Vietnam Fires Its Defense Minister, Other Officials in Major Shake-up

Vietnam today announced a major government shake-up in which it fired a dozen top officials, including Defense Minister Van Tien Dung, the planner and commander of the final drive to conquer South Vietnam.

A communique broadcast by Radio Hanoi said that the changes, which involved 19 ministries or government commissions, were made at a meeting of the Council of State.

The communique said the shake-up was made to “strengthen one step further various organs of the council of ministers.”

Analysts in Bangkok said the Cabinet changes are the most extensive ever by the Communist government and come in the wake of more than a year of “criticism and self-criticism” of senior officials.

The Vietnamese leadership has admitted serious mistakes in managing the country’s primitive and stagnant economy.

The communique said that Gen. Dung, who was dropped from the Politburo at the Communist Party’s 6th congress in December, was replaced by Gen. Le Duc Anh.

Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach was given the additional post of deputy prime minister, and Mai Chi Tho, younger brother of Le Duc Tho, senior negotiator at the Paris peace talks, which led to the U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam, was named to the powerful post of interior minister, it said.

Pham Hung, the second-ranking official in the Politburo, gave up the interior post but retained his deputy premiership.

Other changes included forming of a Ministry of Information, combining two ministries into the Ministry of Energy and establishing a commission for economic relations with foreign countries, the radio said.