{"id":15008,"date":"2026-05-27T20:40:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T20:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/usvietnamcenter.uoregon.edu\/?p=15008"},"modified":"2026-05-30T00:18:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T00:18:30","slug":"white-pebble-mme-nhus-memoirs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usvietnamcenter.uoregon.edu\/white-pebble-mme-nhus-memoirs\/","title":{"rendered":"The White Pebble: Mme Nhu\u2019s Memoirs"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The White Pebble: Mme Nhu\u2019s Memoirs<\/em><\/p>\n\n

Foreword\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

By\u00a0Tuong\u00a0Vu, US-Vietnam Research Center\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

University\u00a0of\u00a0Oregon, Eugene, OR\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

[translated from French,\u00a0La Republique du\u00a0Vi\u1ec7t<\/em>-N<\/em>am et les\u00a0Ng\u00f4<\/em>-\u0110\u00ecnh – Suivi des Memoires p\u00f3thumes de Madame <\/em>Ng\u00f4<\/em>-\u0110\u00ecnh Nhu<\/em>\u00a0(Paris:\u00a0L\u2019Harmattan\u00a0Editions, 2013)]\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

(including two parts: Madame\u00a0Ng\u00f4-D\u00ecnh\u00a0Nhu, \u201cThe\u00a0White\u00a0Pebble<\/em>,\u201d and Ng\u00f4-D\u00ecnh L\u1ec7 Quy\u00ean, Ng\u00f4-D\u00ecnh Qu\u1ef3nh & Jacqueline Willemetz, \u201cThe\u00a0Republic of\u00a0Vietnam and the\u00a0Ng\u00f4-D\u00ecnh<\/em>\u2019s<\/em>\u201d)<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

The US-Vietnam Research Center is proud to sponsor the translation from French and publication of Madame Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Nhu (Tr\u1ea7n L\u1ec7 Xu\u00e2n)\u2019s posthumous memoir \u201cThe White Pebble,\u201d written in the last years of her life. The memoir is accompanied by an essay written by the late Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh L\u1ec7 Quy\u00ean, Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Qu\u1ef3nh, and Jacqueline Willemetz titled \u201cThe Republic of Vietnam and the Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh\u2019s.\u201d The late Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh L\u1ec7 Quy\u00ean, who died in 2012, and Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Qu\u1ef3nh are two of the four children of Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Nhu and Tr\u1ea7n L\u1ec7 Xu\u00e2n — the other two, Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh L\u1ec7 Thu\u1ef7 and Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Tr\u00e1c, passed away in 1968 and 2021, respectively. Jacqueline Willemetz is a family friend whose father was a classmate of Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Nhu at the National School of Charters [\u00c9cole Nationale des Chartes].\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

We are grateful to L\u2019Harmattan Editions for their permission to translate and publish this book. We thank the Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh\u2019s family and friends, in particular, Mrs. Jacqueline Willemetz and Mr. Olindo Borsoi who was Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh L\u1ec7 Quy\u00ean\u2019s husband. Mrs. Willemetz and Mr. Borsoi took responsibility for publishing the original book in 2013 after the deaths of Madame Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Nhu in 2011 and Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh L\u1ec7 Quy\u00ean in 2012. Without their generosity to provide the text, images, and other documents, and to grant permission for translation and publication, this book would not have seen the day. Last but not least, we are grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Nguy\u1ec5n \u0110\u1ee9c C\u01b0\u1eddng who have supported this project from the beginning. Thanks are due to Mr. Quang L. Phan who provided excellent translations, and Mrs. Maria Cristina de Mariassevich who helped edit the English translation. Finally, we are indebted to Ms. V\u0169 H\u1ed3ng Trang who put us into contact with Mr. Olindo Borsoi.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

