Mme Nhu, who died two days before THE wedding, was a hell of a woman. Her maternal grandmother was a Vietnamese princess of impeccable credentials, yet when she was captured by the commies in Hue in 1946, she stood up to them until the French rescued her four months later. She was anti-French and anti-commie, yet the Western press named her the Dragon Lady, a nickname she didn’t deserve but one that stuck. She was a nationalist par excellence, but in the gathering storm of the Vietnam war the press had to have a villain (the commies were the good guys) and she played her role to the hilt.
When the shocking images of Buddhist monks’ immolations reached the West, she did not flinch or cry crocodile tears. She undiplomatically referred to them as barbecues. American hacks insisted she looked and acted like the diabolical femme fatale in the popular comic strip of the day ‘Terry and the Pirates’. She gave back as good as she got. She threatened to slash the throat of a rebellious general during a cocktail party when he announced that he would overthrow the president and make her his mistress. The general was exiled soon after. For any of you youngsters not versed in the history of Indochina way back in the Paleolithic age, Mme Nhu was married to the brother of the weak president of South Vietnam, President Diem. Both men were assassinated in 1963 under orders from President John F. Kennedy. (Who himself was assassinated later that year.)
No ifs or buts about it, Kennedy got rid of the Diems, escalated the war and never lived to see the bloody catastrophe he caused. Kennedy apologists have sugarcoated his role in the disaster, but facts are facts and the Kennedys and their acolytes can go to hell, as far as I’m concerned.
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