Lê Đức Thọ (; 14 October 1911 – 13 October 1990), born Phan Đình Khải in
Nam Dinh Province, was a
Vietnamese revolutionary
A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates for, a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective to describe something producing a major and sudden impact on society.
Definition
The term—bot ...
general, diplomat, and politician. He was the first Asian to be awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...
, jointly with
United States Secretary of State
The United States secretary of state (SecState) is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State.
The secretary of state serves as the principal advisor to the ...
Henry Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (May 27, 1923 – November 29, 2023) was an American diplomat and political scientist who served as the 56th United States secretary of state from 1973 to 1977 and the 7th National Security Advisor (United States), natio ...
in
1973
Events January
* January 1 – The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark 1973 enlargement of the European Communities, enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union.
* January 14 - The 16-0 19 ...
, but refused the award.
Communist revolutionary
Lê Đức Thọ became active in
Vietnamese nationalism as a teenager and spent much of his adolescence in
French colonial prisons, an experience that hardened him. Thọ's nickname was "the Hammer" on account of his severity. In 1930, Thọ helped found the
Indochinese Communist Party. French colonial authorities imprisoned him from 1930 to 1936 and again from 1939 to 1944. The French imprisoned him in one of the "tiger cage" cells on the prison located on the island of
Poulo Condore (modern
Côn Sơn Island
Côn Sơn ( ), also known as Côn Lôn is the largest island of the Côn Đảo archipelago, off the coast of southern Vietnam.Kelley, p 116
Other names
Its former French name, Grande-Condore was popularly used during the times of French ...
) in the South China Sea, which was regarded as the harshest prison in all of French Indochina. During his time in the "tiger cage", Thọ suffered from hunger, heat, and humiliation. Together with other Vietnamese Communist prisoners, Thọ studied literature, science, and foreign languages, and acted in
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, ; ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the great writers in the French language and world liter ...
's plays. Despite being imprisoned by the French, France was still regarded as the "land of culture", and the prisoners paid a "peculiar tribute" to French culture by putting on his plays.
[Karnow, Stanley ''Vietnam A History'', New York: Viking 1983 p. 623]
After his release in 1945, Thọ helped lead the
Viet Minh
The Việt Minh (, ) is the common and abbreviated name of the League for Independence of Vietnam ( or , ; ), which was a Communist Party of Vietnam, communist-led national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on 19 May 1 ...
, the Vietnamese independence movement, against the French, until the
Geneva Accords were signed in 1954. In 1948, he was in
South Vietnam
South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam (RVN; , VNCH), was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975. It first garnered Diplomatic recognition, international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam within the ...
as Deputy Secretary, Head of the Organization Department of the
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 ...
Committee Party. He then joined the Lao Dong
Politburo
A politburo () or political bureau is the highest organ of the central committee in communist parties. The term is also sometimes used to refer to similar organs in socialist and Islamist parties, such as the UK Labour Party's NEC or the Poli ...
of the Vietnam Workers' Party in 1955, now the
Communist Party of Vietnam
The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) is the founding and sole legal party of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Founded in 1930 by Hồ Chí Minh, the CPV became the ruling party of North Vietnam in 1954 and then all of Vietnam after the col ...
. Thọ oversaw the
Communist insurgency that began in 1956 against the
South Vietnam
South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam (RVN; , VNCH), was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975. It first garnered Diplomatic recognition, international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam within the ...
ese government. In 1963, Thọ supported the purges of the Party as a result of Resolution 9.
Peace-making in Paris
The United States actively joined the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...
during the early 1960s. Several rounds of Paris Peace Talks (some public, some secret) were held between 1968 and 1973.
Xuân Thuỷ was the official head of the
North Vietnamese
North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; ; VNDCCH), was a country in Southeast Asia from 1945 to 1976, with sovereignty fully recognized in 1954 Geneva Conference, 1954. A member of the communist Eastern Bloc, it o ...
delegation, but Thọ arrived in Paris in June 1968 to take effective control. On his way to Paris, Thọ stopped in Moscow to meet the Soviet Premier
Aleksei Kosygin. On Thọ's behalf, Kosygin sent President
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, under whom he had served a ...
a letter reading: "My colleagues and I believe and have grounds to believe that an end to the bombing
f North Vietnamwould lead to a breakthrough in the peace talks". While
Xuân Thuỷ led the official negotiating team representing the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam
North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; ; VNDCCH), was a country in Southeast Asia from 1945 to 1976, with sovereignty fully recognized in 1954. A member of the communist Eastern Bloc, it opposed the French-suppor ...
at the talks in Paris, Thọ and
U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (May 27, 1923 – November 29, 2023) was an American diplomat and political scientist who served as the 56th United States secretary of state from 1973 to 1977 and the 7th National Security Advisor (United States), natio ...
beginning in February 1970 engaged in secret conversations that eventually led to a cease-fire as part of the
Paris Peace Accords of 23 January 1973.
