PRG foreign minister, the only woman to sign the Paris Peace Accords, and later vice president of Vietnam
At the 1969 Paris Peace Conference, she was deputy head of the National Liberation Front delegation. Later that year she became foreign minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam and headed its delegation, signing the 1973 Paris Agreement.
Born in Sa Đéc province and a granddaughter of the nationalist leader Phan Châu Trinh, she joined the Communist Party in 1948 and was held by the French in Saigon’s Chí Hòa prison in 1951–1953. During the Vietnam War she sat on the Central Committee of the National Liberation Front, and in 1969 she became foreign minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam, leading its delegation in Paris. She was the only woman to sign the 1973 Paris Peace Accords. After reunification she was minister of education, and the National Assembly twice elected her vice president of Vietnam, for 1992–2002.
Activities and affiliations
- Diplomacy and international organization · Vietnam
Career Timeline
- 1949Joined the Vietnamese Communist Party and worked as a grassroots organiser.
- 1951–1954Arrested by French police, imprisoned at Chi Hoa Detention Centre, and released in poor health.
- 1969Served as deputy head of the National Liberation Front delegation in Paris, then became foreign minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government and head of its Paris delegation.
- 1973Was the only woman to sign the Paris Agreement.
- 1976–1987Served as minister of education.
- 1992–2002Elected vice president of Vietnam for two terms.
Related historical events
The Paris negotiations and the July 1971 Seven-Point peace proposal
When the Paris Peace Conference on Vietnam formally opened in January 1969, Nguyễn Thị Bình was appointed deputy head of the National Liberation Front delegation. After the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam was established, she became its foreign minister and head of its delegation in Paris. At the 119th plenary session on July 1, 1971, she presented a seven-point proposal linking a timetable for the withdrawal of US and other non-South Vietnamese allied forces to the release of prisoners of war, and addressing the formation of a new South Vietnamese government and Vietnam’s reunification. It proposed a government of national concord in South Vietnam, followed by general elections. The proposal thus placed South Vietnam’s political future and reunification alongside troop withdrawal on the negotiating agenda. A contemporary memorandum by a US National Security Council staff member interpreted the proposal as intended to influence opinion in the United States and South Vietnam and to raise the Provisional Revolutionary Government’s standing in the negotiations. That was an internal US government assessment and should be distinguished from the proposal’s stated provisions. On January 27, 1973, Nguyễn Thị Bình signed the Paris Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam.