Finding the Dragon Lady Read online

  Ultimately, when it came to the speech, I came up empty handed. The bishop’s office was as kind as could be. The bishop himself asked his secretary to send me his notes on the trip. I was able to tell Madame Nhu that the seventy-five-year-old had worn his black cassock and red sash despite the heat—the temperature had been about 104. There were 1,500 people at the shrine for Mass, but as for the speech itself, whatever the bishop had said had vanished into the humid air.

  Madame Nhu’s disappointment at my lack of results was audible. She wanted Bishop Skylstad to have said that Mary had appeared in Vietnam but never in the United States. She wanted him to link Mary’s not appearing to Americans and what had happened to her family. She wanted to hear that the Catholic bishop acknowledged the terrible act Americans had committed and that they were paying the price. But I couldn’t get that for her.

  “C’est dommage,” that’s too bad, she sighed. “You were like an angel.”

  “Madame, I am sorry.” But was I really? I wasn’t sure anymore. Her calls had become increasingly erratic, coming late at night or much too early in the morning. Lately, she seemed frustrated when I couldn’t talk—because of the baby or her timing. I had even started to avoid the phone when the caller ID read “Unavailable.” When we had gone out of town for a week over the summer, there had been thirty-seven hang-ups on the voice mail, sixteen of them consecutive. I was certain who the persistent caller was.

  I began to doubt that Madame Nhu would ever give me her memoirs or, after reading the summary she was so proud of, that they would be readable. I was getting tired of the cat-and-mouse game. So I challenged her.

  “I am not sure what good the speech would have done for your memoir anyway,” I said. “People want to know what actually happened. To you. Not your religious interpretation of things.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath. The hiss of contempt in her voice filled my ear.

  “The Vietnamese know the truth. Anyone who is worth it knows the truth. Too bad for the others. Who cares about the rest of you.”

  I had triggered the same defense mechanism that had once walled her off from the world in Saigon. When Madame Nhu was First Lady, it was always “the diplomats” or “the Communists” working to discredit her. Her husband said that “foreign powers” were against them, “maybe . . . because we are Catholic.” I wasn’t working against Madame Nhu in any way or for any reason. My intention was to help her. I wanted to get the memoirs that would help people understand and sympathize with her. But I had dared to contradict her, and for my sin, she would punish me with a long and stony silence.

  Madame Nhu hung up on me. It would be almost a year before I heard from her again.

  That same stubborn insistence on always being right got Madame Nhu and her family into more trouble in 1963 than they could get themselves out of. The trouble with the Buddhists had started in Hue, with the oldest of the five living Ngo brothers, Ngo Dinh Thuc.

  Thuc was dressed in his customary clerical robes when his car approached the outskirts of Hue one morning early in May. His heavy features and drooped jowls were far removed from the lean good looks of his brother Nhu, but Thuc’s manner was distinguished and confident.1

  Thuc, the archbishop of Hue, was being chauffeured back into the city after a visit to La Vang’s cathedral on the morning of May 7, 1963. Six months before, the pope himself had elevated the church of La Vang from minor basilica to a full basilica. Practically, not much had changed besides the installation of a conopaeum, an umbrella-like structure with silk panels of red and yellow that would be used to shelter his Holiness if he came to Vietnam for a visit. But the designation for La Vang was special to Thuc, because he had helped turn the worn red patch of earth into what it was now: a pilgrimage site, a center for the cult of the Virgin Mary, and a financial “cause.” Thuc had overseen the construction of the marble Holy Rosary Square, the dredging of Tinh Tam Lake, and the erection of three concrete banyan trees to represent the Trinity. Government officials, from the vice president down, gave money even if they weren’t Catholics, as it helped to be in the good graces of Diem and Nhu’s big brother.

  As the archbishop of Hue and the Ngos’ older brother, Thuc was the head of the family. He stayed in the presidential palace when in Saigon, living for months at a time with Diem and the Nhus. It was a good vantage point from which to promote Catholicism. To pad his donations, Thuc also transferred what should have been public funds for the state of South Vietnam to the church. He blurred the line between church and state when Thuc was granted “concessions” from the government, transferring land, farms, businesses, and real estate to the church, making the Catholic Church the largest landowner in the country.2 It would have been hard for Diem to say no to his older brother, especially as Thuc could claim to have the strong arm of God on his side. Thuc’s corruption didn’t benefit him directly—the land and the money went to the church. Those in the closest ranks of Diem’s Catholic circle knew where the money and lands were going, and they didn’t complain.

  But most Vietnamese were not Catholic. They were Buddhist, at least in combination. The most popular Vietnamese religion is still a mix of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism with some ancestor worship thrown in. Most homes have an altar in the front of the house, as do many Vietnamese shop fronts. Madame Nhu had grown up in a household that identified with Buddhism and Confucianism. The smell of the joss sticks reminded her of the family altar in her Hanoi home, when on the new moon day the incense mingled with the essence of orange and peach blossoms that her mother arranged before guiding the children to kowtow at the altar, overflowing with gifts. Madame Nhu should have known that Buddhism could conjure up powerful feelings of home and family for the Vietnamese, but the Catholic family she had married into didn’t see things that way—especially not Archbishop Thuc, who interpreted the loose form of Buddhism practiced by most Vietnamese as religious ambivalence. He saw that ambivalence as a challenge and opportunity. His dream of converting Vietnam into a Christian nation seemed tantalizingly close. And Thuc did not do much to hide his own personal ambition: to be a cardinal in the Catholic Church, or even more.

