ノルティング自身はマダム・ニューについて、
"Madame Nhu was an enigmatic character for me.... To me, she had some virtues and some weak spots as a political person. She was very difficult. Her main motivation, her main feeling, in my opinion, was to preserve what she considered to be the ancient heritage of the Vietnamese people and not have it corrupted by foreign influence including American.... I don't think [antagonizing a number of Americans and the American press by her speeches and actions] was intentional....12"
との回想を残している。
ランズデールがズィエム大統領とどれほど親しかったのかは、
"I got to know Ngo Dinh Diem shortly after he came to Viet Nam, returned to it in 1954 as the appointed Prime Minister for Emperor Bao Dai. And I became very close to him in a sort of accidental way and was never his official advisor. We became very close friends, and I'd give him advice on many many subjects with considerable guidance and discussions beforehand with U.S. officials, I might add.13"
という彼自身の言葉によって明らかだが、マダム・ニューに対する態度は、
"[Lansdale] shared the widespread distaste for the president's Machiavellian brother, Ngo Diem Nhu, and his wife, 'the dragon lady,' Madame Nhu.14"
とブート（Max Boot）は記している。ランズデール自身の回想録15に、マダム・ニューの性格を評価するような記述は見られないが、冒頭に記した彼女に対する彼の心情がマダム・ニューの一生を表しているのではないだろうか。
マダム・ニューはまた、ズィエム政権内での自らの役割について、
"I was taken by the skin of the neck by God and like a little kitten, thrown in an arena with the lions, but I believe that it is just because I was born under the sign of the lion...."
と述べ、「育ちの良い」彼女はパーティーで上流の客をもてなすことを想像することはあっても、政治の真ん中に放り込まれることなど、まったく想像していなかっただろう。
大統領側近だった夫、ニューに関しては、
"My husband, he was very unhappy with on one side, his brother; the other side, his wife. He considered both of us babes in the woods, who absolutely, how do you say, comme ça, inconscient — that means we have no sense of the reality that to jump in the fray and you don't, you don't have the impression that you're fighting ferocious beasts. And he said all the time that to his brother: you, you should be a monk and you, (to me), you should stay home and be a quiet housewife."
"Because he knew very well that my husband can do without him but he could not do without my husband. But my husband is, I believe that he was too much ahead of his time, of his people. Someday people will understand.16"
ランズデールもニューについて同様の印象を持っていたようだ。
"He was intellectually ahead of most of the people that he was around at the time.17"
インタビューで、マダム・ニューはまた、自らを「fearless」「determined」「afraid of nothing」だと形容しながらも、
"If I'm left to myself, surely, I would follow immediately the advice of my husband just to return home to knit, to sew, and to cook. It is really the only things I like in life."
義兄ズィエムが大統領に就任して以来、否応なく政治の渦の中に自らを見た時、ライオンの檻に首を掴まれて投げ込まれた子猫の心境だったのだろう。嘘ではないと思う。
しかしながら、子猫が「ドラゴン・レディー」と呼ばれるに至ったことについては、
"[P]eople [came] to me and they asked me, you should do this, you should do that. And I see very well that if I didn't do those things, nobody would do it. That's why I have organized everything in such a way that I can pass over to them immediately because I did not want I did not like the life I led at that time, not at all. And... they called me Dragon Lady because... they saw that I was absolutely determined that nothing could stop me...."
「People」が具体的に誰だったのか、彼女は明らかにしていない。「国民」という意味か。
そして、ポーランドの外交官で後にアメリカに亡命するミェチスワフ・マネリ（Mieczysław Maneli）を介しての交渉のことだと思われるが、北ベトナムとの交渉に関して、
"[North Vietnam sent] their people to talk with my husband and this was turned, turned over against my husband as if he made the first steps. Not, not at all. This is a lie. Not at all. It was they who made the first steps.18"
この交渉についてデメリー（Monique Brison Demery）は、
"In Nhu's desperation he had tried other tactics, like leaking reports that he was in talks with the Communist Government of North Vietnam."
とだけ記し、どちらが始めた交渉なのか明らかにしていないが19、その一方、カーナウ（Stanley Karnow）は、
"Nhu, aware of the American dealings with the [1963 coup] plotters, meanwhile began to make roundabout overtures to the Communists. One of his key contacts was Mieczyslaw Maneli, chief of the Polish delegation to the International Control Commission...."
とニューが始めたものだと述べ、マネリ自身の他、ワシントンＤＣのベトナム大使館で公使だったチャン・バン・ディン（Trần Văn Dĩnh）を情報源として明かし20、ハルバースタムは、
"... Nhu let it be known that he had entered into exploratory negotiations with Hanoi; he was doing this through a French diplomat in North Vietnam who had to come to Saigon on a visit and had been introduced to Nhu by a Polish member of the International Control Conference.21"
と記録している。
12 WGBH Interview. Vietnam: A Television History, April 30, 1981 (https://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_A2513CA622CC4C8E8454EB2B1F7F5A0C; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv9Iplso7LU)
13 WGBH Interview. Vietnam: A Television History, January 31, 1979 (https://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_76FF42FB387043579AAE7F39B43D2D1C; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xMuiFwEcA8)
14 Boot, Max. Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam, 2018
15 Lansdale, Edward Geary. In the Midst of Wars: An American's Mission to Southeast Asia, 1972
16 WGBH Interview. Vietnam: A Television History, February 1, 1982, (https://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_4D5600E72791435897E4368A6AAE8F38; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjL2n7biu-8)
17 WGBH Interview. Vietnam: A Television History, January 31, 1979 (https://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_76FF42FB387043579AAE7F39B43D2D1C; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xMuiFwEcA8)
18 WGBH Interview. Vietnam: A Television History, February 1, 1982, (https://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_4D5600E72791435897E4368A6AAE8F38; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjL2n7biu-8)
19 Demery, Monique Brinson. Finding the Dragon Lady: The Mystery of Vietnam's Madame Nhu, 2013
20 Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History, The First Complete Account of Vietnam at War, 1983
21 Halberstam, David. The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam during the Kennedy Era, 1965
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