Ngo Dinh Nhu: Ah, c’est je commence? You, you have been the first from the Western media to have asked me to have forwarded to me um that question, What happened in Vietnam? and what was wrong.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Because you are the first, I have accepted immediately to receive you because for nearly two decades no one cared for what happened in Vietnam.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But what I have to say is very important to me.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And for nearly twenty years I have not had much opportunity to practice my English, so from time to time I prefer to refer to something written.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: First of all I wish to ask you, have you not notice that strange doom on the US? Have you not noticed that President Carter, for instance, has been the fifth ill-fated US president.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And have you not noticed this also, that those politicians very bright, very talented, who believe that they could say 1975, for instance, leave Vietnam behind your back?
Ngo Dinh Nhu: They believed that they could say that to the American people, forget it in spite of their brio, in spite of their talent, it is they in fact who had that fate.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So it is something strange but Vietnam could create, could attract such doom on those who believe they can despise her, despise my country.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And um the Americans are not the first.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: The first, for instance, was Mendès France of France.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: He had such a political stature that no one understands why after signing the division of Vietnam has adjusted his appeal.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: He wanted to relegate Vietnam in the past - that past was for him.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So now I must think...for that doom start with the division of Vietnam.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Why? Because colonial France at that time could have transmitted the country in its entirety to its legitimate power but instead it took advantage of a lost battle while it has not lost at all the war.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: It took advantage of a lost battle to divide the country in concert with the Communists and to put the Vietnamese people in front of an accomplished fact.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: This was the first treason.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Now I explain the first of treason to what’s the legitimate power.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Now I must explain why the legitimate power is so involved and because I see very well that for the West, you know very well what means the importance of legitimate power.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But you behave, you act, excuse me when I say You, but that means "you" in a general way.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But really the West behaves as if we, the third world, had no sense of legitimate power.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: That’s for us, for us.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: What does this mean for that any head is good.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: In fact, we must have a sane head if one wishes the Holy Spirit to express itself through it.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: To have a sane head — what does it mean? It means that the power must be legitimate.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Legitimate means duly elected.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: That means that that power must accept peaceful confrontation with the one which preceded it and all those who accept um to have people’s votes um without resorting to violent means.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: In Vietnam the only power to have fulfilled those conditions eh was the government of President Ngo Dinh Diem because he was the only one to accept to have accepted peaceful confrontation with Admiral Bao Dai, who preceded him.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And after him no one has dared after his murder, no one dared to accept peaceful confrontation with the one who ought to have been elected in his place in case of his disappearance according to the Constitution of the Republic of Vietnam founded by him.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So when one says that Ho Chi Minh had obtained the abdication of Bao Dai, for instance — for this means he obtained the whole corruption because Bao Dai returned four years after to challenge him.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So the only legitimate power of Vietnam was the one assumed by President Ngo Dinh Diem and it was precisely that one that the US...it was precisely that one who was behead by the US.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So now you, I think you begin to understand why there is that doom on the States on its head, after what was done in Vietnam...For to...Now I must explain why there was that beheading.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: I’m sorry to, to record...
Interviewer: [Inaudible] Vous pouvez dire la morte, la morte…
Ngo Dinh Nhu: No, I mean Vietnam has been beheaded.
Interviewer: Aha, ah.
Interviewer: Then perhaps a more clear way would be to say why there was a coup, or why the head of government was...
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Ah yes.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: No, but what I mean by this — because I consider that a legitimate power of Vietnam is the head and if you betray, if you how do you call it, to make it disappear? It is exactly as you have beheaded Vietnam.
