Ngo Dinh Nhu - Power

Power

Nhu held no official role in the government, but ruled the southern region of South Vietnam, commanding private armies and secret police. Along with his wife and Archbishop Thục, he lived in the Presidential Palace with Diệm. Pervaded by family corruption, Nhu competed with his brother Ngô Đình Cẩn, who ruled the northern areas for U.S. contracts and rice trade. He controlled the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces commanded by Colonel Lê Quang Tung, not for fighting the Vietcong but in Saigon to maintain the authoritarian rule of his family. Tortures and killings of "communist suspects" were committed on a daily basis. The death toll was put at around 50,000 as well as 75,000 imprisonments, and extended beyond communists to anti-communist dissidents and anti-corruption whistle-blowers. His agents infiltrated labor unions and social organizations, and he expanded the police forces from 20 to 32 officers. They conducted arrests without warrants and selective suppression of criminal activity and graft while turning a blind eye to regime loyalists.

Nhu was an opium addict and Adolf Hitler admirer. He modeled the Cần Lao secret party apparatus on those designed by the Nazi Party decades earlier. Nhu and his wife amassed a fortune by running numbers and lottery rackets, manipulating currency and extorting money from Saigon businesses. In 1956, Diệm created a rubber stamp unicameral legislature, the National Assembly. Nhu won a seat in the body, ostensibly as an independent, but never bothered to attend a single session of debate or vote, but this made no difference as Diệm's policies were overwhelmingly approved in any formal show of numbers.

In June 1958, the ARVN were involved in border clashes with Cambodia and made gains in the northeastern Cambodian province of Stung Treng. This provoked a war of words between Diệm and Sihanouk. On 31 August 1959, Nhu failed in an attempt to assassinate Sihanouk. He ordered his agents to send parcel bombs to the Cambodian leader. Two suitcases were delivered to the Sihanouk's palace, one addressed to the head of state, and the other to Prince Vakrivan, his head of protocol. The deliveries were labeled as originating from an American engineer who had previously worked in Cambodia and purported to contain gifts from Hong Kong. Sihanouk's package contained a bomb, but the other did not; however, Vakrivan opened both on behalf of the monarch and was killed instantly, as was a servant. The explosion happened adjacent to a room in the palace where Sihanouk's parents were present. At the same time, anti-Sihanouk broadcasts emanated from a secret transmitter located somewhere in South Vietnam, widely attributed to Nhu. Sihanouk quickly blamed the Ngôs and his aides made statements implying the United States might have played a role in the assassination attempt.

The relationship between the two countries became strained thereafter, and Cambodia gave refuge to Vietnamese military personnel involved in attempts to overthrow Diệm. Colonel Nguyễn Chánh Thi and Lieutenant Colonel Vương Văn Đông were given immediate refuge after a failed coup in November 1960, and Vietnam Air Force pilot Lieutenant Nguyễn Văn Cử was accorded the same treatment after his aerial bombardment of Independence Palace failed to kill the Ngôs.