Word: nhu
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With tiny tears at the corners of her eyes, Mme. Nhu recently sighed that she had trouble at first appreciating "that I made many people unhappy with my Family Bill?people who were in illegitimate liaisons but who were strongly in love." Pulling herself together, she adds: "But society cannot sacrifice morality and legality for a few wild couples. I have chosen to defend the legitimate family...
...Darlings." In a succession of bills, Mme. Nhu banned prostitution, contraceptives, abortion, organized animal fights and taxi dancing. Referring to the war, she said, "Dancing with death is enough." In Saigon, "twist easies" began to spring up, and criticism mounted that Mme. Nhu was trying to impose rigid Catholic standards on South Viet Nam's easygoing sexual mores. She herself used to go swimming at the fashionable Cercle Sportif. but stayed away when she saw too many bikinis. Even some government officials privately said that the morality crusade resulted only in increased and unnecessary public hostility toward the Diem regime...
Sure of her infallibility and contemptuous of her critics, Mme. Nhu set up a women's paramilitary corps, a parade ground force whose members ("my darlings") get paid twice as much as army regulars. Snapped Mme. Nhu: "The women are officers, not simple soldiers." She also organized the Women's Solidarity Movement, a sort of Oriental Junior League whose 1,200,000 members supervise workers' nurseries and welfare centers?and serve as a political intelligence network throughout the country...
...officials fear that the hamlet program, headed by Mme. Nhu's husband, is spreading too fast and too thin, and that too many of the strongholds are not really defensible against determined Red attack. In the strategically important Mekong River delta, moreover, the well-armed Viet Cong operates with near impunity. For the first time in months, the Reds are consistently raising attacks in battalion-size strength, are showing an increasing tendency to stand and fight against government forces instead of fading away into the paddies...
...Saigon, intrigue is endemic. A new plot is hatched or at least talked about daily. Diem and his family are aware of most of the talk, and their nerve is good. Suggesting that there will be a coup unless the Buddhist crisis is brought under control, Nhu keeps his elaborate secret police network constantly on the alert. In government "reeducation centers" throughout the country are an estimated 20,000 political internees. According to one report, the new contingency plan against a coup is to draw regiments from the worst Viet Cong areas to the capital, a "deliberately dangerous" plan designed...