Ho Chi Minh Dies: Vietnam Loses Its Founding Father
Ho Chi Minh had already outlived what most people would have considered a full political life by the time the American war in Vietnam reached its peak intensity. He'd founded the Viet Minh independence movement in 1941, negotiated and then fought the French for nine years, and presided over the partition of Vietnam at the 1954 Geneva Accords. He was seventy-nine and in poor health when he died in September 1969. The war was still six years from ending. His body was embalmed against his explicit wishes — he'd asked to be cremated. It lies in a mausoleum in Hanoi. The country reunified in 1976 and renamed Saigon in his honor.
September 2, 1969
57 years ago
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