Vo Nguyen Giap (born 1912) was a Vietnamese Communist military strategist and architect of the 1954 defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu. He also directed the Communist campaign of the 1960s and 1970s against the government of South Vietnam.

Born in Quang Binh in what was to become the Communist state of North Vietnam, Vo Nguyen Giap was raised in a middle-class family of high educational attainment. He joined the anti-French movement as a student at Quoc Hoc College in Hue, becoming a Communist after reading some of the writings of Nguyen Ai Quoc (Ho Chi Minh's earlier alias).

Giap was a founding member of the Indochinese Communist party organized by Ho in Hong Kong in 1930. Subsequently detained by the French in prison (where he met his wife), Giap afterward obtained a doctorate of law from Hanoi University and became a history teacher at Thang Long College. His...