Tran Van Tra; Communist General Who Seized Saigon in 1975

Tran Van Tra, 77, the general who led Communist troops in seizing Saigon to end the Vietnam War in 1975. Tra commanded Communist forces in South Vietnam from 1963 through the war’s end, including a guerrilla attack on Saigon during the 1968 Tet offensive. His 1982 memoirs were banned because he conceded in the book that the Tet offensive did not go as well as planned and because he disclosed disagreements within Communist leadership over strategy. He then took early retirement from his position as deputy minister of defense. In 1986, he became a part of the Club of Former Resistance Fighters, southerners who fought for the Communist cause but disapproved of the new government’s policies at war’s end. Tra joined the Communist Party in 1938 and was twice arrested for agitating against French colonial rule. He joined the military in 1945. On Saturday in Ho Chi Minh City.