1968
On 26 June 1968, Thọ first met
Cyrus Vance
Cyrus Roberts Vance (March 27, 1917January 12, 2002) was an American lawyer and diplomat who served as the 57th United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1980. Prior to serving in that position, he was the United ...
and
Philip Habib of the American delegation at a "safe house" in the Paris suburb of Sceaux. On 8 September 1968, Thọ first met
W. Averell Harriman, the head of the American delegation, in a villa in the town of Vitry-sur-Seine. At the meeting, Harriman conceded that in "serious talks" the National Liberation Front (
NLF) might take part in the talks provided that the South Vietnamese were also allowed to join. At another meeting with Harriman on 12 September, Thọ made the concession that South Vietnam could continue as an independent state provided the National Liberation Front could join the government, but demanded that the United States had to unconditionally cease bombing all of North Vietnam first. After the meeting, Harriman thanked Thọ for his "straight talk", but disputed a number of Thọ's claims, saying that the Vietnam war was not the most costly
war in American history.
Thọ was unhappy when Hanoi demanded that the National Liberation Front take part in the peace talks as the lead negotiating team, instead of the North Vietnamese, which he knew would cause complications. He flew back to Hanoi in an attempt to change the instructions, in which he was successful, but was also told to tell Harriman that an expanded four-party talks involving the Americans, the South Vietnamese, the North Vietnamese and the NLF would begin "as early as possible" without settling a firm date. However, the four-party talks did not take place as planned, as South Vietnamese President
Nguyễn Văn Thiệu
Nguyễn Văn Thiệu (; 5 April 1923 – 29 September 2001) was a South Vietnam, South Vietnamese military officer and politician who was the Leaders of South Vietnam, president of South Vietnam from 1967 to 1975. He was a general in the Repub ...
decided to stall talks after receiving messages from
Anna Chennault that the Republican presidential candidate
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...
would be more supportive. On 18 January 1969, Thọ told Harriman that he regretted the latter's departure, saying: "If you had stopped bombing after two or three months of talks, the situation would have been different now".
1969
In February 1969, Kissinger asked the Soviet ambassador in Washington,
Anatoly Dobrynin
Anatoly Fyodorovich Dobrynin (, 16 November 1919 – 6 April 2010) was a Soviet Union, Soviet politician, statesman, diplomat, and politician. He was the Ambassador of Russia to the United States, Soviet ambassador to the United States for more ...
, to set up a meeting with Thọ in Paris. On 4 August 1969, Kissinger had a secret meeting at the house of
Jean Sainteny, a former French colonial official who served in Vietnam and was sympathetic towards Vietnamese nationalism. However, Thọ did not appear as expected and instead
Thuỷ represented the DRV.
1970
Thọ first met Kissinger in a secret meeting in a modest house in Paris on the night of 21 February 1970, marking the beginning of a test of wills that was to last three years. Kissinger was later to say of Thọ: "I don't look back on our meetings with any great joy, yet he was a person of substance and discipline who defended the position he represented with dedication".
Thọ told Kissinger at their first meeting that "
Vietnamization
Vietnamization was a failed foreign policy of the Richard Nixon administration to end U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War through a program to "expand, equip, and train South Vietnamese forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, a ...
" was doomed, dismissively saying in French: "Previously, with over one million U.S. and Saigon troops, you have failed. Now how can you win if you let the South Vietnamese Army fight alone and if you only give them military support?". Kissinger saw that Thọ's beginning his activism working for Vietnamese independence at the age of 16 as proof that he was a "fanatic", and portrayed Thọ to Nixon as an unreasonable, uncompromising man, but one who was also well mannered, cultured, and polite. Kissinger found Thọ's air of superiority exasperating as Thọ took the viewpoint that North Vietnam was the real Vietnam, and regarded the Americans as "barbarians" who were merely trying to delay the inevitable by supporting South Vietnam. In April 1970, Thọ broke off his meetings with Kissinger, saying that there was nothing to discuss. An attempt by Kissinger to talk to Thọ again in May 1970 was rejected with a note reading "The U.S. words of peace are just empty ones".
