Lê Đức Thọ, born Phan Đình Khải in Nam Dinh Province, was a Vietnamese revolutionary, general, diplomat, and politician. He was the first Asian to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, but refused the award. In 1930, Lê Đức Thọ helped found the Indochinese Communist Party. French colonial authorities imprisoned him from 1930 to 1936 and again from 1939 to 1944. After his release in 1945, he helped lead the Viet Minh, the Vietnamese independence movement, against the French, until the Geneva Accords were signed in 1954. In 1948, he was in South Vietnam as Deputy Secretary, Head of the Organization Department of Cochinchina Committee Party. He then joined the Lao Dong Politburo of the Vietnam Workers' Party in 1955, now the Communist Party of Vietnam. Thọ oversaw the Communist insurgency that began in 1956 against the South Vietnamese government. In 1963 Thọ supported the purges of the Party surrounding Resolution 9. From 1978 to 1982 Lê Đức Thọ was named by Hanoi to act as chief advisor to the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation and later to the nascent People's Republic of Kampuchea. Lê Đức Thọ's mission was to ensure that Khmer nationalism would not override Vietnam's interests in Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge was overthrown. Lê Đức Thọ was the Standing Member of the Central Committee's Secretariat of the Party from 1982 to 1986 and later became the Advisor of Party's Central Committee.
The United States actively joined the Vietnam War during the early 1960s. Several rounds of Paris Peace Talks were held between 1969 and 1973. While Xuân Thuỷ led the official negotiating team representing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam at the talks in Paris, Thọ and U.S. National Security AdvisorHenry Kissinger since February 1970 engaged in secret talks that eventually led to a cease-fire in the Paris Peace Accords of 23 January 1973. The basic history of the Accords included: release of POWs within 80 days; ceasefire to be monitored by the International Commission of Control and Supervision ; free and democratic elections to be held in South Vietnam; U.S. aid to South Vietnam would continue; and North Vietnamese troops could remain in South Vietnam. While 23 January is generally recognized as the enactment date of the Peace Accords, the talks continued out of necessity. Sporadic fighting continued in some regions. While U.S. ground forces were removed by 29 March, bombing continued in North Vietnam. Due to continued allegations of ceasefire violations by all sides, Kissinger and Thọ met in Paris in May and June 1973 for the purpose of getting the implementation of the peace agreement back on track. On 13 June 1973, the United States and North Vietnam signed a joint communique pledging mutual support for full implementation of the Paris Accords.
Thọ and Henry Kissinger were jointly awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts in negotiating the Paris Peace Accords. However, Thọ declined to accept the award, claiming that peace had not yet been established, and that the United States and the South Vietnamese governments were in violation of the Paris Peace Accords: The ceasefire would not last, with the war ending when Saigon fell in 1975 and North Vietnam captured South Vietnam.
Death
Lê Đức Thọ died on 13 October 1990, the evening before his 79th birthday, having reportedly suffered from cancer, in Hanoi.
