My Six Degrees of JFK Separation: A Suburban Mom’s Conspiracy Theory

Donald Trump’s executive order to release all records related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. promised a grand reveal. The subsequent release of over 63,000 pages of documents has sent historians, journalists, and conspiracy theorists into a frenzy, all hoping to uncover that missing piece that will rewrite the narrative of Lee Harvey Oswald as the sole assassin of JFK.

While I don’t claim expertise as a historian or membership in the conspiracy-hound pack, I’ve stumbled upon a connection, a family nugget, that has sparked my own delicious and admittedly improbable theory: could I, a suburban mom and journalist from Northern Virginia, be only six degrees of separation from the real killer of JFK?

I can hear the guffaws already, but indulge me. Born in South Vietnam, I fled to America as a war refugee with my family when Saigon fell in 1975. My mother’s family hails from the north. Her family history provides a connection to the turbulent politics of 1960s Vietnam and a potential motive that has lingered for decades.

My great uncle, Vu Bang, was a well-known author in Vietnam. In the late 1930s, he attended Lycée Albert Sarraut, a prestigious high school in Hanoi during French colonial rule. Among the few female students was a girl named Tran Le Xuan.

Xuan’s destiny was predetermined: she was to become the wife of Ngo Dinh Nhu, a member of the Vietnamese elite. In 1955, after the Geneva Accords divided Vietnam, my mother’s family was among the million who fled south, seeking refuge from the communist regime in North Vietnam. Nhu’s brother, Ngo Dinh Diem, seized power in a sham referendum, becoming the president of the newly formed South Vietnam.

Diem, a devout Catholic, never married. His brother, a bishop, reinforced the family’s strong religious convictions. Madame Nhu, as Tran Le Xuan became known, moved with her husband into the presidential palace in Saigon and assumed the de facto role of first lady.

The Ngo regime implemented new laws and cracked down on freedom of the press and personal conduct. Their staunch Catholic faith fueled a war against Buddhist leaders, exacerbating tensions and discontent. The South Vietnamese, seeking respite from dynastic rule, found themselves under the thumb of the corrupt Ngo regime. Diem even appointed Madame Nhu’s father as the ambassador to the United States, solidifying their power.

Picture the scene in 1963: The Ngo regime’s troops fire upon Buddhist demonstrators. A monk, in a desperate act of protest against the Diem family’s human rights violations, self-immolates on a busy street. The oppression that people believed they were escaping from in North Vietnam had resurfaced in the South.

By this point, opposition to the South Vietnamese government was widespread, encompassing Buddhists, communists, journalists, and even business leaders. The Ngo regime’s grip on power was suffocating, and even Washington struggled to control them.

Frustrated with the corruption and crackdowns, Ngo’s underlings signaled their readiness for change to the Americans. South Vietnamese generals staged a coup on November 1. The following day, President Diem and his brother Nhu were captured and assassinated.

Now, consider the perspective of Madame Nhu. Enraged and threatened by the assassination of her husband and brother-in-law, she fled to France. But would that be the end of it? Wouldn’t she seek vengeance, to teach those responsible a lesson?

Twenty days later, JFK was assassinated. Think about that timeframe; less than a month. And yet, even now, Americans are still searching for the truth behind President Kennedy’s murder. Perhaps the mystery persists because investigators have been looking in the wrong places.

Madame Nhu, who earned the moniker "Dragon Lady," died in Rome in 2011 at the age of 86.

Since the release of the JFK files, most have reported finding little of substance. The sheer volume of newly unredacted records requires months, even years, of meticulous examination and analysis.

One unexpected consequence of the release was the inadvertent public disclosure of Social Security numbers belonging to former government employees and contractors. In their haste to expose the guilty, the Trump administration sloppily exposed the innocent.

Despite the disappointing revelations, this is my story. Humor me. I’m sticking with it. Could Madame Nhu, motivated by vengeance and fueled by the chaos in Vietnam, have played a role in the assassination of President Kennedy? It’s a long shot, a conspiracy theory born from a family connection and a tantalizing "what if." But in the vast landscape of JFK assassination theories, perhaps there’s room for one more, especially one rooted in the turbulent history of Vietnam.