This book provides us with a rare opportunity, more than half a century after the deaths of Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Di\u1ec7m and Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Nhu, to understand how some members of the Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh family, especially Mme. Nhu, viewed themselves and the role of their family in Vietnam\u2019s history.1<\/sup> That role was no doubt complicated and controversial, but few would question its significance. Regardless of whether one is a fan or a detractor, for the purpose of understanding Vietnam\u2019s modern history, this family is special because it was intertwined with the transition of the country from a French colony & protectorate to an independent and divided nation. It was special because this entire family through President Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Di\u1ec7m helped shape Vietnam\u2019s modern history in one way or another. It was special because, except the Nguy\u1ec5n dynasty that began with Emperor Gia Long and extended to B\u1ea3o \u0110\u1ea1i, the last emperor, no other family in modern time has had such an intense involvement in politics and public affairs like the Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh\u2019s.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Over two generations, all the male and one female members of this family were involved in politics or served in some public capacity at very high levels: beginning with Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Kh\u1ea3 who was a high-ranking mandarin in the Nguy\u1ec5n court in Hu\u1ebf, followed by his sons Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Kh\u00f4i who was a provincial chief; Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Th\u1ee5c who was one of the first Vietnamese bishops in French Indochina and later became the archbishop of V\u0129nh Long and Hu\u1ebf; Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Di\u1ec7m who served briefly as a minister in the Nguy\u1ec5n court in the 1930s, as Prime Minister in 1954-1955, as the founder of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) and its first President (1955-1963); Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Nhu who directed the Archive and Library in Hanoi before becoming a political organizer, advisor to his brother, President Di\u1ec7m, and leader of the C\u1ea7n Lao Revolutionary Party; Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh C\u1ea9n, who was advisor to his brother, President Di\u1ec7m, on matters related to the central region of Vietnam; and Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Luy\u1ec7n who served as the RVN\u2019s Ambassador. Besides the males, Tr\u1ea7n L\u1ec7 Xu\u00e2n, commonly known as Madame Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Nhu, was a member of the RVN\u2019s National Assembly (1956-63), the founder of the United Women\u2019s Movement, and an informal \u201cFirst Lady.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

We do not have as much information about Kh\u00f4i and Luy\u1ec7n as about their brothers, who stood out thanks to their personal talents and ambitions: Th\u1ee5c was ordained as a priest and sent to study in Rome in his late 20s, then appointed bishop a decade later. Di\u1ec7m distinguished himself as a provincial chief and gained fame when he resigned as a minister in protest of the French failure to approve political reforms. Nhu was admitted into the National School of Charters [\u00c9cole Nationale des Chartes], a prestigious college in France, contributed significantly to the preservation of the Nguy\u1ec5n court\u2019s documents, later successfully mobilized domestic political support for his brother to be appointed to the premiership, and served as the brain trust of the Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Di\u1ec7m government. Swimming against the curent, Mme. Nhu sponsored a progressive family law and raised a national debate on women\u2019s rights and family issues.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Mme. Nhu, or Tr\u1ea7n L\u1ec7 Xu\u00e2n, also came from an elite family. Her paternal grandfather was Tr\u1ea7n V\u0103n Th\u00f4ng who was the provincial chief of Nam \u0110\u1ecbnh. Her father was Tr\u1ea7n V\u0103n Ch\u01b0\u01a1ng, a French-trained lawyer who would later become minister of foreign affairs in the Tr\u1ea7n Tr\u1ecdng Kim government (April to August 1945) and served as RVN ambassador to the US under Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Di\u1ec7m (Ch\u01b0\u01a1ng resigned from his post in late 1963 to protest the Di\u1ec7m government). Her uncle was Tr\u1ea7n V\u0103n \u0110\u1ed7, a medical doctor who twice served as minister of foreign affairs in 1954-55 and 1965-67 under Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Di\u1ec7m and Nguy\u1ec5n Cao K\u1ef3 governments, and was deputy prime minister under Prime Minister Phan Huy Qu\u00e1t (1966). L\u1ec7 Xu\u00e2n\u2019s maternal grandmother was a daughter of Emperor \u0110\u1ed3ng Kh\u00e1nh. She married L\u1ec7 Xu\u00e2n\u2019s grandfather, Th\u00e2n Tr\u1ecdng Hu\u1ec1, who was minister of war [Binh b\u1ed9 Th\u01b0\u1ee3ng th\u01b0] at the Hu\u1ebf court. Her mother, Th\u00e2n Th\u1ecb Nam Tr\u00e2n, once served as the representative of the RVN at the United Nations as an observer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