Interviewer: The whole country.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Yes, Vietnam is a human being, one can say.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: It’s a legitimate power.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: It is its head.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And when you betray it, you attack it.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: It is as you have beheaded it, you see.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Now explain why there that thing and, in fact, it was only after the Bay of Pigs, after the Berlin Wall, after the Cuban, Cuban missiles affair.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: After these three we can say, blunders, the US Government believed that it had to recoup some prestige with my country.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Citing Cuban missiles affair people maybe amazed that because it has always been presented as a prowess but, in fact, I don’t think so.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: I think that even for the US Government they understood that it was not at all a prowess because I believe that the US Government um was deceived by the Soviets who, incapable of defending Cuba, now succeeded to obtain that uh, that pact of nonaggression on the island in exchange of the withdrawal of a few missiles.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And so I consider that the US Government at that time was deceived by the Soviets because they were absolutely incapable to defend Cuba and to obtain an exchange of the withdrawal of a few missiles who one...no one knows if they were made of tin or not because for their use.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So one can say that the obtaining with very little price that pact of nonaggression.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So I think that because of all these failures, blunders, the US Government of that time could not resist, was too tempt...
Ngo Dinh Nhu: It was too tempted, it was irresistible to use the only winning card which was Vietnam.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: To speak of Vietnam as a win—winning card, surely people would feel amazed that because to us it has always been presented us something lost, it was a mess, etc.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: etc.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: This is not true.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: The very proof that it was a winning card was in the fact that the US jumped in it, wanted to be there, had to kill to intervene so don’t no one could, can believe that materialistic as they are, as are the Americans that they would do all those things to jump into a lost place.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So the very proof is there.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But for the proof for the American Government was, in fact, that we had pacified the whole South with this Strategic Hamlets Programs and in spite of that seeing that they have lost the guerrilla, the subversive war, the Communists dare not to escalate and since dare not to escalate, the Americans saw very well but they dare not, it was only out of fear of our life, the US.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So they considered that all the factors of a sure victory was there to be taken.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: If only the Ngo Dinhs — that means President Ngo Dinh Diem and my husband — could be replaced by people who would accept American intervention because we, we did not want that intervention.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So they had to be killed, just that.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And in order to do that to commit that treason the Western media in the wake of the US world drummed up to present us as dictators.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: For this I must read it, because really it is very important for me.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: We were presented even now dictator, dictators, yet we have never infringed our constitution which was more democratic than the US one, and more democratic than the French and British ones.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: In what way? Our legislature had for example the right given by a 1962 constitutional amendment to question publicly the executive anytime in plenary session.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: This is fair to the American executive.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Besides, our executive has no right like in France and England to put an end before its time to the legislature.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Never.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: They have to coexist until their respective term.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: The people cannot be summoned because the two cannot get along.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: We find that too futile, too futile.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And for important questions, there are the referendums.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So the proof is there, of course, the amendment came only in 1962, but who has said it? Who has informed the world to say that we our constitution is like this that means more democratic.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Of course, we did not have much time to apply our amendment but at least it was there.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So it is absolutely dishonest to present us as dictators while we had never infringed our constitution.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: There is no proof of infrin— of any wrong doing from us towards our constitution.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But to make, to give some credit to at least to when the press — the media at that time, the Western media at that time — called us dictators, they invent it was made of [incomprehensible], that Buddhist affair, to present us at least not only as dictators but rejected by a majority of our people.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: That Buddhist affair.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Hm.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: You know why they used that team? It is just because with that I am sure that the true Buddhist belief: no action, no reaction.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So a true Buddhist never react.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: They would never go out and publicly denounce anyone.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So using the Buddhist uh etiquette they are sure not to be denounced by the true Buddhists.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: On the other side that they know that for the West, it is hmm religious fanaticism, is in general considered as something typical to immature people, mentally underdeveloped countries, so it doesn’t have to explain itself to justify itself.