1971
By May 1971, Thọ changed tactics in the talks, insisting that the main issue now was removing President Thiệu after the Americans departed. In July 1971, Kissinger taunted Thọ with the news that President Nixon would be visiting China soon to meet
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; traditionally Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Mao Tse-tung. (26December 18939September 1976) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in ...
, telling him that the days when the North Vietnamese could count of the supply of Chinese arms were coming to close. Thọ showed no emotion, saying: "That is your affair. Our fighting is our preoccupation, and that will decide the outcome for our country. What you have told us will have no influence on our fighting".
1972
In March 1972, the North Vietnamese launched the
Easter Offensive
The Easter Offensive, also known as the 1972 spring–summer offensive (') by North Vietnam, or the Red Fiery Summer (') as romanticized in South Vietnamese literature, was a military campaign conducted by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN, t ...
. It was initially successful and provoked warnings that the United States would start bombing North Vietnam again. Thọ sent a message, saying if the bombing was resumed, it would be "a very serious step of escalation, aimed at stopping the collapse of the situation in South Vietnam and putting pressure on us".
On 2 May 1972, Thọ had his 13th meeting with Kissinger in Paris. The meeting was hostile, as the North Vietnamese had just taken
Quang Tri City in South Vietnam, which led Nixon to tell Kissinger "No nonsense. No niceness. No accommodations". During the meeting, Thọ mentioned that Senator
William Fulbright was criticizing the Nixon administration, leading Kissinger to say: "Our domestic discussions are no concern of yours". Thọ snapped back: "I'm giving an example to prove that Americans share our views". When Kissinger asked Thọ why North Vietnam had not responded to a proposal he sent via the Soviet Union, Thọ replied: "We have on many occasions said that if you have any question, you should talk to directly to us, and we shall talk directly to you. We don't speak through a third person".
Thọ next met Kissinger on 19 July 1972. Kissinger asked: "If the United States can accept governments in large that are not pro-American, why should it insist on a pro-U.S government in Saigon?" Thọ stated that Kissinger was not offering anything new. By August 1972, Kissinger was promising Thọ that he would pressure
Nguyễn Văn Thiệu
Nguyễn Văn Thiệu (; 5 April 1923 – 29 September 2001) was a South Vietnam, South Vietnamese military officer and politician who was the Leaders of South Vietnam, president of South Vietnam from 1967 to 1975. He was a general in the Repub ...
to resign only if Thọ would agree to make a peace deal before the presidential elections of that year. Thọ told Kissinger that the timetable for Thiệu's departure was no longer an immediate concern, and instead he wanted some $8 billion in reparations for war damage. Kissinger also told Thọ that he wanted to tell the world about their secret meetings since 1970 in order to give the impression that Nixon was making progress on peace in Vietnam, a suggestion that Thọ rejected, saying it was not his job to assist Nixon's reelection campaign. On 15 September 1972, Kissinger told Thọ: "We wish to end before October 15-if sooner, all the better". Thọ told Hanoi that Kissinger wanted a peace agreement before the election and now was the best time to settle.
On 7 October 1972, Kissinger and Thọ agreed to a government of national reconciliation in Saigon that was to include the National Liberation Front. Kissinger told Thọ that he expected a peace agreement to be signed in Paris on 25 or 26 October 1972, saying that all that was needed now was the approval of Thiệu and Nixon. However, when Kissinger arrived in Saigon, Thiệu refused to sign the peace agreement. Nixon had initially agreed to the peace agreement, but, upon hearing of Thiệu's claims of betrayal, started to change his mind.
On 20 November 1972, Kissinger met Thọ again in Paris. Kissinger no longer aimed at secrecy and was followed by paparazzi as he went to a house owned by the French Communist Party where Thọ was waiting for him. Kissinger announced that the Americans wanted major changes to the peace agreement made in October to accommodate Thiệu, which led Thọ to accuse Kissinger of negotiating in bad faith. Thọ stated: "We have been deceived by the French, the Japanese and the Americans. But the deception has never been so flagrant as of now". Kissinger insisted that the changes he wanted were only minor, but in effect he wanted to renegotiate almost the entire agreement. Thọ rejected Kissinger's terms, saying he would abide by the terms agreed to on 8 October. Putting more pressure, Nixon told Kissinger to break off the talks if Thọ would not agree to the changes he wanted. Kissinger told Nixon: "While we have a moral case for bombing North Vietnam when it does not accept our terms, it seems to be really stretching the point to bomb North Vietnam when it has accepted our terms and when South Vietnam has not". By December 1972, the talks had broken down, and Nixon decided to resume bombing North Vietnam.
