Word: nhu
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...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...
...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...
...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...
...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...