Nguyễn Chí Thanh (1 January 1914 – 7 July 1967) was a General in the North Vietnamese Vietnam People's Army and former North Vietnamese politician. Nguyễn Chí Thanh was born in Thừa Thiên Province in Central Vietnam to a peasant family. 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 Politburo in 1951. During the First Indochina War Thanh was made a general of the People's Army of Vietnam. 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 1967, he presented plans for what was to become the Tet Offensive to the Politburo, but died shortly after receiving permission to implement his plan. Revolutionary cause Nguyễn Chí Thanh was born on January 1, 1914, in the village of Quảng Điền in Thừa Thiên province. Thanh was son of Nguyễn Hán and Trần Thị Thiển, the sixth of 11 children. He grew up in a middle-class family, and was well educated. At the age of 14 his father died, his family became poor. Thanh then went to work as a farmer in order to make a living. In 1937, Nguyễn Chí Thanh joined the Communist Party of Vietnam, Thanh became Party Secretary, in Thừa Thiên. From 1938 to 1943, Nguyễn Chí Thanh was arrested many times by the France colonial authorities. He was sent to the labor camps of Buôn Ma Thuột in Huế. After being released from prison he was sent to attend the National People's Congress in Tân Trào (1945). At the Party Congress in Tân Trào, he was nicknamed Nguyễn Chí Thanh, was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party and was appointed Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party to monitor and organize the winning Central Government in the August Revolution. At the Third National Party Congress in 1960 in Hanoi, Nguyễn Chí Thanh was elected to the Central Committee and was appointed to the Politburo and the Secretariat. In 1961, he was assigned to charge the Agriculture Board of the Party. During the Vietnam War, the Central Committee of the Party he returned to the military. Nguyen