Ho Chi Minh, b.  May 19, 1890, d.  Sept.  2, 1969, was the first president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), from 1945 to 1969.  His given name was Nguyen That Thanh.

As a young man, Ho left (1911) Vietnam (then colonial French Indochina) to work first aboard a French liner and then at a hotel in London.  Toward the end of World War I he went to France, where he joined the Socialist party.  In 1919 at the Paris Peace Conference, he unsuccessfully agitated for civil rights in Indochina.  A founding member of the French Communist party, Ho visited the USSR to study revolutionary methods.  As a member of the Comintern, he was assigned to East Asia in the late 1920s and founded the Indochinese Communist party in 1930. During the 1930s he lived in the USSR and China, but with the start of World War II he returned to Vietnam.

In 1941, Ho organized the Communist-controlled League for the Independence of Vietnam, or VIET MINH, which led resistance to the occupying Japanese in World War II, building a base for its postwar bid for independence.  On Sept.  2, 1945, Ho proclaimed the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and became its first president.  During his 24 years as president, he led (1946-54) the Viet Minh in 8 years of warfare against France and supported (1959-75) its successor, the VIET CONG, in 15 more years of fighting against the anti-Communist South Vietnamese regime established in Saigon after the 1954 Geneva conference (see VIETNAM WAR).

As Saigon's ally the United States became increasingly involved in the war, Ho maintained his role as a symbol of unity for the two Vietnams, although he was less active as his health declined after 1959.  Six years after his death the war ended in North Vietnamese victory and the unification of Vietnam.  Ho was initially said to have died on September 3, so that his death would not fall on Vietnam's National Day.  his mausoleum in Hanoi is a national shrine.