Nation: In the Lions’ Cage

With a rustle of rich brocade and a swish of scented silk, Mme. Ngo Dinh Nhu swept into the U.S. last week. She was accompanied by her handsome, 18-year-old daughter, Le Thuy, and preceded by some of the worst press notices since Tokyo Rose. Although not even her bitterest critics would doubt her courage, the petite sister-in-law of South Viet Nam’s President Ngo Dinh Diem did have some fears about her 21-day coast-to-coast visit. Going to the U.S., said she, would probably be like walking into “a cage of lions.”

Indeed, by the time she stepped off a Pan American jet from Paris, wearing a brown ao-dai, the lions were really roaring. In the Senate, Ohio Democrat Stephen Young blasted her as “arrogant” and “viciously anti-American.” At a Cleveland banquet, Ohio’s Democratic Congressman Wayne Hays growled, “It’s bad enough that every two-bit dictator around the world reviles and insults the U.S. at will, but it is too much to let this comic-strip Dragon Lady do it under our very noses.” One high State Department official, noting that Mme. Nhu had been invited to appear before several press groups, had the effrontery to criticize the press for what he said would be “a triumphal reception.”

It was hardly that. Wherever Mme. Nhu went, large crowds gathered. There were, of course, the inevitable pickets toting such signs as: NO NHUS IS GOOD NEWS and PHU ON NHU. But for the most part the crowds were merely curious. As for the press, it was ready with plenty of loaded questions. No sooner did Mme. Nhu arrive in New York than one reporter asked if she were “power-hungry,” as her father, Tran Van Chuong, recently resigned as Saigon’s ambassador to Washington, had claimed. “If I am,” she replied in her rapid-fire but often imprecise English, “I would not indulge in such quixotism. I would betray Viet Nam instead of trying to help it. I am having the behavior of a Don Quixote, really.” She wanted only “to try to understand why we can’t get along better,” she said. “People seem to hate my country, to dislike even myself. I come here just to ask you, why, why, why, why, why?”

Hardly a Housewife. Undoubtedly, Mme. Nhu was on her best behavior. One sobering influence was the fact that the U.S. has quietly begun trimming its economic aid to her brother-in-law’s regime in hopes of forcing it to initiate reforms. After Diem’s Special Forces raided the Buddhist pagodas last August, the U.S. suspended a $10 million-a-month commercial import program, sales of U.S. surplus commodities that ran to $2,000,000 a month, and part of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s $2,000,000 monthly payments to the Special Forces and blocked funds used to finance Ngo Dinh Nhu’s secret police.

Even so, Mme. Nhu could contain herself only so long. At a television interview the day after her arrival, she managed to keep her inch-long fingernails sheathed for the better part of an hour, but finally began clawing about. The U.S. Information Service, she insisted, without producing any convincing evidence, had plotted to overthrow the Diem government, and Saigon’s resident U.S. newsmen had helped out. “They just dislike us,” she explained.

At the Waldorf-Astoria, more than 1,000 people jammed the Grand Ballroom for an Overseas Press Club luncheon, with women in mink heavily outnumbering the working newsmen. “Is she 40?” asked one matron, marveling at the youthful appearance of the tiny figure on the dais. “I can’t believe it.” (She is 39.) Commented another, “You don’t have nails like that and do much around the house.”

Off the Bar Stool. Almost hidden by a 4-foot lectern, Mme. Nhu held forth for 90 minutes. At one point, someone brought over a bar stool and lifted her aboard, but after a moment she asked to have it removed. “I am more comfortable standing up,” she said.

Stand she did, 5 ft. 2 in. tall in her spike heels, and she held her own with considerable composure. What would she do if she were President of the U.S.? one reporter asked. “My first step,” she said, “would be really to inform more of the American people about the Communist danger. We should not be lulled into a false sense of security.” Did her husband, and not her brother-in-law, really rule South Viet Nam? “It is the President who rules, not my husband or me,” she replied. “President Diem is too authoritarian to allow anything else.” When Columnist Mary McGrory asked, “Why did you come here at our expense?” Mme. Nhu replied icily, “I was not aware that all the money in Viet Nam was American.”

“A Harmless Americanism.” Flitting from TV studios to college campuses, Mme. Nhu argued her cause with passion. Asked if the six Buddhists who burned themselves alive did not indicate strong opposition to the Diem government, she replied eloquently, “How much stronger is the Vietnamese government, for which so many thousands of people are dying obscurely, not for the sake of publicity.”

Often Mme. Nhu’s imperfect English got her into jams. But she also used it as a handy escape hatch when her more acid quotes backfired. At first she denied that she had ever described American troops in South Viet Nam as “soldiers of fortune.” Said she: “I have a very rich vocabulary, but that word I have never used.” But a couple of days later she reversed herself, said that she had indeed used the words—though in a complimentary sense, to denote “self-made heroes.” Explaining her macabre comment about “these Buddhist barbecues” after the suicides by fire began, she said that her daughter had overheard a U.S. soldier use the phrase at a Saigon hot-dog stand. “It sounded like a perfectly harmless Americanism,” said Mme. Nhu.

No Hello. As Mme. Nhu talked on, the invitations kept piling up, at one point numbered 80. Although she canceled several TV appearances, including one with David Susskind, the brutal schedule began telling on her. At suburban Sarah Lawrence College, she had to rest for ten minutes before emerging from her chauffeured Cadillac, gulped pills while onstage. But she kept going. Looking wan and shaky, she went to Fordham University, got an enthusiastic reception from 5,000 students at the Jesuit school. “This can make up for all the vicissitudes, all the sadness I have met here so far,” said she. But the next day, at Columbia University she was met with boos and a barrage of eggs.

This week she will visit Washington, but plans to see no important officials. What about John Kennedy? “I would be satisfied to say to him, ‘Bonjour,’ and the rest would come according to the inspiration of the moment.”

The chances are that she will not get to say even bonjour to the President, whose chief foreign visitor this week will be Communist Dictator Tito. But more’s the pity. A meeting between the President and Mme. Nhu could hardly make relations between the U.S. and Viet Nam worse than they already are. The President might even learn some things he hasn’t been told before.