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So because of these two reasons they chose the uh Buddhists to — how do you call that? — etiquette, I don’t know, label for their life to, to, to give credit when they accuse us of being unpopular dictators.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But it was enough for us to arrest a few agitators and uh qui est-ce, asking the United Nations to send investigation team, and pricked Buddhist balloon went flat.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Because of that the US Government considered that it has lost the face and decided to finish with the legitimate power — Vietnam with so-called putsch in which uh President Ngo Dinh Diem and my husband were assassinated.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Now I go to the second treason.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: The second treason uh came with the in January on January 27, 1973 in Paris, twelve nations among them the highest greatest powers of the world — Soviet, China, of course the US first, Soviet, China, France, England, and so on, twelve gathered very solemnly in Paris to sign the, um, guaranty, warranty — the right of the Vietnamese people to choose their, uh, legitimate power under international control.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: In spite of that, that treaty, international treaty has never been respected.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Why? All those who have signed behave as if General Duong Van Minh, who surrendered in 1975 to the Communists, represent Vietnam.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Since he represent Vietnam, he has surrendered, the affair is closed.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But it is absolutely hypocritical because General Minh represent only himself and those who have been accomplices with the US in the beheading of Vietnam.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Since the international treaty of Paris has no other purpose than to assure to Vietnam as a whole — north and south — its right to recover under international grants its legitimate power.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: The Paris Agreement cannot therefore, serve as an alibi for another treason, and that treason is to take General Minh as our representative while he’s not.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And this double treason is cover by the show of guilt complex.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: That guilt complex allows the US not to be questioned and also forbids the Communists not to be questioned and also forbids the Communists not to be questioned but, in fact, abides making a show of that guilt complex the US pretends to be holding in front of those who do not know the truth while, in fact, is so positive complex that will go beside but not at all elucidated only helps to cover up until now its double crime — or against the Vietnam affirmation.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: The consequences, uh, the religious fanaticism in 1965 when the Buddhist affair went off US hands.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: One of the golden boys of the US went with American planes, bombs and all those things and smashed pagodas.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: After that, of course, the US was convinced that any country’s fanaticism can be treated in that way.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: The second consequence is, it is that the US Embassy in Saigon has been abused as a center for subversive war and declares subversive war against the Vietnam to destabilize the country, including the murder of the legitimate chief.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: I don’t know what was done in Iran, but consider that the role of the diplomats are not to cover and declare the subversive war because it would be too unjust for them to have their life in danger because of that.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: That’s why I uh think that uh....what I hear now that uh...never again.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Never again what? Never again that means then that the embassies cannot be transformed like in Vietnam [inaudible].
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But, uh, and not to think that they can change by retaliations, swift and sore, because in that case we can praise ourselves for a fear of global war, global war.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Because then who ever can do that — use an embassy for a center of subversive war, but not the US, because you have consecrated your dollars to God, "in God we trust".
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So as soon as the US is incoherent with itself, it will...[inaudible]...receive immediately the consequences.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So now, uh, you can put up your questions.
Interviewer: Madame Nhu, you came in between 1954 and 1963 during which Ngo Dinh Diem was head of government.
Interviewer: Can you tell us a little bit of what he was like? Can you characterize him, and say if he changed during that nine-year period?
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Oh, he has never changed.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: He, to characterize him, I can say that he, he was a just man—just, like in the Bible.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: That means that he could err, but he always wanted to make amends immediately and that’s why I consider that it was a crime from the West to have condemned him to have killed him without giving him the opportunity to even answer, to speak because at that time you do not know that thing.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: He asked, But what’s wrong? What would you like me to do? And you know what was said to him? The first ambassador, Ambassador Nolting, was dismissed in a impertinent way because he did not go along with the mess-ups of the US Embassy of that time.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: He was replaced by another one.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: That one at the question of President Diem asking, what’s wrong? What must I say, what must I do?
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Just say, nothing.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Just keep quiet.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Don’t say anything.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: All this is mount by the press, by the media.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Leave us; we shall arrange it.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And it is just for him to keep quiet and to be murdered, to be stabbed in the back without speaking.
Interviewer: What about your early impressions of the Americans? When you were first there, did you feel they knew what they were doing?
