Career
His original name was Nguyễn Văn Vịnh. He joined the Indochinese Communist Party in the mid-1930s and apparently spent most of the Second World War in a French prison. He worked for the Party in Central Vietnam until his rise to the Political Bureau in 1951.
During the First Indochina War Thanh was made a general of the People"s Army of Vietnam (PAVN).
From 1965 until his death he served as the leading strategist and military commander of COSVN, the southern headquarters of communist military and political operations within the Republic of Vietnam. In late 1967, he presented plans for what was to become the Tet Offensive to the Political Bureau, but died of a heart attack shortly after receiving permission to implement his plan.
