Vietnam’s Le Duan Dies; He Succeeded Ho Chi Minh

Le Duan, successor to Ho Chi Minh as head of the Vietnamese Communist Party and leader of an aging Politburo, died Thursday in Hanoi, Vietnam Radio reported.

The broadcast said the 79-year-old Duan died of “a serious illness and old age, despite modern medical treatment.”

He reportedly had suffered from kidney and lung disease for some time and had undergone treatment in Moscow early this year.

The old revolutionary was Ho’s chief deputy during the Vietnam War, and took over direction of the North Vietnamese war effort after Ho died in 1969. Almost a decade and a half earlier, he had been at Ho’s side in the struggle against French colonial rule in Vietnam, but he never cast a large political shadow.

As party chief of a unified Vietnam, Duan settled for collective leadership, sharing power principally with Premier Pham Van Dong and State Council Chairman Truong Chinh.

A ‘Staunch Fighter’

The radio announcement of Duan’s death described him as a “staunch fighter in the international Communist and workers movement.”

“In nearly 60 years of revolutionary activity, absolute loyalty to Marxism-Leninism, the interests of the country and people, Comrade Le Duan has contributed his whole life to the cause of national liberation and reunification in bringing the entire country to socialism,” it said.

A five-day period of national mourning was declared.

The son of a carpenter, Duan was a teen-ager when he joined the Communist Party. The French, colonial rulers of Indochina before World War II, imprisoned him for more than 10 years on Con Son Island, which they reserved for political activists.

He was freed at the end of the war and, after the French were driven out in the mid-1950s and Vietnam was partitioned into north and south, he was made first secretary of the party in 1960. Duan became the country’s top political leader after Ho’s death in 1969, and had been general secretary of the party since 1976.

Overhaul of Leadership

His death leaves a cloud of uncertainty over the government. In recent months, reports from Vietnam have suggested that a major leadership overhaul would be announced at a party congress tentatively scheduled for late this year. Duan had been mentioned by Western analysts as one who would be stepping down, or aside, to permit the ascent of a new generation of Vietnamese leaders.

His aged colleagues, Dong, 81, and Chinh, 80, both ailing, also were among those described as ready for retirement.

Last month, Vice Premier To Huu and seven other top officials lost their jobs in a reorganization intended to bring some spark to the country’s moribund economy. It was evidence that the party leadership is capable of change from within; whether the party is prepared to pass power to someone outside the old-time revolutionary fraternity is not clear.

Policy Change Unlikely

A compromise might give leadership of the party to Le Duc Tho, the adversary of then-Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger in the Paris peace talks during the war. But Tho, a Politburo member, is 74 himself, and would probably fill only a transitional role if named.

No leadership change is likely to alter Vietnam’s political and foreign policies, but the ruling circle for several years has been debating economic change.

Vice Premier Vo Van Kiet, 63, an advocate of flexibility in economic doctrine, including experimentation with work incentives, is often mentioned by outside analysts as a rising influence in the party.

Nguyen Co Thach, the 61-year-old foreign minister, has had the highest Vietnamese profile abroad in recent years, but exposure outside is no assurance of elevation within the party.