On 17 December 1972, the
Christmas bombings began. On 26 December 1972, North Vietnam announced a willingness to resume peace talks in Paris again in January. Though Nixon had decided after all to accept the peace terms of 8 October, the bombings allowed him to portray himself as having forced North Vietnam back to the table. The American historian A.J. Langguth wrote the Christmas bombings were "pointless", as the final peace agreement of 23 January 1973 was essentially the same as that of 8 October 1972, as Thọ refused to make any substantial concessions.
1973
After the Christmas bombings of 1972, Thọ was in a particularly savage mood towards Kissinger. The relationship between Kissinger and Thọ was antagonistic and condescending on the part of Thọ, angering Kissinger. After one meeting, Kissinger asked "Allow me to ask you one question: do you scold your colleagues in the Central Committee the way you scold us?"
At their meeting on 8 January 1973 in a house in the French town of
Gif-sur-Yvette, Kissinger arrived to find nobody at the door to greet him. When Kissinger entered the conference room, nobody spoke to him. Sensing the hostile mood, Kissinger speaking in French said: "It was not my fault about the bombing". Before Kissinger could say any more, Thọ exploded in rage, saying in French: "Under the pretext of interrupted negotiations, you resumed the bombing of North Vietnam, just at the moment when I reached home. You have 'greeted' my arrival in a very courteous manner! Your action, I can say, is flagrant and gross! You and no one else strained the honor of the United States". Thọ shouted at Kissinger for over an hour, and despite Kissinger's requests not to speak so loudly because the reporters outside the room could hear what he was saying, he did not relent. Thọ concluded: "For more than ten years, America has used violence to beat down the Vietnamese people-
napalm
Napalm is an incendiary mixture of a gelling agent and a volatile petrochemical (usually gasoline or diesel fuel). The name is a portmanteau of two of the constituents of the original thickening and gelling agents: coprecipitated aluminium ...
,
B-52s. But you don't draw any lessons from your failures. You continue the same policy. ''Ngu xuẩn! Ngu xuẩn! Ngu xuẩn!''" When Kissinger asked what ''ngu xuẩn'' meant in Vietnamese, the translator refused to translate, as ''ngu xuẩn'' (in
Chữ Nôm
Chữ Nôm (, ) is a logographic writing system formerly used to write the Vietnamese language. It uses Chinese characters to represent Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, with other words represented by new characters ...
: 愚蠢) roughly means that a person is grossly stupid.
When Kissinger was finally able to speak, he argued that it was Thọ, who by being unreasonable, had forced Nixon to order the Christmas bombings, a claim that led Thọ to snap in fury: "You've spent billions of dollars and many tons of bombs when we had a text ready to sign". Kissinger replied: "I have heard many adjectives in your comments. I propose that you should not use them". Thọ answered: "I have used those adjectives with a great deal of restraint already. The world opinion, the U.S. press and U.S. political personalities have used harsher words".
When the talks finally began, Kissinger put forward the demand that North Vietnam pull out all of its troops out of South Vietnam, a demand that Thọ rejected out of hand. Thọ stated the only issues remaining were
the demilitarized zone (DMZ), which he wanted to see abolished under the grounds that all of Vietnam was one country, while Kissinger insisted that only civilians be allowed to cross the DMZ that divided the two Vietnams. After much argument, Kissinger agreed to take the issue of the DMZ out of the peace agreement and inserted the phrase "among the questions to be negotiated there is the question of the modalities for civilian movement across the provisional military demarcation line".
