Brigade taken in 1970, which I would be happy to send to anyone who is interested. In contrast to their opponents, this womens unit was not an operational force.
Marc
From: Matthew Masur <MMasur@anselm.edu>
Date: Jan 31, 2006 8:12 PM
Subject: [Vsg] More on Madame Nhu
Dear list,
Earlier posts noted some of the infamous images of Madame Nhu. A sketch of a busty Madame Nhu wearing a Michigan State University cheerleading uniform graced the cover of Ramparts in 1966. The same image was used recently as the cover for John Ernst's book on the Michigan State University Group.
I found documents in the National Archives II in HCMC indicating that Madame Nhu was behind the Hai Ba Trung statue. She broached the idea in December 1961, and planning commenced in January 1962. Apparently the preferred site of the monument was already home to two French statues, but Madame Nhu consulted with Vu Van Mau and they decided to destroy the existing statues, along with fifty-three trees surrounding them. The documents shed no light on the rumors that Madame Nhu was a model for the statue.
The statue was constructed rather quickly and inaugurated on March 11, which I believe was Hai Ba Trung Day in 1962. Madame Nhu gave a speech at the ceremony where she lamented that "a section. . . of the people of the Free World continue to mouth certain sermons of pseudo-liberalism which indeed are an insult to the democratic principles of Free Viet Nam." She also declared that "it is weak and childish to waste one's time, especially now, in defaming without foundation the leaders who refuse any compromise and who have decided to give their lives for the country" (Roy Jumper and Nguyen Thi Hue, Notes on the Political and Administrative History of Viet Nam, 1802-1962, 202-203). Not quite as memorable as the barbecue quotations, but illustrative of the developing tensions between the U.S. and the Ngos.
Matt
From: Mike High <mike.high@earthlink.net>
Date: Feb 1, 2006 5:52 PM
Subject: [Vsg] Madame Nhu; Political Cartoons; Women's Paramilitary Corps
Thanks to Matt for confirming Mme. Nhu’s role in erecting the Hai Ba Trung statues. Sounds like I was pretty lucky to snap the picture when I did, since the statue was toppled the year after it went up.
The Digital Journalist has the classic Larry Burrows photo of Madame Nhu firing a pistol while “visiting her Women’s Paramilitary Corps.”
http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0302/lb02.html
A variation is posted at: http://www.reformation.org/viet40.jpg
The text on the Digital Journalist page says that Madame Nhu “introduced a resolution in the National Assembly” to create a training program for the Women’s Paramilitary Corps, which was projected to grow into a “reserve force” of 360,000. (The immediate question that comes to mind is whether Madame Nhu actually had the authority to introduce resolutions in the National Assembly, or if the resolution was introduced on her behalf--and, of course, a resolution in of itself does not authorize or appropriate funding for recruitment, uniforms, weapons, training, etc.)
I decided to go on ahead and temporarily post a few low-res images of the political cartoons of the era for scholarly purposes, since they're not available in the on-line newspaper archives (that I know of).
http://home.earthlink.net/~viet-past/MmeNhu.html
I hope the lords of copyright won't mind --as a writer, I've burned a few sticks of incense at their altar over the years.
Mike High