born 1912, An Xa, Viet.
Vietnamese military leader.
He began to work for Vietnamese autonomy as a youth and attended the same high school as Ho Chi Minh . As a professor of history in Hanoi, he converted many colleagues and students to his political views. He fled to China in 1939 when the French banned the Indochinese Communist Party, but returned in 1941. In 1945 he led the Viet Minh forces that defeated the Japanese, who occupied Vietnam during World War II. He brought French colonial rule to an end by winning the Battle of Dien Bien Phu (1954) in the First Indochina War , and he led the North Vietnamese forces that defeated the U.S. and South Vietnam in the Vietnam War (195575). He served in various roles in the postwar government of Vietnam until the early 1990s.