ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Friday, December 27, 1996              TAG: 9612270040
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-3  EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
DATELINE: HANOI, VIETNAM
                                             TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: Associated Press 

VIET CONG HEAD DEAD AT 86

Nguyen Huu Tho, an ardent communist who escaped from a South Vietnamese jail to become a key revolutionary and later a leader of reunified Vietnam died of a heart ailment Thursday. He was 86.

Tho joining the National Liberation Front - the political arm of the Viet Cong - in 1960, eventually becoming its chairman.

After 1975, when Hanoi's troops defeated the Saigon army and reunified the country, Tho was appointed vice president of Vietnam. He held the position until 1992, retiring from politics entirely in 1994.

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