Lawyer, politician, and prince in the Nguyen dynasty. After having completed his secondary and undergraduate studies at the Lycée Albert Sarraut and the Faculté de droit in Hanoi, Buu Loc left for France in 1939 to pursue his doctorate in Political Science and Economics and joined the French Bar at the Appellate Court of Paris. He defended and later published his thesis on L’usure chez les paysans au Viet Nam and received the prix d’Empire for it. After World War II, he returned to Vietnam and began a political career thanks to the emergence of a non-communist Vietnam led by the former Emperor Bao Dai. Buu Loc was a cousin. The latter served between October 1948 and late 1950 as cabinet director to Bao Dai in Dalat. As head of the Vietnamese delegation, Buu Loc helped negotiate the Franco-Vietnamese Accords of 8 March 1949 laying the foundation for the birth of the non-communist Associated State of Vietnam. He also monitored the debates and the ratification of new legislation in the government’s National Assembly in 1950. In early 1951, he travelled to France to serve as the State of Vietnam’s diplomatic representative. In May 1952, he became high commissioner for Vietnam in France, with the rank of ambassador. That same year he was elected non-resident member of the French Académie des sciences coloniales. Frustrated by France’s unwillingness to grant full independence, he became increasingly critical of French colonial thinking, which, he claimed, undermined the legitimacy of a non-communist Vietnam competing with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. On 17 December 1953, Bao Dai asked his cousin to form a new government following the resignation of President Nguyen Van Tam. Buu Loc agreed and announced a new government in Saigon on 11 January 1954. He advocated a policy of “enlightened” autocracy. However, his government garnered little more popular support than any of its predecessors, despite the fact that he had obtained a treaty promising greater independence. His April 1954 decision to integrate the armed forces of the sects into the army of the Associated State of Vietnam elicited strong opposition from Cao Dai leaders. Buu Loc was both president and minister of the Interior until Ngo Dinh Diem replaced him during the Geneva Conference in mid-June 1954. The prince served again as high commissioner to France between 1954 and 1955.