Nguyen Huu Tho

▪ 1997

      Vietnamese political leader (b. July 10, 1910, Cho Lon, near Saigon [now Ho Chi Minh City], Vietnam—d. Dec. 24, 1996, Ho Chi Minh City), was the leader of the communists' political efforts in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War and following the war served in the government of the reunified country. Tho studied law in Paris in the 1930s and returned to Saigon to practice. He was imprisoned (1954) for activities opposing the French colonial rule of Vietnam and the U.S. patrolling of the southern Vietnamese coast and, except for a brief period in 1958, remained in detention until he escaped in 1961. In 1962 Tho became chairman of the National Liberation Front (NLF), the organization formed in South Vietnam in 1960 to aid the communist North Vietnamese in the struggle to overthrow the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government. In addition, when the NLF established (1969) a Provisional Revolutionary Government, he was made chairman of its advisory council. When the war ended (1975) and Vietnam reunified, Tho became (1976) one of the country's two vice presidents. He served as acting president in 1980-81 and as vice president of the Council of State from 1981 to 1984. Although Tho was thought to have retired from political life in 1994, in July 1996 a radio broadcast in Vietnam identified him as a member of the Communist Party's newly elected Central Committee.

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▪ president of Vietnam

born July 10, 1910, Cho Lon, southern Vietnam

died Dec. 24, 1996, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

      chairman of the National Liberation Front (NLF), the South Vietnamese political organization formed in 1960 in opposition to the U.S.-backed Saigon government.

      The son of a rubber-plantation manager who was later killed during the First Indochina War (1946–54), Nguyen Huu Tho studied law in Paris in the 1930s. Returning to Saigon, he set up practice, remaining politically inactive until 1949, when he led student demonstrations against the French; he also organized protests in 1950 against the patrolling of the southern Vietnamese coast by U.S. warships. He was imprisoned and won popular acclaim for his prolonged hunger strike in protest of the war.

      After the Geneva Agreements had divided Vietnam into northern and southern zones in 1954, Tho cooperated with the southern regime of Ngo Dinh Diem until he was arrested for advocating nationwide elections on reunification. Except for a short interval in 1958, Tho remained in prison from 1954 to 1961, when he escaped with the aid of some of his anti-Diem followers. These men, who had recently formed the National Liberation Front, made Tho, a noncommunist, provisional and then full-time chairman of the NLF.

      Tho essentially served as a figurehead leader, while real power in the NLF was held by its military arm, the Viet Cong, and by veteran communists who reported directly to the North Vietnamese leadership. Tho helped attract a wide spectrum of South Vietnamese supporters to the NLF. In June 1969 the NLF established a Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) with Huynh Tan Phat as president and Nguyen Huu Tho as chairman of its advisory council. The PRG, in effect, became the government of South Vietnam in April 1975, when the Saigon government's troops surrendered to the North Vietnamese and PRG forces. Tho was made a vice president of Vietnam in 1976, a post he held until 1980, when he became acting president. In 1981 Tho was made vice president of the Council of State, as well as chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly.

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