A paragraph was inserted calling for the withdraw of all foreign forces from South Vietnam, which Kissinger claimed was a commitment from Thọ to pull out North Vietnamese forces. Thọ did not share this view, as he argued that the North Vietnamese troops were not foreign. Thọ told Kissinger that if a peace agreement was signed, that within 15 days a peace agreement would be signed for Laos. But he stated, that unlike the
Pathet Lao
The Pathet Lao (), officially the Lao People's Liberation Army, was a communist political movement and political organization, organization in Laos, formed in the mid-20th century. The group ultimately gained control over the entire country of ...
in Laos, North Vietnam had no influence over the
Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), and by extension to Democratic Kampuchea, which ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The name was coined in the 1960s by Norodom Sihano ...
in Cambodia. Kissinger did not believe Thọ's claims that the Khmer Rouge leader
Pol Pot
Pol Pot (born Saloth Sâr; 19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998) was a Cambodian politician, revolutionary, and dictator who ruled the communist state of Democratic Kampuchea from 1976 until Cambodian–Vietnamese War, his overthrow in 1979. During ...
was a fanatical Khmer nationalist with a hatred of the Vietnamese. After the meeting, Kissinger told Thọ: "We must forget all that has happened. When we walk out, we must be smiling".
On the night of 9 January 1973, Kissinger phoned Nixon in Washington to say that a peace agreement would be signed very soon. On 10 January 1973, the negotiations broke down when Kissinger demanded the release of all
American POWs in North Vietnam once a peace agreement was signed, but offered no guarantees about Viet Cong prisoners being held in South Vietnam. Thọ stated: "I cannot accept your proposal. I completely reject it". Thọ wanted the release of all prisoners once a peace agreement was signed, which led Kissinger to say this was an unreasonable demand. Thọ, who had been
tortured
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties.
Some definitions restrict torture to ac ...
as a young man by the French colonial police for advocating Vietnamese independence, shouted: "You have never been a prisoner. You don't understand suffering. It's unfair". Kissinger finally offered that the United States would use "maximum influence" to pressure the South Vietnamese government to release all Viet Cong prisoners within sixty days of a peace agreement being signed. On 23 January 1973, at 12:45 pm, Kissinger and Thọ signed the peace agreement.
The basic facts of the Accords included:
* release of POWs within 80 days;
* ceasefire to be monitored by the
International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICC);
* free and democratic elections to be held in South Vietnam;
* U.S. aid to South Vietnam would continue;
* North Vietnamese troops could remain in South Vietnam.
On 28 March 1973, the last of the American forces left South Vietnam. While 23 January is generally recognized as the enactment date of the Peace Accords, the talks continued out of necessity. Sporadic fighting continued in some regions, while U.S. ground forces were being removed. Due to continued ceasefire violations by all sides, Kissinger and Thọ met in Paris in May and June 1973 for the purpose of getting the implementation of the peace agreement back on track. On 13 June 1973, the United States and North Vietnam signed a joint communique pledging mutual support for full implementation of the Paris Accords.
Nobel Peace Prize
Thọ and
Henry Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (May 27, 1923 – November 29, 2023) was an American diplomat and political scientist who served as the 56th United States secretary of state from 1973 to 1977 and the 7th National Security Advisor (United States), natio ...
were jointly awarded the
1973 Nobel Peace Prize
The 1973 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to United States United States Secretary of State, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Communist Party of Vietnam Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Politburo representative Lê Đức ...
for their efforts in negotiating the
Paris Peace Accords. However, Thọ declined to accept the award, claiming that peace had not yet been established, and that the United States and the South Vietnamese governments were in violation of the Paris Peace Accords:
In an interview by the
UPI
United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th ce ...
, Thọ also explained for his decision:
Winning the war
In January 1974, Thọ told General
Hoàng Văn Thái that he could not leave to take up a command in South Vietnam as he had expected, saying that the Politburo had assigned him another, more important task. General Thai had thought Thọ should win glory on the battlefield, but Thọ was unyielding, saying that turning the Ho Chi Minh Trail into a highway was more important. Using bulldozers from the Soviet Union and China, over the course of 1974, General Thai transformed the Ho Chi Minh Trail into a paved, four lane highway that ran from North Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia into South Vietnam. He also laid down a pipeline to carry oil. The paving of the Ho Chi Minh Trail allowed North Vietnam to not only send more troops to South Vietnam, but to keep them well supplied.
