Editing Trần Lệ Xuân (section)

== Buddhist crisis ==
Madame Nhu often caused controversy because of her strongly anti-Buddhist, pro-Catholic ideology. When she heard that Diệm was to sign a statement offering compensation to the families of Buddhist protesters shot dead by the police of his brother Ngô Đình Cẩn, she was reported to have thrown a bowl of soup at him.

On June 8, 1963, Madame Nhu released a statement through the Women's Solidarity Movement accusing the Buddhists of neutralism, effectively accusing them of being communist collaborators.  It then implored "bonzes of good faith" to stop helping the communists, otherwise Vietnamese Buddhism would be seen as a “small anti-nationalist branch of a dubious international association, exploited and controlled by communism and oriented to the sowing of the disorder of neutralism” and calling on Diem to "immediately expel all foreign agitators whether they wear monks' robes or not."  She made another attack on the United States, calling on Diệm to "keep vigilance on all others, particularly those inclined to take Viet Nam for [a] satellite of [a] foreign power or organization."
[[File:Thích Quảng Đức self-immolation.jpg|left|thumb|The famous Monk Thích Quảng Đức]]

Madame Nhu publicly mocked Thích Quảng Đức, who performed a self-immolation on 11 June 1963, in a crowded Saigon street to protest against the shooting of Buddhists by Diệm's regime. Nhu labelled it a "barbecue" and stated, "Let them burn and we shall clap our hands." She further offered to provide more fuel and matches for the Buddhists.  Historian Howard Jones said that these comments "all but put the finishing touch on the Diệm regime."  Her comments further stoked open infighting with her parents. Her father went on radio to condemn her comments, on the other part, President Diệm advised you to avoid speaking to the international media based on their offensive comments. A Confucian, Chương said that the regime had alienated "the strongest moral forces," implying that they had lost the mandate of heaven.  She responded by calling him a "coward."  Her mother said that "There is an old proverb in my country which means 'one should not make oneself or one's family naked before the world'...  I was sick...  Now, nobody can stop her...  She never listened to our advice." During another conference in the United States, American civilians attacked her by throwing eggs at her.

After these comments, the U.S. ambassador, Frederick Nolting, told Diệm that if he did not denounce his sister-in-law's comment in public, the Americans would have to stop supporting him, but he refused to do so, and instead assailed the monks.

In an interview with David Halberstam, she said that it was "embarrassing to see people [Buddhist leaders] so uncultured claiming to be leaders."  The American embassy told Diệm that these comments violated an agreement between the Buddhists and his regime to avoid verbal exchanges, but Diệm refused to keep his family's end of the bargain, saying that his sister-in-law was obliged to expose "extremists" to keep the public informed.

In July, the US government rejected a request from her to travel to America for a public speaking tour, fearing a public relations disaster. On August 3, she called the Buddhists "seditious elements who use the most odious Communist tactics to subvert the country."

This occurred after special forces loyal to the Ngôs raided the Xá Lợi Pagoda in Saigon in August. The pagoda was vandalized, monks beaten, the cremated remains of Thích Quảng Đức, which included a heart which had not disintegrated, were confiscated.  Simultaneous raids were carried out across the country, with the  Từ Đàm Pagoda in Huế being looted, the statue of Gautama Buddha demolished, and the body of a deceased monk stolen.  When the populace came to the defense of the monks, the resulting clashes saw 30 civilians killed and 200 wounded.  Through her paramilitary organization, Madame Nhu claimed that the Buddhists were "controlled by communism" and that they were manipulated by the Americans, calling on Diệm to "expel all foreign agitators whether they wear monks’ robes or not".

A few days after the raids, Madame Nhu described the deadly attacks on the Buddhists as "the happiest day in my life since we crushed the Bình Xuyên in 1955", and assailed them as "communists."

Madame Nhu was publicly disowned by her parents. Her father, Trần Văn Chương, the ambassador to the United States, resigned in protest, along with all but one of the staffers at the embassy. Chương charged Diệm with having "copied the tactics of totalitarian regimes". His wife, who was South Vietnam's observer at the United Nations, resigned and spoke of mass executions and a reign of terror under Diệm and Nhu. She predicted that if Diệm and Nhu and Madame Nhu did not leave Vietnam then they would inevitably be killed.

Madame Nhu believed that Buddhist leader Thích Trí Quang "spoke for many intellectuals who had repeatedly ridiculed her."

Following the pagoda raids, Trí Quang was given asylum at the U.S. Embassy as Ngô Đình Nhu had made plans to assassinate him.

