Ngo Dinh Diem

Diem was the first president of South Vietnam (1955–1963). In the wake of the French withdrawal from Indochina as a result of the 1954 Geneva Accords, Diệm led the effort to create the Republic of Vietnam. Accruing considerable U.S. support due to his staunch anti-Communism, he achieved victory in a 1955 plebiscite that was widely considered fraudulent.

Vietnam Graphic

A Roman Catholic, Diệm pursued biased and religiously oppressive policies against the Republic's Montagnard natives and its Buddhist majority, epitomized in Malcolm Browne's Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of the self-immolation of Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức in 1963.

Amid religious protests that garnered worldwide attention, Diệm lost the backing of his U.S. patrons and was assassinated, along with his brother, Ngô Đình Nhu by Nguyễn Văn Nhung, the aide of ARVN General Dương Văn Minh on 2 November 1963, during a coup d'état that deposed his government.

Diem himself was not married, his sister-in-law, Nhu's wildly unpopular, Francophile wife, Madame Nhu, became South Vietnam's de facto first lady.

Madame Nhu (“The Dragon Lady”)

Notorious figure in Vietnam

Arrogant & extravagant

Prone to nasty, on-the-record comments, she created one public relations disaster after another for the U.S.-backed Diem government