Police Suspect at Least 1 Suicide : Parents of Vietnam’s ‘Dragon Lady’ Die

Police today investigated the deaths of an elderly couple who played a prominent role in the South Vietnamese Diem government and whose daughter was the controversial “Dragon Lady” of Vietnam.

Suicide may explain at least one of the deaths, District of Columbia homicide detectives said. The bodies of Tran Van Chuong, 88, and his wife, Nam-Tran Chuong, 76, were found in their home Thursday morning.

Autopsies will be performed to determine the cause of death, a police official said.

The Chuongs’ daughter was the controversial Ngo Dinh Nhu, known as the “Dragon Lady,” whose husband was South Vietnam’s security chief and whose brother-in-law was South Vietnam’s president, Ngo Dinh Diem.

Chuong resigned his post as South Vietnam’s ambassador to the United States in August, 1963, to protest what he said was the Diem government’s mistreatment of Buddhists.

His wife resigned as South Vietnam’s permanent observer to the United Nations.

Renounced as a ‘Coward’

The outspoken Nhu and her husband were considered the tough backbone of the Diem government. Chuong’s resignation led Nhu to denounce her father as a “coward.”

She was criticized for her denunciation of Buddhist activists. Nhu dismissed the Buddhist priests who burned themselves to death in protest against the Diem government as nothing but “barbecued bonzes.” The Diem government was toppled in a coup in November, 1963, and Diem and his brother were killed.

At the time of the coup, Nhu was in the United States on a speaking tour during which her father followed her throughout the country, contradicting her remarks.

Nhu fled and was reported to have settled in Italy.

The Chuongs, in exile in Washington, were described by a neighbor as a quiet couple who “kept very much to themselves.”