Ngo Dinh Nhu: My first impressions of the Americans? At first we — I was very, how do you say, bien intentionée, it means I have the best prejudices for them.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: I considered that they are genuine people and with whom one can get along very well.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: There is no problem, but...
Interviewer: People like Colonel Lansdale who were giving Diem advice at that time, for instance...
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Yes, Colonel Lansdale.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: I must say that I don’t know him very well.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: I don’t know him very well.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: I met him a few times, but I think that really for the President, President Ngo Dinh Diem, met the Americans and genuinely he likes them.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: He considered that he could get along with them.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: For us we did not have many opportunities to see them.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But I believed that Colonel Lansdale — now he’s a general — was a good friend as many, and but like Ambassador Nolting also.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But those who were, who are our good friends were dismissed.
Interviewer: Madame Nhu, during this early period you were known as the First Lady of Vietnam.
Interviewer: Could you define your role if you could?
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Oh no, this is too complicated, and if I, uh, it would make volumes to speak of how I was caught by the skin of the neck like a kitten and uh thrown in an arena.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Arena, do you say? Yes, and uh it was...
Interviewer: Madame Nhu, during the Diem period, you were known as the First Lady of Vietnam.
Interviewer: Could you define your role for us?
Ngo Dinh Nhu: My role.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: No, it is too difficult to define it.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: I can just a say that I was taken by the skin of the neck by God and like a little kitten, thrown in an arena with the lions, but I believe that it is just because I was born under the sign of the lion, and I got believe that I can get along with them.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But in fact, it is too long a story to speak of it.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: I have already written at least three volumes about it so I prefer to reserve it.
Interviewer: What about how this Western press betrayed you? For instance, there is the thing of calling you the Dragon Lady.
Interviewer: Would you like to comment on that?
Ngo Dinh Nhu: I believe that when they call me like this it is just ah because they see that I looked fearless, and it is true.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: My husband, he was very unhappy with on one side, his brother; the other side, his wife.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: He considered both of us babes in the woods, who absolutely, how do you say, comme ça, inconscient — that means we have no sense of the reality that to jump in the fray and you don’t, you don't have the impression that you’re fighting ferocious beasts.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And he said all the time that to his brother: you, you should be a monk and you, (to me), you should stay home and be a quiet housewife.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And yet I say, of course, I...
Interviewer: Stop, I’m sorry.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: If I’m left to myself surely, I would follow immediately the advice of my husband just to return home to knit, to sew, to, to cook.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: It is really the only things I like in life.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But when I was in my country, people went to me and they asked me, you should do this, you should do that.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And I see very well that if I didn’t do those things, nobody would do it.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: That’s why I have organized everything in such a way that I can pass over to them immediately because I did not want I did not like the life I led at that time, not at all.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And they consider, they called me Dragon Lady because they see that they saw that I was absolutely determined that nothing could stop me, when the only thing they can, if they can stop, the want to stop me, they must explain to me in what way I was wrong.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: If they cannot explain it, I didn’t care.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Because of that, they saw very well that I wasn’t afraid of nothing.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And do you see why that calling came? They invited me, the press, invited me to go.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: At first they said, Mr. Nhu, the Nhus, no Nhus, good news.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: They must leave the country, so they invited me to go to explain my position at on the US platforms, you see, on the um, with the press.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: I uh, when I left my country, hardly I arrive in Belgrade over there at that time, it was said to me that from the State Department that I should not go, I ought not go to the States because they would not uh guaranty my safety.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So they invite me in order for me to leave the country.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But as soon as I leave my country, don’t come.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: I say I have left country just to go there and hm, the US will show to the world if they are capable of not to defend a weak woman on their territory.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And uh...
Interviewer: So by this time — so this is October, 1963…
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Yes.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Exactly.
Interviewer: You were already disillusioned with the Americans?
Ngo Dinh Nhu: At that time they invited me and after I left my country they told me that.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Of course, I was delusioned, de—delusioned.
