[Straits Times] ONE of the grand figures of the Vietnam War, the influential sister-in-law of president Ngo Dinh Diem who led a US-backed regime in the country's south, has died in Italia, media reported.Known as 'Madame Nhu', Tran Le Xuan died on Sunday in a Rome hospital, according to the VNExpress news website, citing the Nguoi Viet Nam Chau magazine which specialises in coverage of overseas-based Vietnamese.
The New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
confirmed the death by citing her sister, Lechi Oggeri.
Born in 1924, Madame Nhu married Diem's brother Ngo Dinh Nhu in 1943 and effectively became the first lady of the pro-American South Vietnam regime as US involvement in the country deepened.
A 'femme fatale' known for shocking declarations, she described self-immolations by Buddhist monks opposed to Diem as a 'barbecue'.
'Sexually suggestive in her decollete gowns, which shocked old-fashioned Vietnamese, she occupied a peculiar place as the only woman close to the misogynist Diem,' journalist Stanley Karnow wrote in Vietnam: A History.
