Vo Nguyen Giap

Vo Nguyen Giap, born in 1912, Vietnamese general and minister of defense (1945-80), the architect of the Communist military victory in that country. Born in the province of Quangbinh, he studied law at the University of Hanoi, receiving a doctorate in 1937. During the 1930s he joined the Indochinese Communist Party, and when it was outlawed in 1939, fled to China, where he became a military aide to Ho Chi Minh. He returned with a Vietnamese army in 1945 and liberated Hanoi from the Japanese. A master of guerrilla war tactics, he later planned and directed the military operations against the French that culminated in their defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. During the 1960s Giap took charge of guerrilla operations against South Vietnam and the United States and planned the Tet Offensive of 1968, which dealt a severe psychological blow to the American forces. He retired from politics in 1982.