Interviewer: Disillusioned.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Dis, disillusioned.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Disillusioned.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And because of that everybody said but considered me as a Dragon Lady — maybe because I challenged them.
Interviewer: Madame Nhu, what about your husband.
Interviewer: Could you — how would you define his role?
Ngo Dinh Nhu: He was everything in Vietnam.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: He organized the country when the President was away.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And when the President returned everything was there to greet.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And without him the President would not be — I don’t think that he would be easy for him to rule the country, to govern the country.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: That’s why when it was it was requested he was requested to send away my husband, he said it was absolutely a stupid demand.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Because he knew very well that my husband can do without him but he could not do without my husband.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But my husband is, I believe that he was too much ahead of his time, of his people.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Some day people will understand.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Now I cannot explain here like this.
Interviewer: Stop.
Interviewer: Madame Nhu, you talked a bit about the Buddhist crisis in 1963, during that time there was a quote which you allegedly made [inaudible], a quote in which you allegedly said you were happy when the bonzes barbecued themselves.
Interviewer: Could you comment on that quote?
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Oh, but I had...to comment about what I said on the Buddhists.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: I had the opportunity to do it several times and the only thing that I can say that everybody if they are confronted of things like that, they finally had to go to the same solution.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: That means with people mad of glory, of false glory, who accepted to be drugged and to be burned to death and for rights which have never been contested by anyone and what to do to stop them accepting to be murdered by the protests.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: The only thing I could do at that time is to ridicule them because as long as it was emphasized as something absolutely deserving of uh praise, of course, there will be always people mad of false glory who would accept it.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: I have to do the contrary.
Interviewer: Madame Nhu, who was behind the Buddhist crisis?
Ngo Dinh Nhu: I believe that at first it was the Communists and uh, but it would never be able to inflict at that proportion without the help, without the aid of the Americans of the media, Western media.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So after it has become absolutely an American affair and after the murder of the Ngo Dinhs when it went off, off-hands and they have to bomb it.
Interviewer: From about August in 1963 there had already been rumors of coups and counter-coups.
Interviewer: Madame Nhu, could you explain why you felt that the situation was secure enough at that time to leave the country?
Ngo Dinh Nhu: In 1963 I had to leave the country.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: It was for me I could because as I already told you I have always organized everything in order for people to do without me.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So for my own occupations, for my women’s movement, I could leave.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: It was all organized in that way and I have a mission uh which was to prevent them.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: If I could not prevent them to commit the crime, at least my mission was to do in such a way that that crime could not be perfect.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So I had to go to tell first, to say, things are like this so if it happens after you will know that it is all premeditated.
Interviewer: In your opinion, who was responsible for the 1963 coup?
Ngo Dinh Nhu: In fact, I believe that the US Government at that time, if, if it has not committed so many blunders, so many errors — Bay of Pigs, um, Berlin Wall, Cuban Missiles.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: It would not, it would never do with that coup.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But after three mistakes like the ones I have just cited, it had to do something in Vietnam to — how do you say? — to own Vietnam.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And for them, um, all the factors of success were there.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: They consider that they could not leave it to us but what they have done was exactly to rob the poor.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: That’s why there is that doom on them now.
Interviewer: Who was responsible for the deaths of your husband and [inaudible]?
Ngo Dinh Nhu: You have made so many investigations, books and books and that means the US has done that and they cannot find.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: That means according to me that they just to do those investigations really to lure people because if really they want to know who is responsible they would find it...I don’t want to accuse anyone.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: I do not want to accuse anyone.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: I do not want to go into the details, but the evidence is there.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: The responsible was the Kennedy Government and it is sure that the murder of the chief of state and of his brother that’s really the beheading of Vietnam could not be done without the President himself giving the green light.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: This is the, apparently things are like that.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Apparently, responsibility is absolutely on President Kennedy, but the fact — I don’t know.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: The truth — I don’t know.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: I would like to know.
