Tran Van Tra, the general who led Communist troops to seize Saigon in 1975 and end the Vietnam War, has died. He was 77.
Tra died Saturday after a long illness in the city he captured and made his home, now called Ho Chi Minh City. The official media did not disclose the nature of his illness.Tra was buried Wednesday in Ho Chi Minh City amid nationwide praise for his long service to the revolutionary cause.
Tra commanded the Communist forces in South Vietnam from 1963 through the war's end in 1975. He directed guerrilla attacks on Saigon during the 1968 Tet offensive, sending commandos into the U.S. Embassy and shaking U.S. confidence that Washington and its South Vietnamese allies were winning the war.
In memoirs published in 1982, Tra acknowledged that the Tet offensive did not go as well as planned and that the Communist forces suffered serious losses of men and weaponry. This, together with his disclosure of disagreements within the Communist leadership over strategy, caused the memoirs to be banned.