  On the drive back from La Vang, Thuc noticed flags flying all around Hue, colorful squares of garish blue, yellow, red, white, and orange in honor of Buddha’s upcoming 2,527th birthday. The city of Hue was as close as Vietnam had to a religious center for Buddhism. It was the historic home of the Vietnamese emperor, who had served with the mandate of heaven.

  But the flags were technically illegal. An obscure flag-flying law declared that only national flags could be flown in public places, and no religious flags were allowed anywhere unless they were the banners of a religious “institution.” Buddhism was no such institution. A leftover French colonial regulation labeling it an “association” had simply been rolled into the new country’s laws in 1954. There had been so many other pressing problems. Unlike an institution, such as the Roman Catholic Church, an “association” like Buddhism was subject to government controls and restrictions. Had no one thought about changing the law? Or, as the frustrated Buddhist leadership accused, had no one been willing to change it?

  Thuc ordered the flags taken down. Hearing about it later in Saigon, Nhu was enraged by his older brother’s thoughtlessness. “Why did my brother insist on sending such a stupid order about the flags? Who cares what flags they hang out?”

  The Buddhist leaders cared very much. They had been waiting for a chance like this and quickly made the most of it. The Buddha’s birthday celebration quickly turned into a protest. Thousands of people streamed over the bridges into the center of town. They waved banners for religious equality, but many were likely only too glad for an excuse to join a protest against the government. It was pretty clear that the Buddhist protests could not be characterized as a purely religious expression. The fact that the marchers had written their banners in English showed that they aimed to capture Western photographers’ attention. The Buddhists knew that if they wanted regime c
hange, then they needed the sympathy of the foreign press.

  Government troops and city law enforcement officials were waiting in the city center to make sure nothing got out of hand. And then, all of a sudden, it did. Two explosions erupted. No one knew where they had come from or which side had detonated them. The crowd was ordered to disperse, and when it didn’t, fire hoses were turned on them; civil guardsmen fired shots into the air. Chaos descended. Grenades were tossed into the crowd. A wave of human screaming followed the crack of explosions closely. When the smoke cleared, nine people had been killed, including two children, and fourteen were injured.3

  As a knee-jerk reaction, the government in Saigon blamed the episode on the Viet Cong. Diem and Nhu claimed Communists were responsible for the mess in Hue. Communists had exploited the situation, they said.

  Perhaps if the brothers had only made a sincere effort to apologize, the crisis might have stopped there. But instead, Diem and the Nhus applied the lessons they had learned throughout the years, from standing up to the Binh Xuyen in 1955 to facing down the paratroopers in 1960: Show no weakness. Do not negotiate. In the face of instability, apply more pressure.

  The Ngos felt wrongly accused. Wasn’t it enough that freedom of religion was spelled out in the constitution of South Vietnam? Why did the Buddhists have to insist on new and separate treatment for their religion over everyone else’s? Would the other religions and religious sects—the Hoa Hao and Cao Dai and the few Protestants and Muslims—demand the same? Their demands were divisive, and South Vietnam needed unity to fight the Communists. The Ngos just didn’t see religious persecution as a legitimate complaint and viewed the Buddhists as political opportunists. Security forces, layered with secret militias and spy networks, together with general repression under Madame Nhu’s morality laws, made the situation ripe for an explosion, but the Ngo regime treated the Buddhists as they had the gangsters and the coup plotters. It was a colossal misjudgment.

  The Buddhists kept gathering. In cities all over South Vietnam, they took up the fight against the Diem regime. They protested for their right to public assembly and called for the right to fly the Buddhist flag in public. They also called the Ngo regime out for its Catholic bias. Bald monks gathered in their saffron robes and addressed crowds of curious onlookers with battery-powered bullhorns. The police would show up and disperse the crowds, but they were careful. Beating and arresting monks would be terrible public relations for a regime already under close watch.

  Killing and violence are anathema to the Buddhist philosophy of peace, with one great exception: self-immolation. The sacrifice of one’s mortal flesh for the collective cause of others is permitted. As one Buddhist spokesperson put it, “A Buddhist monk has certain responsibilities that he must take care of in this life on his way to the next life.”

  One month after the May protests, an elderly monk named Thich Quang Duc emerged from a white car at the busy intersection of Phan Dinh Phung and Le Van Duyet in the center of Saigon. Two young monks walked alongside him and helped the old man lower himself onto a square, tufted pillow. He folded his legs into the lotus position, his knees a few inches from the ground. Then, working hastily, his young assistants closed in again, dousing the old man’s orange robes with pink fluid, even sloshing his face and the back of his bald head. When they had stepped a safe distance back, Thich Quang Duc struck a match and let it fall into his folded robes. The fireball engulfed him. The bonze sat unmoving, like a pillar, as the smoky yellow flames consumed him.

