Vo Nguyen Giap

Vo Nguyen Giap , 1911-, soldier and government official of North Vietnam and later of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. A nationalist, he joined the Vietnamese Communist party in the 1930s, later joining Ho Chi Minh in China. Giap helped to organize the Viet Minh forces, fighting to oust the Japanese in World War II and the French after the war; he became commander of the Viet Minh in 1946. A master of guerrilla warfare, he was credited with the defeat of the French at Dienbienphu (1954) and later directed the strategy of the North in the Vietnam War , notably in the 1968 Tet offensive . In addition to his position as commander in chief, Giap was also deputy prime minister and minister of defense. He resigned from defense in 1980 and was dropped from the politburo in 1982, but remained deputy prime minister until 1991.

Bibliography: See his Military Art of People's War: Selected Writings, ed. by R. Stetler (1970); R. J. O'Neill, General Giap (1969); C. B. Currey, Victory at Any Cost (1997).

Vo Nguyen Giap (b. 1912). Vietnamese general Born in An Xa (Quang Binh Province, central Vietnam) and educated at Hue and the French University of Hanoi, he joined the Revolutionary Party of Young Vietnam (Tan Viet) in 1926 while still a student. Arrested upon joining the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930, he gained parole in 1932 and took a doctorate in economics in 1937. He became a history teacher until he was re-arrested in 1939. He managed to escape to China, though his wife died in prison and his sister was executed. With Ho Chi Minh he co-founded the forerunner of the Vietminh in March 1941, and returned to Vietnam to organize the resistance movement against Japanese occupation. He became commander of the Armed Propaganda Brigade, a forerunner of the Vietnamese Liberation Army. He became the chief military leader of the Vietminh forces both during the Indochina War, and in the Vietnam War. As such, he successfully developed the strategy of clandestine guerrilla warfare against a technically superior enemy. As Minister of Defence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and Commander-in-Chief of its armed forces, he was responsible for the battle of Dien Bienh Phu and the Tet Offensive of 1968. He was Minister of Defence and Deputy Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam from 1976 until he was dropped from the party's leadership (Politburo) in 1982.