From tabloid tales, to memoirs of former officials, to accounts by foreign journalists, much has been written about the rule of President Di\u1ec7m and the roles played by his family. Only recently did American historians begin to take the ideas and policies of the Di\u1ec7m government seriously and on its own terms, not as French or American products. Due to space constraint, we will not review this scholarship here. Suffice it to say, the new scholarship has done much to illuminate the politics of the First Republic under President Di\u1ec7m who appears as a conservative modernizer with a distinct vision and governing style. His government was founded in the most turbulent period of Vietnam\u2019s modern history and he must be credited for creating order out of chaos against all odds. The Republic of Vietnam that he founded was a fledgling nation with limited resources, an extremely diverse society, and a dependent economy with few industries.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

The government claimed full sovereignty over all of Vietnam but the North was under the rule of a communist government which made a rival claim over the same territory. The RVN was recognized by nations of the \u201cFree World,\u201d including the US and its allies in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. Communist North Vietnam had a weaker international position as it was recognized by fewer foreign countries. Still, both Vietnams were not granted membership in the United Nations, and their international legitimacy was limited. For the RVN, part of the territory under its control (in central region and parts of the Mekong delta) had been under communist rule during the Franco-Vietnamese war (1946-1954), and the loyalty of the population to the RVN was suspect.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

A few years after the Geneva Accords, with Chinese and Soviet support, North Vietnam began to resume the war against the RVN to unify the country under communism. Hanoi mobilized its supporters left behind in the South, together with those who had earlier regrouped to the North but were now returning with arms and ready for fighting. With American help, the Di\u1ec7m government successfully stemmed communist advances in 1957-58 and 1960-61. While the war was not won, the military situation was in flux by 1963. Yet the government was unpopular among certain segments of the elite and the population, while refusing to succumb to American pressure for political reform. Amid widespread protests by Buddhists, President Di\u1ec7m and his brother Nhu were assassinated on November 2nd<\/sup>, 1963 in a military coup backed by the Kennedy administration. However justified, the coup led to four years of political and social chaos, the sharp deterioration of South Vietnam\u2019s military position, and the US\u2019 direct military intervention. It was perhaps the most serious blunder made by the US in the entire course of the Vietnam War, causing the RVN to lose its legitimacy in the eyes of Vietnamese and the world\u2019s people.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Despite the controversies surrounding President Di\u1ec7m\u2019s rule perceived by many to be authoritarian and nepotistic, it is important for historians and for anyone interested in Vietnamese history to learn more about his family members who played such important roles in his government. How did they see themselves, their country, and their compatriots? How did each member of the family think of others? How did they view the family\u2019s role in history? What brought them so close to each other, and what influence each had on the President? Even though many books have been written about them, this is the first time, after six decades, English and Vietnamese readers can get a glimpse of their thoughts told by none other than themselves.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