In December 1974, the North Vietnamese launched an offensive in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam that proved more successful than expected, and on 6 January 1975 took the provincial capital of
Phước Long. Le Duan, the secretary-general of the Vietnamese Workers' Party, decided to follow up this victory with an offensive to seize all of the Central Highlands and sent Thọ to monitor operations. Following the Communist victory at the Battle of Ban Me Thuot, which ended on 11 March 1975, Thọ approved the plans of the North Vietnamese commander, General Van Tien Dung, to take Pleiku and push further south. Thọ also reported to Hanoi that the South Vietnamese Army were suffering from low morale and were fighting poorly, which led him to suggest that all of South Vietnam might be taken that year, instead of in 1976 as originally planned. The name of the campaign to take Saigon would be the Ho Chi Minh campaign. The principal problem for the North Vietnamese was that operations had to be completed before the monsoons arrived in June, giving them a very short period of two months to win the war in 1975. Thọ sent Le Duan a poem that began "You warned: Go out and come back in victory...The time of opportunity has arrived". By April 1975, the North Vietnamese had advanced within striking distance of Saigon with what would prove to be the last major battle of the Vietnam war taking place at Phan Rang between 13 and 16 April 1975.
On 22 April 1975, General Dung showed Thọ his plan to take Saigon, which the latter approved, saying as he signed off on Dung's plan that this was the death sentence for the regime of "reactionary traitors" in Saigon. On 30 April 1975, the North Vietnamese took Saigon and Thọ entered the city in triumph. He immediately set about giving orders to ensure that the water works and electricity grid of Saigon was still functioning; that food would continue to arrive from the countryside; to make arrangements to deal with the one million soldiers of the South Vietnamese Army that he ordered dissolved; and appointing administrators to replace the South Vietnamese officials. On behalf of the Politburo he gave General Dung a telegram from Hanoi that simply read: "Political Bureau is most happy". On 1 May 1975, a parade was held in Saigon to celebrate both May Day and the victory, with Thọ watching the victorious soldiers march down the streets of Saigon, which was soon renamed Ho Chi Minh City.
Later life
From 1978 to 1982, Hanoi named Thọ to act as chief advisor to the
Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation
The Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation (, UNGEGN: ''Rônâsĕrs Samôkki Sângkrŏăh Chéatĕ Kâmpŭchéa''; , FUNSK), often simply referred to as Salvation Front, was the nucleus of a new Cambodian regime that would topple the K ...
(FUNSK) and later to the nascent
People's Republic of Kampuchea
The People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) was a partially recognised state in Southeast Asia which existed from 1979 to 1989. It was a satellite state of Vietnam, founded in Cambodia by the Vietnamese-backed Kampuchean United Front for Nationa ...
. Thọ's mission was to ensure that
Khmer nationalism
Khmer nationalism (or Cambodian nationalism) is a form of nationalism found in Cambodia, that asserts that Khmers (Cambodians) are a nation and promotes the cultural unity of the Khmer (Cambodian) race.
Emergence of Khmer nationalism
Unlike in ...
would not override Vietnam's interests in
Cambodia
Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...
after the
Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), and by extension to Democratic Kampuchea, which ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The name was coined in the 1960s by Norodom Sihano ...
was overthrown.
Lê Đức Thọ served as
Permanent Member of the Party Central Committee's Secretariat from 1982 to 1986, and later as an advisor to the Party's Central Committee from 1986 until he died in 1990.
Death
Lê Đức Thọ died on 13 October 1990, the evening before his 79th birthday, having reportedly suffered from cancer, in Hanoi.
Lê Đức Thọ at www.biography.com
Retrieved 5 July 2017.
References
External links
October 1968 Conversation between Le and Chinese Foreign Minister Chen Yi
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, vol. 42, ''Vietnam: The Kissinger-Le Duc Tho Negotiations''
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Le, Duc Tho
1911 births
1990 deaths
Cold War diplomats
Members of the 1st Standing Committee of the Indochinese Communist Party
Members of the 2nd Politburo of the Workers' Party of Vietnam
Members of the 3rd Politburo of the Workers' Party of Vietnam
Members of the 4th Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam
Members of the 5th Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam
Members of the 3rd Secretariat of the Workers' Party of Vietnam
Members of the 4th Secretariat of the Communist Party of Vietnam
Members of the 5th Secretariat of the Communist Party of Vietnam
Alternates of the 1st Central Committee of the Indochinese Communist Party
Members of the 1st Central Committee of the Indochinese Communist Party
Members of the 2nd Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Vietnam
Members of the 3rd Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Vietnam
Members of the 4th Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam
Members of the 5th Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam
Le Duc Tho (declined)
People from Nam Định province
People's Republic of Kampuchea
Vietnamese nationalists
Vietnamese Nobel laureates
Vietnamese people of the Vietnam War
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