Leaders of the Vietnam War

Hồ Chí Minh whose birth name was Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Tất Thành and Nguyễn Ái Quốc was a Vietnamese communist revolutionary who sought both the independence of Vietnam as well as reformation of society along Marxist-Leninist lines.

He left his country on a French steamer in 1911 and traveled extensively around the world participating actively in Communist International before returning to Vietnam in 1941. He then organized and led the Việt Minh to fight for Vietnamese Independence. He became more popular for his declaration of Vietnam independence from France, which paraphrased a part of the U.S declaration of independence that says "All men are created equal…" Since 1945, he became a prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). In the late 1950s, Ho Chi Minh organized another communist guerrilla movement widely known as Việt Cộng in South Vietnam.

Ho Chi Minh was the key figure and held the main leadership of North Vietnam during both wars in the country. He remained a great source of inspiration for the Vietnamese who were fighting for a united Vietnam as in his wish after he officially stepped aside in 1965 and even after his death in 1969. The final offensive against Saigon – the capital of South Vietnam in 1975 was named after him (the Ho Chi Minh Campaign). Vietnam was reunified under the North Vietnamese after the fall of Saigon in April 1975, nearly 30 years after Ho's declaration of independence and 6 years after his death. Soon after that, Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in honor of his vast contributions to Vietnam.

Võ Nguyên Giáp was a General, Commander in Chief of the Vietnam People's Army (VPA) and Vietnamese politician. He played a major role as a commander in the First Indochina War (1946–1954) and the Vietnam War (1960–1975) in which he was involved directly in many important campaigns such as the Border Campaign in Fall–Winter (1950), the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ (1954), the Tết Offensive (1968), the Easter Offensive (1972), the final Ho Chi Minh Campaign (1975) which led to the fall of Saigon and South Vietnam. Giáp, together with Hồ Chí Minh, was the most prominent figure of North Vietnam during the wars in the country.

After the war, he was still the Minister of Defence until 1980 and served as a member of Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Vietnam until his retirement in 1991. Giáp celebrated his 100th birthday in 2011 and becomes the oldest Vietnam political and military figure that have ever lived. He is also considered by both his partisans and opponents as one of the greatest military commanders in history.

Diệm was a Vietnamese politician served as an officer in the Nguyễn dynasty. Because of his drastic ideological of anti-communism, Diệm received support from the United States and became the first President of the Republic of Vietnam in 1955. However, as a Catholic, Diệm pursued the persecution of Buddhists which led to many religious protests notably the self-immolation of Thích Quảng Đức in 1963. As a result, Diem gradually lost U.S support and was assassinated, together with his brother Nhu, in a coup in 1963. The Vietnam war raged on.

Nguyễn Cao Kỳ was a senior army officer and a former politician of Republic of Vietnam. He served as a prime minister (1965–1967) and Vice President (1967–1971) of the Republic of Vietnam. From an ally, he then became the opponent of President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu and was mostly sidelined during Thiệu's presidency. Ky had been seen as an aggressive anti-Communist person in the period before 1975 and but then was regarded as a symbol of national reconciliation by the Vietnamese Communist Party since 2004 when he became the first South Vietnamese leader returning to the country.

Thiệu was the Leadership Committee Chairman (1965–1967) and President of the Republic of Vietnam (1967–1975). In 1963, Thiệu joined a military coup to overthrow Diem. During his years as president, Thiệu was accused of indulging in corruption. His struggle for power with Ky led to the decisions of side-lining Ky's supporters and choosing loyalists instead of decent commanders to lead the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces. He strongly opposed the Paris Peace Accords (1973) and publicly blamed the U.S not keeping its promise for fall of Saigon and South Vietnam in 1975.