As her husband's influence grew, as did her own vicariously, so did American distaste for them. Wesley Fishel, the anti-Communist academic from Michigan State University who had led an advisory group that helped to train Vietnamese public servants and who had lobbied American politicians in the 1950s to support Diệm's bid for power, resigned along with his staff. Fishel called Madame Nhu "Brilliant, vivacious, bitchy and brutal in her Borgia-like fashion", claiming that she and her husband were evil influences corrupting the regime.