Van Tien Dung

Who was Van Tien Dung?

Văn Tiến Dũng, born Co Nhue commune, Từ Liêm District, Hanoi, was a Vietnamese general in the People's Army of Vietnam, PAVN chief of staff; PAVN commander in chief; and Socialist Republic of Vietnam defense minister. He was the only member of North Vietnam's political elite who was of peasant origin. He joined the communist Lao Dong Party in 1936, escaped from a French prison in 1944, and fought against the Japanese occupation force during the Second World War. August 1945, he directed the armed forces to seize power in the province of Hòa Bình, Ninh Bình and Thanh Hóa.

During the First Indochina War, Dũng rose to become General Võ Nguyên Giáp's chief of staff during the victorious siege of Điện Biên Phủ in 1954. For the next twenty years, his military reputation in North Vietnam was second only to Giáp's. He commanded the vital Tri-Thien-Hue Front during the 1972 Easter Offensive, replacing his mentor as PAVN commander in chief in 1974, when the Vietnam War against the Americans and South Vietnamese evolved from a guerrilla struggle to more conventional forms.

Dũng planned and commanded the 1975 Spring Offensive, the final PAVN offensive that defeated South Vietnamese defenses and captured Saigon in 1975. He also directed Vietnam's invasion of Khmer Rouge Cambodia and the resulting border conflict with the People's Republic of China in 1979. He was appointed defense minister in 1980, but was removed from office during a shakeup in the Politburo in 1986.