Vietnam: Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu (1924-2011), First Lady of the Republic of Vietnam, 1955-1963, Saigon, August 1963

Tran Le Xuan (born April 15, 1924 in Hanoi, Vietnam), popularly known as Madame Nhu but more properly Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu, was considered the First Lady of South Vietnam from 1955 to 1963. She was the wife of Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother and chief adviser to President Ngo Dinh Diem.

As Diem was a lifelong bachelor, and because the Nhus lived in the Independence Palace, she was considered to be the First Lady. Diem often appointed relatives to high positions, so her father became the ambassador to the United States while her mother, a former beauty queen, was South Vietnam's observer at the United Nations. Two of her uncles were cabinet ministers.

Madame Nhu was chauffeured in a black Mercedes and wore a small diamond crucifix. She also wore form-fitting apparel so tight that one French correspondent suggestively described her as, 'molded into her ... dress like a dagger in its sheath'. On formal occasions, she wore red satin pantaloons with three vertical pleats, which was the mark of the highest-ranking women of the imperial court in ancient Annam.

After the overthrow of the Diem government in 1963, Madame Nhu went into exile in France and died at Rome, Italy, in 2011.

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Supplier: CPA Media Co. Ltd.

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