We can now follow Madame\u00a0Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh\u00a0Nhu\u00a0as she narrated important events in her life, from her childhood to her marriage to Mr.\u00a0Nhu, from her time in Hu\u1ebf\u00a0during the Franco-Vietnamese war to the\u00a0happy\u00a0years of the\u00a0Di\u1ec7m\u00a0government, and from her forced exile to the last days of her life.\u00a0We learn how difficult her life was at certain points\u00a0despite her privileged background, how stubborn she was in her belief, how forcefully she could act when the President and her husband were\u00a0indecisive, how loyal she was to them\u00a0and to her country, how\u00a0distressed\u00a0her life was in exile, and how devoted she was\u00a0to God\u00a0in the last years of her life as she wrote her memoir.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Not all\u00a0the\u00a0details in the memoir are\u00a0accurate\u00a0or objective, nor did she tell us everything she knew or did, but her subjectivity is the very strength of the book.\u00a0We do not have to believe her\u00a0entirely, yet we now have an\u00a0additional\u00a0source of information and her personal perspective to add to a fascinating yet in many ways tragic chapter of Vietnam\u2019s modern history. The memoir also offers a chance for us to know how she and her children lived their lives in exile after the tragedy. Understandably it took them a long time, if ever,\u00a0to recover from the shock the deaths of President\u00a0Di\u1ec7m\u00a0and Mr.\u00a0Nhu\u00a0brought, which was\u00a0perhaps why\u00a0they mostly stayed out of the limelight.\u00a0Yet their ability to stay true to their characters, and their courage to defend and preserve the family\u2019s honor and dignity in the wake of such\u00a0a horrendous\u00a0tragedy, also inspired respect and sympathy.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

The essay written by Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh L\u1ec7 Quy\u00ean and Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Qu\u1ef3nh, and edited by Jacqueline Willemetz, offers how the second generation of the Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh family view their role in history. Mrs. L\u1ec7 Quy\u00ean and Mr. Qu\u1ef3nh are not historians, and they were still children under the First Republic. Their account is to make the case for the integrity of the Di\u1ec7m government and his family against their critics. By telling the family\u2019s history alongside that of the Vietnamese nation, they want to demonstrate the sincerity and depth of patriotism in the family. They are on the whole not wrong: even critics of the Di\u1ec7m government acknowledge that the President was a genuine and incorruptible patriot. Members of the Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh family, including the President, have certainly committed many mistakes, but few would question their patriotism, and many would say that the President was a much better leader than his predecessors and successors. He was certainly far more educated and spiritual than the communist rulers in Hanoi.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

It is certainly not our purpose here to defend the\u00a0Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh\u00a0family or the rule of President\u00a0Di\u1ec7m. By sponsoring the translation and publication of this book, we only aim to generate interest\u00a0in\u00a0and promote education\u00a0about\u00a0the history of republican Vietnam.\u00a0Since 1975, this history has been violently suppressed by the communist regime, yet\u00a0we need it\u00a0to have a deep understanding of modern Vietnam.\u00a0As editor, I\u00a0try to keep the\u00a0translation\u00a0true to its original\u00a0with\u00a0very\u00a0light\u00a0editing\u00a0in\u00a0the hope that readers will read and form their own\u00a0opinion of the authors and their stories.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The White Pebble: Mme Nhu\u2019s Memoirs Foreword\u00a0\u00a0 By\u00a0Tuong\u00a0Vu, US-Vietnam Research Center\u00a0 University\u00a0of\u00a0Oregon, Eugene, OR\u00a0 [translated from French,\u00a0La Republique du\u00a0Vi\u1ec7t-Nam et les\u00a0Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh – Suivi des Memoires p\u00f3thumes de Madame Ng\u00f4-\u0110\u00ecnh Nhu\u00a0(Paris:\u00a0L\u2019Harmattan\u00a0Editions, 2013)]\u00a0 (including two parts: Madame\u00a0Ng\u00f4-D\u00ecnh\u00a0Nhu, \u201cThe\u00a0White\u00a0Pebble,\u201d and Ng\u00f4-D\u00ecnh L\u1ec7 Quy\u00ean, Ng\u00f4-D\u00ecnh Qu\u1ef3nh & Jacqueline Willemetz, \u201cThe\u00a0Republic of\u00a0Vietnam and the\u00a0Ng\u00f4-D\u00ecnh\u2019s\u201d)\u00a0 The US-Vietnam Research Center is proud […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":15009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-publications"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usvietnamcenter.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usvietnamcenter.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usvietnamcenter.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usvietnamcenter.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usvietnamcenter.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15008"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/usvietnamcenter.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15083,"href":"https:\/\/usvietnamcenter.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15008\/revisions\/15083"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usvietnamcenter.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usvietnamcenter.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usvietnamcenter.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usvietnamcenter.uoregon.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}