Trần Lệ Xuân -- ドラゴン・レディー（４）

　マダム・ニューは以降の人生を決定的に左右した一九六三（昭和三十八）年十一月のクーデター実行について、

"I do not want to accuse anyone. I do not want to go into the details, but the evidence is there. The responsible was the Kennedy Government and it is sure that the murder of the chief of state and of his brother that's really the beheading of Vietnam could not be done without the President himself giving the green light. This is the, apparently things are like that. Apparently, responsibility is absolutely on President Kennedy, but the fact — I don’t know. The truth — I don't know. I would like to know.²²"

ベトナムという国家を斬首するには、ケネディー大統領自身が「green light」を出さねば遂行できるものではないと語る¹⁸。アメリカ政府はこのクーデターを黙認したと言うより、その計画にかなり踏み込んでいた事実があり、積極的な当事者と言ってもいい。

"(By late August 1963) [Ambassador Henry Cabot] Lodge proposed that U.S. aid to Diem be halted – the signal awaited by the generals to spark their coup. And..., he urged an 'all-out effort' to make the insurgents 'move promptly,' stressing that the outcome of the action would depend 'at least as much on us' as on them. Otherwise, he warned, dissatisfaction with the Diem regime might explode in violence, bringing in a 'pro-Communist or at best a neutralist set of politicians.... 'Our help to the regime in past years inescapably gives us a responsibility that we cannot avoid.'"

"Kennedy approved Lodge's recommendations, giving him complete mandate to suspend U.S. aid to Diem.

(On October 5) [General Duong Van] Minh told [a CIA operative, Lucien] Conein that the generals did not expect tangible American support for a coup, but merely assurances that the United States would 'not thwart' it."

"... [Lodge] recommended Kennedy that Minh be told that the United States 'will not attempt to thwart' the coup. Kennedy [cautioned] only that Americans refrain from direct involvement in the plot: While we do not wish to stimulate a coup, we also do not wish to leave the impression that the United States would thwart a change of government....'"

"... Conein conveyed the substance of that message to Minh. The green light had been flashed. Minh designated [General Tran Van] Don to keep in touch with Conein, from then on, Conein and Don met secretly at a Saigon's dentist office: 'Whatever else happened,' Conein recalled to me later, 'I certainly had a lot of work done on my teeth.'"

"(On the day of the coup) Conein had been summoned to the (garrison) headquarters (in Saigon) by the dentist.... Wearing his uniform, an ivory-handled .375 magnum frontier-model revolver strapped to his waist, Conein carried a satchel containing three million piastres, the equivalent of $40,000, in case the insurgents needed funds. The generals equipped him with two telephones, one linked to the main CIA office and the other to his villa, where a squad of American Green Berets were guarding his wife and children. Conein also had a radio in his jeep. As he drove to the headquarters, he transmitted to his superiors the prearranged cipher that signaled the imminent start of the coup: 'nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine....'²³"

　夫との軋轢もあったようだが、彼女にとって拠り所となる家族とは生まれ育った家ではなく、ノ一族ではなかったのだろうか。しかし、結局、彼女はどちらの家とも縁がなかったということか。強硬どころか、無礼、傲慢とも言える彼女の振る舞いは批判、非難されても不思議ではないが、その奥、その裏には彼女自身が抜け出すことができなかった闇があったのではないだろうか。だからこそ、あのような行動や言動となったように思える。

　さて、事実上のファースト・レディーであり、また「ドラゴン・レディー」の呼び名が象徴するように、悪評は義兄と夫に劣らなかったこのマダム・ニューについては、主としてアメリカの報道においてズィエム政権時代の「際物(きわもの)」として表層ばかりが注目され、彼女を人として、その内面を見つめてみようとしたのは、デメリーの著作以外に存在しないのかもしれないし、また今後も現れることはないように思う。デメリーによる取材開始当時、マダム・ニューは八十歳に近く、祖国を離れてから四十年以上を経過していた。大統領であった義兄と彼の側近であった夫がクーデターで殺害された時、彼女は三十九歳だった。政治の矢面にあった日々からあまりに時間が経過しており、彼女の経験は、他者への影響を含めて、あまりに衝撃的であり、もはや取材者が望むような回想が可能な精神状態ではなかったのではなかろうか。

²² WGBH Interview. Vietnam: A Television History, February 1, 1982, (https://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_4D5600E72791435897E4368A6AAE8F38;  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjL2n7biu-8)

²³ Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History, The First Complete Account of Vietnam at War, 1983