  The monks had tipped off some members of the international media that “something very important” was going to happen, but Malcolm Browne was the only journalist in Saigon to show up. The Buddhists had left the specifics deliberately vague—they did not want the police alerted—and they had guessed correctly that their spectator would not intervene, although he certainly had time. Unlike a regular gasoline fire, which burns furiously bright for just a moment, this blaze was intense and sustained. Browne looked on in horror at the blackening figure surrounded by licking flames, but if he felt compelled to act, he was also keenly aware of his duty as the only camera-toting journalist present to document the travesty in Saigon. “I could see that although his eyes were closed his features were contorted with agony. But throughout his ordeal he never uttered a sound or changed his position, even as the smell of burning flesh filled the air.” Behind the burning body, two monks unfurled a banner in English: “A Buddhist Priest Burns for Buddhist Demands.” Another bonze spoke into a microphone in both English and Vietnamese: “A Buddhist priest becomes a martyr.” Browne guessed that the ordeal lasted ten minutes before the flames subsided. Thich Quang Duc pitched over, twitched, and was still. He was the first and most famous, but he wouldn’t be the last. By the end of that terrible summer, six more Buddhists, including monks, a nun, and a young student, had lit themselves on fire.4

  As the Buddhist situation flared in Saigon, the United States, on whose support South Vietnam depended completely, was threatening to dissociate itself from the regime. The Americans wanted Diem to open up his government, to talk with his political opponents and bring them into the fold—in other words, they wanted him to behave more like a democrat than a dictator. Diem was taking “considerable action” on some matters, but on others, the Americans felt he was stalling or making matters worse. And he was refusing to cooperate with the foreign press—to “retrograde effect.” The regime’s “attitude towards the US press reflects [its] attitude in general towards the US government and people,” and if the Nhus were “openly contemptuous,” Diem was simply “indifferent.” As American ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge reflected in his 1967 Vietnam Memoir, “The United States can get along with corrupt dictators who manage to stay out of the newspapers,” but Diem and the Nhus couldn’t follow those rules.

  Diem was frankly tired of steeling himself against demands from Washington. He wasn’t a puppet and resented being treated like one. Born under French colonialism, he wasn’t going to be a victim of American “colonial imperialism,” so Diem was very sensitive to any encroachments on his sovereignty. As Edward Lansdale pointed out in a secret memorandum to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1961, “If the next American official to talk to President Diem would have the good sense to see him as a human being who has been through a lot of hell for years—and not as an opponent to be beaten to his knees—we would start regaining our influence with him.” Americans already criticized the way he ran his army, they disparaged his family and closest advisors, Nhu and Madame Nhu, as “evil influences,” and now they were pressing Diem to quiet the mess with the Buddhists. Diem couldn’t help but frame any concession to the Buddhists as a concession to the Americans: “If we make a concession now, the United States will ask for more,” he rationalized. “How many concessions do we have to make to satisfy them? . . . I wish to increase the army; the United States refuses to supply weapons and other means. The United States only wants to send troops to Vietnam.”5

  Madame Nhu’s Women’s Solidarity Movement issued a declaration that the Times of Vietnam printed in full the very next day: a robe does not make a bonze. It admonished Vietnamese and Americans to take a hard look at the real motives behind the monks’ demonstrations. Madame Nhu charged the Buddhists with using their religion as a cover for communism. The Buddhists were “exploited and controlled by Communism and oriented to sowing disorder and neutralism.”6 To accuse someone of communism in the Cold War chill of Saigon in 1963 was an incredible insult. But it didn’t end there. Included in the pronouncement was a passing swipe at “those inclined to take Vietnam for a satellite of a foreign power,” by which Madame Nhu clearly meant the United States. Officials in the US embassy were stunned that such a diplomatic gaffe could go unpunished. “If that statement is policy, it’s a disaster,” they warned.7

  But Madame Nhu’s most offensive pronouncement was yet to come. And this time it was not buried in any women’s group declaration; she came out and said it herself. The Buddhist suicides
were “barbecues,” she declared. With that one sentence, Madame Nhu sealed her fate. The varied grievances against the government suddenly all became believable after Madame Nhu gave such a cruel voice to the regime.

  President Diem tried to control the damage by going on the radio to say how profoundly troubled he was by the death of Thich Quang Duc. Then he reiterated that as the constitution protected Buddhism, he was personally its guardian. Negotiations with the Buddhists continued, and a document that would come to be known as the Joint Communiqué of June 16 resolved the Buddhist flag-flying issue—at least in theory. On religious holidays, the Buddhist flag could be flown outside pagoda walls as long as it was accompanied by a larger national flag. The Buddhist flag could be flown alone only inside the pagoda. On national holidays, no religious flags were to fly at all. Most tellingly, in a revealing moment of weakness, Diem made a point to tell reporters that Madame Nhu did not speak for the government. To most people the Diem presidency really comprised three people: Diem, Nhu, and Madame Nhu. This attempt to silence the most visible member reduced his power, especially when, as quickly became apparent, Madame Nhu showed her complete unwillingness to be silenced.