Xuan Thuy; Negotiator for Hanoi at Paris Peace Talks

Xuan Thuy, North Vietnam’s first chief negotiator at the 1972 Paris peace talks with the United States, died of heart failure in Hanoi, Radio Hanoi has reported. He was 73 and vice chairman of Vietnam’s National Assembly at his death.

Thuy, who died June 18, was born in Hanoi in 1912, joined the Indochina Communist Party in 1938 and served as North Vietnam’s foreign minister between 1963 and 1965, said the Vietnamese broadcast monitored here.

In May, 1968, U.S. and North Vietnamese diplomats began talks aimed at ending the Vietnam War. The two sides eventually signed a peace agreement on Jan. 27, 1973, after secret negotiations between then-Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and North Vietnamese Politburo member Le Duc Tho. Thuy was Tho’s chief deputy during those talks.