Trương Vĩnh Lễ (13 May 1914 – 23 October 2011) was a

South Vietnamese South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam (RVN; , VNCH), was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975. It first garnered international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam within the French Union, with i ...

politician who served as the second President of the National Assembly of the Republic of Vietnam during the First Republic from 1959 until the 1963 coup which lead to the overthrow and assassination of South Vietnam's President

Ngô Đình Diệm Ngô Đình Diệm ( , or ; ; 3 January 1901 – 2 November 1963) was a South Vietnamese politician who was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam (1954–1955) and later the first president of South Vietnam ( Republic of ...

. After Diệm's overthrow, he had his assets frozen by the new government of General

Dương Văn Minh Dương Văn Minh (; 16 February 19166 August 2001), popularly known as Big Minh, was a South Vietnamese politician and a senior general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and a politician during the presidency of Ngô Đình Diệm. ...

Biography

He was born on 13 May 1914 in

Sóc Trăng Sóc Trăng (; ) is a city in Vietnam. It is the capital of Sóc Trăng Province. It was upgraded from a town (thị xã) to a city following decree 22/2007/NĐ-CP on 8 February 2007. History During the French colonial period, on December 20 ...

Cochinchina Cochinchina or Cochin-China (, ; ; ; ; ) is a historical exonym and endonym, exonym for part of Vietnam, depending on the contexts, usually for Southern Vietnam. Sometimes it referred to the whole of Vietnam, but it was commonly used to refer t ...

French Indochina French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China), officially known as the Indochinese Union and after 1941 as the Indochinese Federation, was a group of French dependent territories in Southeast Asia from 1887 to 1954. It was initial ...

. He comes from a Catholic family of Vietnamese scholars with careers in academia, journalism, and publishing. He is also the great-grandson of a known Vietnamese scholar Trương Vĩnh Ký, commonly known as

Pétrus Ký Petrus may refer to: People * Petrus (given name) * Petrus (surname) * Petrus Borel, pen name of Joseph-Pierre Borel d'Hauterive (1809–1859), French Romantic writer * Petrus Brovka, pen name of Pyotr Ustinovich Brovka (1905–1980), Soviet Belar ...

. He graduated from university with degrees in politics, economics, and business management.

Career

Under the First Republic, he served as a member of the National Assembly representing District 3 of

Gia Định province ''Gia'' is a 1998 American biographical drama television film about the life and times of one of the first supermodels, Gia Carangi. The film stars Angelina Jolie as Gia and Faye Dunaway as Wilhelmina Cooper, with Mercedes Ruehl and Elizabeth ...

as a member of the majority bloc and was affiliated with the Citizen's Assembly group. He initially filed to run in the 1971 South Vietnamese presidential election with Vice President

Nguyễn Cao Kỳ Nguyễn Cao Kỳ (; 8 September 1930 – 23 July 2011) was a South Vietnamese military officer and politician who served as the chief of the Republic of Vietnam Air Force in the 1960s, before leading the nation as the prime minister of Sout ...

but later withdrew.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trương, Vĩnh Lễ 1914 births People from Sóc Trăng province 2011 deaths Members of the National Assembly (South Vietnam) Vietnamese anti-communists Vietnamese Roman Catholics Vietnamese exiles Vietnamese emigrants to France