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For his wife, see Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu.

Ngô Ðình Nhu

Ngô Ðình Nhu pronunciation (help·info), born in Vietnam, was the younger brother and chief political advisor of South Vietnam's first President, Ngô Ðình Diệm. Their eldest brother was Archbishop Ngô Đình Thuc Pierre Martin of Huế and another brother, Ngô Đình Khoi, was buried alive because of his refusal to become a minister in the first communist government.

He worked at Hanoi’s National Library and in 1943, he married Tran Le Xuan, making her known as "Madame Nhu" .

Due to the partition of Vietnam, they along with thousands of Vietnamese migrated to South Vietnam, which was at that time under the leadership of Emperor Bảo Đại and Nhu's brother, Ngô Ðình Diệm, as the Prime Minister.

Ngô Ðình Nhu was in charge of his brother's regime of secret police and political movements, the Can Lao.

According to Cecil B. Currey's book, Victory at Any Cost, Ngo Dinh Nhu was "an opium-smoking megalomaniac." (p 238)

Ngô Ðình Nhu

On November 1, 1963, Nhu was assassinated along with his brother by Captain Nhung during a coup d'etat led by General Dương Văn Minh with the understanding that the United States would not intervene.

At the time of the coup d'état, Madame Nhu was in Beverly Hills, California with their daughter, Le Thuy, and was preparing for a trip across the United States and Italy, where she intended to expose a scheming President John F. Kennedy and the CIA to the American public.

When Madame Nhu learned of the coup d'état she immediately suspected the United States saying, "Whoever has the Americans as allies does not need enemies". Madame Nhu went on to predict a dark future for Vietnam and that, by being involved in the coup, the troubles of the United States in Vietnam were only beginning.

• JFK and the Ngos' Coup - Provided by the National Security Archive