Vũ Văn Thái

Vũ Văn Thái (26 January 1919 – 19 April 1994) was a Vietnamese engineer and economist, and former Ambassador of the Republic of Vietnam to the United States.

Life

Early life Vũ Văn Thái was born on 26 January 1919 in Hanoi, the capital of Tonkin protectorate, French Indochina.

After receiving secondary education in Vietnam, Vũ Văn Thái went to France to study. From 1946 to 1949, Vũ Văn Thái served as laboratory director at the National Scientific Research Center.

Although Vũ Văn Thái's father, a famous Vietnamese textile manufacturer, was murdered by the Việt Minh in 1947, As a Viet Minh sympathizer, Vũ Văn Thái supported the Viet Minh's resistance to the French colonialists in the late 1940s and early 1950s. During this period, he served as Hồ Chí Minh's adviser in the negotiations for Vietnam's independence. When efforts to negotiate failed, fighting broke out between the Việt Minh and the French, and Vũ Văn Thái left the Việt Minh after confirming their communist nature. In 1961, a conflict broke out between Vũ Văn Thái and Ngô Đình Diệm, and he resigned from the government. In December 1966, Vũ Văn Thái was replaced as ambassador to the United States.

On 19 April 1994, Vũ Văn Thái passed away in Saint-Tropez, France.