Editing Lê Đức Thọ (section)

== Winning the war ==
In January 1974, Thọ told General [[Hoàng Văn Thái]] that he could not leave to take up a command in South Vietnam as he had expected, saying that the Politburo had assigned him another, more important task. General Thai had thought Thọ should win glory on the battlefield, but Thọ was unyielding, saying that turning the Ho Chi Minh Trail into a highway was more important. Using bulldozers from the Soviet Union and China, over the course of 1974, General Thai transformed the Ho Chi Minh Trail into a paved, four lane highway that ran {{convert|1,200|km}} from North Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia into South Vietnam. He also laid down a {{convert|3,000|mi|adj=on}} pipeline to carry oil.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 634}} The paving of the Ho Chi Minh Trail allowed North Vietnam to not only send more troops to South Vietnam, but to keep them well supplied.

In December 1974, the North Vietnamese launched an offensive in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam that proved more successful than expected, and on 6 January 1975 took the provincial capital of [[Phước Long, Bình Phước|Phước Long]]. Le Duan, the secretary-general of the Vietnamese Workers' Party, decided to follow up this victory with an offensive to seize all of the Central Highlands and sent Thọ to monitor operations.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 644}} Following the Communist victory at the Battle of Ban Me Thuot, which ended on 11 March 1975, Thọ approved the plans of the North Vietnamese commander, General Van Tien Dung, to take Pleiku and push further south. Thọ also reported to Hanoi that the South Vietnamese Army were suffering from low morale and were fighting poorly, which led him to suggest that all of South Vietnam might be taken that year, instead of in 1976 as originally planned. The name of the campaign to take Saigon would be the Ho Chi Minh campaign.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 646}} The principal problem for the North Vietnamese was that operations had to be completed before the monsoons arrived in June, giving them a very short period of two months to win the war in 1975.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 650}} Thọ sent Le Duan a poem that began "You warned: Go out and come back in victory...The time of opportunity has arrived". By April 1975, the North Vietnamese had advanced within striking distance of Saigon with what would prove to be the last major battle of the Vietnam war taking place at Phan Rang between 13 and 16 April 1975.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 651}}

On 22 April 1975, General Dung showed Thọ his plan to take Saigon, which the latter approved, saying as he signed off on Dung's plan that this was the death sentence for the regime of "reactionary traitors" in Saigon.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 655}} On 30 April 1975, the North Vietnamese took Saigon and Thọ entered the city in triumph. He immediately set about giving orders to ensure that the water works and electricity grid of Saigon was still functioning; that food would continue to arrive from the countryside; to make arrangements to deal with the one million soldiers of the South Vietnamese Army that he ordered dissolved; and appointing administrators to replace the South Vietnamese officials. On behalf of the Politburo he gave General Dung a telegram from Hanoi that simply read: "Political Bureau is most happy". On 1 May 1975, a parade was held in Saigon to celebrate both May Day and the victory, with Thọ watching the victorious soldiers march down the streets of Saigon, which was soon renamed Ho Chi Minh City.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p. 668}}