Ngo Dinh Thuc - Family

Family

Thục was the second of six sons born to Ngô Đình Khả, a mandarin of the Nguyễn Dynasty who served Emperor Thành Thái; at the time the French colonialists had stripped the court of any real power. The family also had three daughters.

Thục's elder brother, Ngô Ðình Khôi, served as a governor during the French Indochina years. Khôi was reportedly buried alive by the Việt Minh right after the August Revolution in August 1945 for having been a mandarin of the French-controlled Emperor Bảo Đại's administration. Three other brothers, Ngô Đình Diệm, Ngô Đình Nhu and Ngô Đình Cẩn, were all politically active, and were all later assassinated during the political upheavals in Vietnam. The youngest brother, Ngô Đình Luyện, was an envoy. Diệm had been Interior Minister under Bảo Đại in the 1930s for a brief period, and sought power in the late 1940s and 1950s under a Catholic anti-communist platform as various groups tried to establish their rule over Vietnam. In 1950, with Diệm not making much impact, he and Thục applied for permission to travel to Rome for the Holy Year celebrations at the Vatican but went instead to Japan to lobby Prince Cường Để to enlist support to seize power. They met Wesley Fishel, an American academic consultant for the U.S. government. Fishel was a proponent of the anti-colonial, anti-communist third force doctrine in Asia and was impressed with Diệm. He helped the brothers organise contacts and meetings in the United States to enlist support.

With the outbreak of the Korean War and McCarthyism in the early 1950s, Vietnamese anti-communists were a sought-after commodity in the United States. Diệm and Thục were given a reception at the State Department with the Acting Secretary of State James Webb, where Thục did much of the talking. Diệm also made links with Cardinal Francis Spellman, the most politically influential cleric of his time. Spellman had studied with Thục in Rome in the 1930s and became one of Diệm's most powerful advocates. Diệm managed an audience with Pope Pius XII in Rome with his brother's help. Spellman helped Diệm to garner support among right-wing and Catholic circles. As French power in Vietnam declined, Diệm’s support in America, which Thục helped to nurture, made his stock rise. Bảo Đại made Diệm the Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam because he thought Diệm's connections would secure funding.

In October 1955, Diệm deposed Bảo Đại in a fraudulent referendum organised by Nhu and declared himself President of the newly-proclaimed Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). Thục became part of the ruling family, which presided over a dictatorship in which the power was concentrated in the hands of the Ngô family, enforced through secret police, and the imprisonment and torture of opponents. Thục lived in the Presidential Palace, along with Nhu, Nhu's wife (a Catholic convert from Buddhism) and Diệm.

The Ngôs were devout Roman Catholics, and Thục was closely associated with these discriminatory, pro-Catholic policies. The most senior Catholic official in the country, Thục used his position to seize farms, businesses, urban real estate, rental property and rubber plantations for the Catholic Church and to enrich his immediate family. He used Army of the Republic of Vietnam personnel to work on his timber and construction projects. He sought “voluntary donations” from businessmen using paperwork that resembled tax notices. The 370,000 acres (1,500 km²) of Catholic Church land in the country were exempted from land reform, whereas other holdings larger than 1.15 km² were split up and given away.

In a majority Buddhist country, the Ngôs' policies and conduct inflamed religious tensions. The government was biased towards Catholics in public service and military promotions, as well as the allocation of land, business favors and tax concessions.

Diệm once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that he was a Buddhist, “Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted.” Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam converted to Catholicism in the belief that their military prospects depended on it. Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias intended to repel Việt Cộng guerrillas saw weapons given only to Catholics. Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and in some areas forced conversions, looting, shelling and demolition of pagodas occurred.

Some Buddhist villages converted en masse in order to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diệm’s regime. The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country, and the “private” status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed. Catholics were also de facto exempt from the corvée labor that the government obliged all citizens to perform; U.S. aid was disproportionately distributed to Catholic majority villages. Under Diệm, the Catholic Church enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition; and, in 1959, Diệm dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary.

The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam. U.S. Aid supplies tended to go to Catholics, and the newly constructed Huế and Đà Lạt universities were placed under Catholic authority to foster a Catholic academic environment. The government erected banners reading “Long Live the Catholic Church” in French, Latin, and Vietnamese, and gave state receptions with full military honors to Catholic dignitaries, such as Cardinal Spellman. During one visit, Spellman announced that he would donate US$50,000 to South Vietnam, explicitly stating that only Catholics would receive aid.

In May 1963, in the central city of Huế, where Thục was archbishop, Buddhists were prohibited from displaying the Buddhist flag during Vesak celebrations commemorating the birth of Gautama Buddha, when the government cited a regulation prohibiting the display of non-government flags at Thục's request. A few days earlier, Catholics were encouraged to fly Vatican flags to celebrate Thục's 25th anniversary as bishop. Government funds were used to pay for Thục's anniversary celebrations, and the residents of Huế—a Buddhist stronghold—were also forced to contribute. These double standards led to a Buddhist protest against the government, which was ended when nine civilians were shot dead or run over when the military attacked. Despite footage showing otherwise, the Ngôs blamed the Việt Cộng for the deaths, and protests for equality broke out across the country. Thục called for his brothers to forcefully suppress the protesters. Later, the Ngôs' forces attacked and vandalised Buddhist pagodas across the country in an attempt to crush the burgeoning movement. It is estimated that up to 400 people were killed or disappeared.

Diệm was overthrown and assassinated together with Nhu on 2 November 1963. Ngô Đình Cẩn was sentenced to death and executed in 1964. Of the six brothers, only Thục and Luyện survived the political upheavals in Vietnam. Luyện was serving as ambassador in London, and Thục had been summoned to Rome for the Second Vatican Council. After the Council (1962–65), for political reasons and, later on, to evade punishment by the post-Diệm government, Archbishop Thục was not allowed to return to his duties at home and thus began his life in exile, initially in Rome.