children. The French war in Vietnam made little impression on Madame Nhu from her home in Đà Lạt, and she often called the war ("a bizarre little war") as the fighting never affected her personally. Nhu was during these years building a secret political party called the Cần Lao (Personalist Labour Party) based on the Catholic philosophy of personalism (people were persons, not individuals) while Madame Nhu later saying "I was alone most of the time. My husband would simply disappear without a word". To improve her husband's career, Madame Nhu befriended her cousin, the Emperor Bảo Đại during this time. Rise to power Madame Nhu's brother-in-law, Ngô Đình Diệm, had been appointed Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam by her mother's distant cousin, Emperor Bảo Đại, after the French had been defeated at the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ. At the start of 1955, French Indochina was dissolved, leaving Diệm in temporary control of the south. After the French defeat at the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ, the French wanted to hang on to a zone of influence in the south by keeping the Emperor Bảo Đại as Head of State, while the Americans wanted to push the French out by having Diệm create a republic. Diệm in the words of an American diplomat had developed "a blind hatred of the French" and the Americans believed that South Vietnam needed an anti-Communist leader who was not tainted with any associations with the French, which led them to back Diệm. Madame Nhu had lobbied Bảo Đại to appoint her brother-in-law Prime Minister and believed that it was her influence that led to the appointment. She was deeply shocked to learn the real reason why Bảo Đại had appointed Diệm Prime Minister was out of the expectation that he would fail, thereby curtailing his career. The State of Vietnam was in a serious political and economic crisis by 1954 that almost nobody expected Diệm to navigate effectively. Nhu never forgave the Emperor and the French for this plot to ruin Diệm. In order to ensure American support for Diệm, Madame Nhu befriended Americans working at the embassy in Saigon known to be CIA agents. For their part, the French backed General Nguyễn Văn Hinh as Prime Minister, and he in turn had won the support of the Bình Xuyên crime syndicate that dominated the economic life of Saigon. Giving Madame