Vietnam Names New President, Prime Minister

Vietnam today named a new prime minister and a new president, replacing the revolutionaries who helped found the Indochinese Communist Party and led it to victory over the Japanese, French and Americans, Voice of Vietnam radio said.

Pham Hung, the second-ranking Communist Party official, was named prime minister to succeed Pham Van Dong, 79, the prime minister since 1955, the radio, monitored in Bangkok, said.

Vo Chi Cong was appointed president, a largely ceremonial post. He succeeds Truong Chinh, president since 1981 and a leading political figure for decades.

Ranked Near Top

Both new leaders are in their 70s and are ranked No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, in the party’s all-powerful Politburo.

The announcements came as the 496-member National Assembly elected in April met for a second day in Hanoi.

Within the senior leadership, Dong and Chinh were the last of the clique of revolutionaries who helped Ho Chi Minh found the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930. The tightly knit group guided the party through decades of turmoil and war against Japanese occupation forces during World War II, French colonialists and finally U.S. forces fighting alongside South Vietnamese troops.

Dong and Chinh resigned their top party posts last December after publicly admitting “serious mistakes” in handling the country’s economic crisis.

Considered Transitional

Hung, a member of the Politburo since 1956 and vice premier since 1958, is regarded as a transitional figure who could ease the break with the old guard.

He played a key role in the war against the U.S.-backed government of South Vietnam. Hung was sent south in 1967 as the political commissar of the Viet Cong.

In 1975, he served as political commissar of the Ho Chi Minh campaign, the final North Vietnamese offensive that climaxed with the capture of Saigon and the end of the civil war.

Cong made his name as agriculture minister from 1977-79, when he presided over reforms that allowed farmers to market whatever they produced above state-assigned quotas.