Võ Nguyên Giáp

“Võ Nguyên Giáp (Vietnamese: [vɔ̌ˀ ŋʷīən zǎːp]; 25 August 1911 – 4 October 2013) was a Vietnamese general in the Vietnam People’s Army and a politician. Võ Nguyên Giáp is considered one of the greatest military strategists of the 20th century. He first grew to prominence during World War II, where he served as the military leader of the Viet Minh resistance against the Japanese occupation of Vietnam. Giáp was a crucial military commander in two wars: the First Indochina War (1946–54) and the Vietnam War (1955–75), participating in several historically significant battles: Lạng Sơn (1950), Hòa Bình (1951–52), Điện Biên Phủ (1954), the Tết Offensive (1968), the Easter Offensive (1972), and the final Ho Chi Minh Campaign (1975). Võ Nguyên Giáp was also a journalist, an interior minister in President Hồ Chí Minh‘s Việt Minh government, the military commander of the Viet Minh, the commander of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), and defense minister. He also served as a member of the Politburo of the Vietnam Workers’ Party, which in 1976 became the Communist Party of Vietnam. Võ Nguyên Giáp was the most prominent commander, beside Hồ Chí Minh, during the Vietnam War, and was responsible for major military operations and leadership until the war ended. … He oversaw the expansion of the PAVN from a small self-defense force into a large conventional army, equipped by its communist allies with considerable amounts of relatively sophisticated weaponry, although this did not usually match the weaponry of the Americans. Giáp has often been assumed to have been the planner of the Tết Offensive of 1968, but this appears not to have been the case. … Although this attempt to spark a general uprising against the southern government failed disastrously, it was a significant political victory through convincing American politicians and the public that their commitment to South Vietnam could not be open-ended. Giáp later argued that the Tết Offensive was not a ‘purely military strategy’ but part of a ‘general strategy, an integrated one, at once military, political and diplomatic.’ Peace talks between representatives from the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the NLF began in Paris in January 1969. President Richard Nixon, like President Lyndon B. Johnson before him, was convinced that a U.S. withdrawal was necessary, but four years would pass before the last American troops departed. …”
Wikipedia
PBS: Interview with Vo Nguyen Giap – Viet Minh Commander
Snopes: General Vo Nguyen Giap on the Vietnam War
NY Times: Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, Who Ousted U.S. From Vietnam, Is Dead
YouTube: General Vo Nguyen Giap Revolutionary Hero Vietnam War History

Dien Bien Phu Battle 1954 – Giap studying the attack plan of the Dien Bien Phu