Madame Nhu gave a media interview in which she called on government troops to invade the American embassy and capture Thích Trí Quang and some other monks who were staying there, saying that the government must arrest "all key Buddhists."

In a media interview, Nhu responded to his parents-in-law by vowing to kill Chương, and claiming that his wife would participate. He said "I will have his head cut off. I will hang him in the center of a square and let him dangle there. My wife will make the knot on the rope because she is proud of being a Vietnamese and she is a good patriot."

When Acting U.S. ambassador William Trueheart warned that development aid might be withheld if the repression orchestrated by the Ngôs continued, Madame Nhu denounced it as "blackmail." Nhu and Diệm, fearing a cut in aid, sent Madame Nhu to the United States on a speaking tour.

Madame Nhu departed South Vietnam on September 9 in an expedition that brought widespread international scorn to her family's regime. She predicted "a triumphant lecture tour."

Madame Nhu would leave on September 17 for the Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting in Yugoslavia, followed by a trip to Italy and possibly to the United States, where she had an invitation to speak before the Overseas Press Club of New York. 

Madame Nhu's comments were such that US President John F. Kennedy became personally concerned. He asked his advisors to find means of having Diệm gag her. McGeorge Bundy thought her comments were so damaging that it would only be acceptable for Ngô Đình Diệm to remain in power if she were out of the picture. The National Security Council deemed her a threat to U.S. security, and told the then United States Ambassador to South Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. to seek her permanent removal from South Vietnam.

There was also speculation that she could turn up at the United Nations in New York and embarrass South Vietnam and the U.S. Bundy said in a meeting that "this was the first time the world had been faced with collective madness in a ruling family since the days of the czars" and her comments provoked much debate on how to get Diệm to silence her.

In Madame Nhu's first destination, Belgrade, she said that "President Kennedy, is a politician, and when he hears a loud opinion speaking in a certain way, he tries to appease it somehow", referring to the opposition to her family's rule.

The issue resulted in an awkward confrontation when U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Maxwell Taylor, traveled to Vietnam for a fact-finding mission about the progress of the war.

In a meeting with Diệm, McNamara bemoaned "the ill-advised and unfortunate declarations of Madame Nhu", who had described U.S. military advisors as "acting like little soldiers of fortune". McNamara said that such comments would damage bilateral military cooperation and deter American officers from helping the South Vietnamese forces. Lodge denounced the comments and said, "These men should be thanked, not insulted." However, one of his aides lost his composure and asked if "there were not something the government could do to shut her up." Diệm was stunned by the comments and retorted that "one cannot deny a lady the right to defend herself when she has been unjustly attacked," saying that his sister-in-law was entitled to freedom of speech.

Madame Nhu arrived in the United States on October 7, and her arrival was greeted by the UN launching an inquiry into the Ngô family's repression of the Buddhists. Kennedy had resisted the temptation to deny her an entry visa and his administration soon came under a flurry of verbal attacks.

Despite the United States Vice President Lyndon Johnson's advice for her to stop damaging relations with inflammatory remarks, Madame Nhu refused to back down, describing herself a "scapegoat" for American shortcomings and failures. She went on to accuse the administration of betraying her family, saying "I refuse to play the role of an accomplice in an awful murder ... According to a few immature American junior officials—too imbued by a real but obsolete imperialist spirit, the Vietnamese regime is not puppet enough and must be liquidated." She accused the Americans of undermining South Vietnam through "briberies, threats and other means," to destroy her family because they "do not like" it. She further mocked Kennedy's entourage, asking why "all the people around President Kennedy are pink?"

She denounced American liberals as "worse than communists" and Buddhists as "hooligans in robes". Her father did not share the same beliefs and followed her around the country rebutting her comments, denouncing the "injustice and oppression" and stating that his daughter had "become unwittingly the greatest asset to the communists." Madame Nhu also defiantly predicted that Buddhism would become extinct in Vietnam.

In the wake of the tumultuous events, Madame Nhu appeared on NBC-TV's ''Meet the Press'' on October 13, 1963, defending her actions and those of the South Vietnamese government. "I don't know why you Americans dislike us," she said. "Is it because the world is under a spell called liberalism? Your own public, here in America, is not as anti-Communistic as ours is in Vietnam. Americans talk about my husband and I leaving our native land permanently. Why should we do this? Where would we go? To say that 70 percent of my country's population is Buddhistic is absolutely true. My father, who was our ambassador to the United States until two months ago, has been against me since my childhood."