Interviewer: Madame Nhu, in 1963 there were some rumors that your husband was insane, that he was power-mad, and that he was a heroine addict.
Interviewer: Now, can you comment on that?
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Yes, they have said a lot, a lot of things against my husband.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: They even said, they said that he was a dope fiend and all those things.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And you see who ever can say anything against me.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: I don’t care.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But I know my husband and hearing all those things against him, I really, I cannot bear it.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: I cannot bear because I know him.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: He has such a great sense of responsibility and he saw so well that he was not understood, that he served confidence which is based, was based on a faith in God and in himself, was considered as madness because he was confronted to the United States.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But for such a faith, what does it mean?
Ngo Dinh Nhu: A human power.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But nobody understood, so they said a lot of things.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But for years and years, the death of my husband — I could accept it, but debasing of his personality, that I cannot bear.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But now revenge is coming.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: The revenge is coming that all those who have attacked him who have said all those things when the truth will be known about what he has found.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And what is re, really his madness? All those people will be ashamed.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Will be ashamed.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: They would like to swallow all they have said because it will show how fools they were not to have understood that man...That hour is coming.
Interviewer: Um, there are also rumors that because your husband felt so betrayed by the Americans that he made overtures towards the North Vietnamese communists.
Interviewer: Can you also comment on this?
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Overtures to the Communists.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: In fact, as I had explained, we, we won the war.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: If we had not won the war, never the US Government would jump in Vietnam.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: We won the war.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: The Communists dared not to escalate.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: They have only one alternative, they had only one alternative: either to escalate — they dare not — or to negotiate.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So it is they who sent the people to us because my husband has found a solution against subversive war.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: That solution permits his people to live with the war, against the war, and in spite of the war.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: And because of that the Communists could not do anything.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So rather than, instead of esca, escalating the war, they didn’t, they send their people to talk with my husband and this was turned, turned over against my husband as if he made the first steps.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Not, not at all.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: This is a lie.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Not at all.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: It was they who made the first steps.
Interviewer: What did he say to them?
Ngo Dinh Nhu: He, at that time, he just, we just started to talk with them, to know, what do you propose? And they arrive in order, they arrive and in order not to lose face because we do everything, we did everything at that time to make things easy for them.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So they arrived, and they just asked what are your conditions for your Open Arms Program? That means it was translated in Open Arms Program, but in fact, Chieu Hoi Minh said, the return, the return of the prodigal brother.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So we said to them we shall kill the, how do you say, le veau gras — that means, for the prodigal bro, uh son.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: They killed the veal, how do you call the fat, the veal but we told them we shall kill the fat veal and I think that US got that answer and they believed that they would be the fat veal.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Maybe, otherwise I would not explain why they did what...what they did, why they did what they did.
Interviewer: What do you think went wrong? Why did, why did, why did such an unhappy ending happen in 1963?
Ngo Dinh Nhu: All that is, how do you say, arrogance, comes from arrogance.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: The US was convinced it possessed the truth and was full of contempt for...there were too, uh it was too materialistic to understand and that I cannot even accuse them of or be bitter against them because I must say that even our own people did not understand anything.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: A lot of people did not understand anything.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: They materialistic, they conceded that my husband was absolutely insane to, to despise all that material strength and to cling to his solution.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: But it was just a misunderstanding out of arrogance on the one side and a kind of a lack of cre— intelligence on the other side.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Because for the Americans I believe that it was arrogance but for our own people I believe that it was just a lack of intelligence — immaturity.
Interviewer: Um, you had something that you wanted to say about this.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Yes, my last, the message really I want to forward to the American people is just this.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: Don’t ask your people to making flying trapeze performances without giving them a net.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: That is to say, don’t try to regain prestige lost uh since Vietnam...with the buildup of a frightening force of persuasion while ignoring god’s laws and his Christ teaching.
Ngo Dinh Nhu: So the US must uh really accept the truth about Vietnam first and make amends.
Interviewer: Cut.